Having been going to Leeds Fesitival since 1999 i've obviously seen it mature and change over the years. Anyway this year we only attended for Muse on friday, we stopped camping after 2008 fell out of love with the festival.
 
My biggest grip this year has been pricing, UNBELIVEABLE! festivals have always over charged for what is a captive market but £4 for a pint of what is essentially run of the mill larger is simply outrageous! Food prices were equally scandalous £7 for a small trey of noodles. These vendors dont set there own prices and it all stems back to what the organises have charged them to pitch there stall there and fixed the priceing. (which btw is illigal in other commercial areas)
 
Basically at £90 a day ticket £200 a weekend ticket, and what can only be described as utter greed pricing Leeds / Reading will end up on a downward spiral in attendance (there was a noticeably smaller crowed this year). if you actually add it up the cost of attending for the weekend is now greater than a budget holiday in spain for a week! Day tickets are now more expensive than the price of a weekend ticket was in 1999 which was £80-85, does it really cost two and half times more to run a festival now than it did 10 years ago? (bareing in mind the capacity now is twice that it was in 99)
 
Second thing, the sound. It was terrible in 2008 and it wasnt that much better yesterday. the fact i can have a converstation between the sound board and stage without any problems hearing others just tells you how low the sound level is. i must admit this year the sound was very clear but just needed to be louder.

i wont get started on how the lineup has changed (for the worse) in the last 6 years.

On a more possitive note the village and campsite entertainment has improved significantly, its very good. we only passed through the campsites yesterday and there was a cracking vibe about the place, it was good in 2008 too until the usual sunday night idiots.

Copied from elsewhere
 
Festival positives- 

• CAT team, especially number 1164 in Yellow who seemed to work 24/7 with a constant smile on her face
• Security. In Yellow they were prompt in getting to fires and showed a constant presence and in the arena they were much more relaxed than usual which avoided a lot of friction
• The Sochill zone. Excellent idea, added a completely new dimension to the festival (as well as somewhere to sit when it was muddy). There was a great atmosphere in there and some awesome DJ names. DJ Fuzz Lightbeer and Hed Ghandi being my favourites. Just needs to be BIGGER next time
• Having outside speakers on the NME- was a great idea
• General sound all over the site was much better, especially in NME and on the Main Stage until Sunday which was wind related
• The real ale bar was great. Nice to have something with a bit of flavour
• Atmosphere was generally pretty good from what I saw. Heard a couple of horror stories but everyone around Yellow D where we camped we friendly and polite
• Campsite DJs didn't play Pendulum all weekend and mixed it up. YAY
• There did seem to be a few more food places

Negatives- 

• I sound like a broken record but what the hell were the food prices!? I didn't even look until the last day. £6 for a pork baguette!? £4 for a portion of chips!? £7 for a yorkshire pudding!? That is extortion at a ridiculous level and 20%+ higher than last year. It really needs sorting as plenty of people simply weren't buying food as a result. I thought prices were meant to be capped at a reasonable level?
• Cider- £4.20 a pint. I thought going up to £4 this year following it being £3.60 last year and tax being raised (though the tax only went up 18p). £4.20 is the most I have EVER paid for a pint in the UK, even in London or at Wireless this year or at any other festival. An absolute farce imo. There's no justification for that price at all
• The way the mud was dealt with in the arena. Now let me make this clear- it was dealt with brilliantly on Sunday morning and I don't doubt for a second a lot of effort went in. But, heavy rain was predicted for the Friday and there appeared to be no prior thought to it and the reaction on Saturday wasn't anywhere near good enough. Anyone trying to get between the Main/Lock Up area and NME will know it was almost impossible on Saturday. I fell pretty badly and I'm sure I wasn't the only one. Not only that, it lead to crowds for certain bands being TINY (especially UNKLE). No way would UNKLE have only got 200 people if people had been able to get to the stage. Hazel and Sarah took half an hour to get from the Main Stage to the NME for Noah & the Whale. I was losing my shoes every minute and so was Mumbo. There wasn't enough straw on the ground quickly enough. Simple. I hope that if anything something can be learned from it as I am aware that it's as bad as it's been in the Arena (since 05 at least)

Overall though, much better than last year and 08 and as a festival probably better than 09 as well though I enjoyed 09 more personally. What was the attendance by the way? Didn't look like any more than 55,000 to me 
 
 
Russeh- In defence on the organisers in term of the volume, a lot of locals complained that this year was the loudest it's ever been

To my ears, this year marked a significant improvement in both volume and clarity of sound, especially on the main stage. The NME sounded a bit sketchy for some acts, but besides that I thought sound was great everywhere.

As my first festival I came home wanting to go back despite the many problems we encountered. However, as an experience couldnt have improved it much more apart from a few niggles.
 
- the sound at the nme stage wasnt great. Saw Cage the Elephant and Miles Kane and the the vocals for Cage were too quiet and the sound for Miles was too muddy.
 
- Food was dear! However, i feel that the posh butcher burger place next to the main stage was nice and reasonably well priced compared to the other garbage that was available for the same prices.
 
Other than that was absolutely mega couldnt want for more!!

If the vocals for Cage were bad that's the band's fault, not the soundsystem

eddie


If the vocals for Cage were bad that's the band's fault, not the soundsystem

the fella was screaming for dear life you could hear that but it sounded lost in the guitar and drum heavy mix
 

They'd have brought their own sound guy I'd have thought. Unlikely to be the fault of the festival

thought the silent disco was top but i think it needed a bar or at least a water point somewhere

i thought the sound was pretty good as i cud hear alot of the bands on main stage and nme stage from yellow camp. 
i didnt think food was to bad 4 quid for a burger and 6 quid for a large pork sandwitch even tho i got a small one for 4 quid and the big ones didnt look much bigger. 
sercurity were great in yellow they we so friendly cumin to check we were ok and cumin for a warm by ower camp fire. we had sum really good banter.
my only problem was the mud and the relentless stage next to yellow played the same sets ever night. witch did get abit anoying.
 

