Field Day was basically ruined by the lack of phone signal and 3G and the huge, if not, epic, queues for the toilets, cash points and food stalls.
Queue for the cash point was SNAKED
You might have seen me ranting on Twitter when I got in on Saturday, but with the benefit of hindsight and sobriety I realise that I was having a great day up until about 6:45pm when I decided that after all the San Miguels I needed the toilet again. I queued for about 30 minutes. In that time a few thousand more people had entered Victoria Park, my friends had decided they needed the toilet too, and with no phone reception we couldn’t find each other.
After about 20 texts to my boyfriend and 40 phone calls I finally managed to get through about two hours later. In that time I’d searched the whole of the in and outside of the SBTRKT tent. Luckily I saw a friend from work, but I’d also started to get very pissed off.
We went to see my favourite band of the day; Austra, and started to feel better but when they finished the rain started. We couldn’t get in the tent for Modeselektor as it was so rammed and I didn’t want to stand out in the cold rain so we decided to call it a night at 11pm. Probably a good thing seeing as we were so far from home.
Blood Orange / Luther Vandross
Check in
This was annoying. They literally wouldn’t let you take a thing in. Loads of people were sat out the front having to scoff their food they’d bought for the day. They made my friend empty the water from her water bottle – at least she managed to sneak the hip flask down her pants. Festivals like Glastonbury and Bestival let you take as much as you can fit, so this pissed me off a bit. So much wastage considering when you got inside they claimed they were an eco-friendly festival.
Food
Oh my god I had the most incredible pulled pork sandwich from the Bodeans truck. We also had a tray of chilli chips to share, which were delicious too. Can’t believe the genius behind making Bodeans a festival truck – give that man a pulled pork sandwich drenched in BBQ sauce.
There were loads of other food trucks too, but the queue was at Bodeans for good reason.
Drink
Expensive, as usual. Can of San Miguel was £4.50, glass of wine £4.50, coke £2, small Pimm’s £5, Jug of Pimm’s £27 – Christ.
Cool Pimm's Bus £££
Music
When you say ‘Field Day’ expect to hear moans about the sound quality from previous years, but I thought it was alright in 2012. On the Last.fm stage the Liars sounded great – the bass went right through me, I loved it. I was a bit disappointed with Austra, but it just all seemed so hectic in there and they only played about 5 songs I was gutted.
Who I saw…
- Friends
- Blood Orange
- Liars
- Grimes
- Metronomy
- SBTRKT
- Austra
The stage areas were too small for the bands that were playing. They’d obviously sold as many tickets as possible for the area the festival took up, but hadn’t thought about the fact everyone would flock to the tents.
Crowd love at Field Day
Celebrity spot: I saw Alexa Chung buying a few San Miguels for her and her friends. They then started messing around and taking photos of each other – just like normal people.
It was fun to people watch on all the hipsters out in their hipster best, but the festival just got too hectic too quickly. I’m off to Parklife next weekend and I really hope they’re more sorted.
Oooh Grimes, she’s from Montreal, love her.
Me too
This is a pretty accurate description! Although you didn’t mention that some of the bar staff were paralytic! I had a tiny, sealed bottle of hand moisturiser taken from me at the entrance gates – not sure what threat that posed! Ah well, the day definitely had it’s highlights!
My friend was made to drink the water from her fancy water bottle. I understand – you never know what she might do with that water. Dangerous stuff. With hindsight, Field Day was a stupid festival.
I get that you arent allowed to take booze in, but water? Seriously?
I swear these events dont care about whether you have a good time or not, its just about how much money they can make out of you. Grrrr.
Yeah, and that was definitely the case with Field Day. They sold too many tickets and didn’t care about the experience once you were in. And it wasn’t just because they thought full bottles were dangerous because they gave out closed cans at the bars – they’re just greedy.
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