The mud was ludacris at some points, and really tricky.
The Over 18 wristband tent seemed to have been downsized slightly (at least with number of workers when I went) which led to huge queues once again, which were taking an hour and a half to get through for some people.
They may also want to consider upscaling the number of womens (and maybe mens, didnt notice their queue) showers in the village - not that I use them myself, but I did notice a really quite long queue at some points over the weekend.
I'm also confused about the lack of gate on red camping? They added a new Orange gate, and yet red still doesn't have one. If it were possible for one to be added, I'm sure a lot of people would appreciate not having to lug things down and back up the valley between red and orange when dropped off at red (I'm not sure about whether there is red weekend parking thats actually behind red? Think ours was a red car park, but it was technically joined onto orange/purple)

It was really nice to see that the programme and lanyard for £10 again instead of £7 for the lanyard. 
 
Security were really really great. It was good to talk to them and see that they were cracking down a bit this year. I think it really helped with the atmosphere, and i enjoyed the festival much more than last year (which put me off an awful lot).
 
The food prices were really awful though, i thought it was incredibly bad to be charging £7 for a lot of stuff.

There really does need to be consideration in terms of the food prices given the age range of the festival goers. It was just too much. Most of the stalls had no queues all weekend as a result. Surely you realise that that's for a reason?

I thought some of the security in yellow where absolute arseholes. Two of them brought a lad over, who I'd never seen, who was in so much of a state he couldn't speak  (on E I'd guess). He was just silent, so I told him to have a seat around our fire, and the security where threatening to throw him out, so I lied and said I'd seen him before, and I'd look after him, and give him a tent to sleep in, and I got told if I kept argueing he'd shot me off the site, when I asked why, I got told I'd be charged with "Insighting a riot", which as far as I'm aware, i was definitely not. In the end I stood and argued with him for a while, and he gave up and let the lad stay with us, and we went and found his mates, but I thought it was ****ing disgraceful to be threatened to be shot out of the festival for offering to look after a lad. 
 
90% of the security where really sound, and I had some decent chats to them. but I ended up arguing with a few of them over stupid things like that.

I've been to every Leeds Fest since 2000, really enjoyed most of them and this year wasn't an exception.

I had a great time, shuttle buses as usually were brilliant, plenty of them and frequent and reliable. Good staff across the festival and security etc.

The bad things though; Food prices although are always steep at festivals were pretty bad this year - how on earth did they jump so much, it isn't like the quality was good, it really was the normal run of the mill rubbish - £7 for a plate of noodles, seriously!! Come on...
$4.20 a pint - just slightly too much again I would say.

Bands wise (good and bad)- Sound was pretty good across the board everywhere, great stuff! Headliners Pulp were incredible - a LOT has to be said for the older legendary bands so super move FR! My Chemical Romance were AMAZING too and the usual mix of really good rock bands of today was excellent!! There was however a LOT of indie acts which sadly has been a growing trend at reading/leeds over the past few years and I feel personally that is a shame as the good unique rocky artists tend to be much more exciting and get people enthrawled and talking very positively.
Of course we were spoiled last year with Blink 182 and GNR. :-)

Boggy fields were a big struggle - even just getting from one stage to another (yes this is no fault of the organisers FR) but what was done with the straw on Sunday was a god send!! Why this wasn't done on the friday is beyond me - we all knew that it was raining and was going to rain some more so why wasn't this done much earlier as it really would have helped out!

All in all though, really good - well done, very well organised as normal, the wine bar and ale bar were great too to keep things a little fresh and offer lots of choice! I suppose that's true of the wide choice of foods even if they were very very overpriced this year.
I just hope the rumours about the Red Hot Chillii Peppers are not true for next year, they were so boriiiiing last time they headlined, that would be a disaster in my eyes!

Keep it fresh and keep this great festival diverse, the festival is begining to pull more and more trendy chav-like people through the gates and they always seem to be the trouble makers who don't really know or appreciate what a festival is all about and that is a shame because there have been some years where you simply didn't want your weekend to end.

Much love and respect,
Chris

christopher


The bad things though; Food prices although are always steep at festivals were pretty bad this year - how on earth did they jump so much, it isn't like the quality was good, it really was the normal run of the mill rubbish - £7 for a plate of noodles, seriously!! Come on...
$4.20 a pint - just slightly too much again I would say.

Boggy fields were a big struggle - even just getting from one stage to another (yes this is no fault of the organisers FR) but what was done with the straw on Sunday was a god send!! Why this wasn't done on the friday is beyond me - we all knew that it was raining and was going to rain some more so why wasn't this done much earlier as it really would have helped out!

I agree with pretty much everything you've said but these really are the two key points. Something really has to be done about the food prices. If there are no guarantees of that and I go next year I'll simply take enough food with me for the weekend like I did this year and won't spend a penny on food. I'm not sure I'm not the only one thinking that, in fact I'm certain I'm not. There was a TWENTY PERCENT increase in prices in ONE YEAR when inflation was only 0.5% and we're about to go back in to recession. Give us a chance!
 
The mud thing I think FR will learn from, or I hope so anyway. The straw worked, so I hope in future if rain is predicted for the whole of a day like it was on Friday then people will put straw down in ADVANCE so we don't end up in a bog

This year was my 5th weekend at Leeds having been previously in '01, '02, '06 & '07. Was also there for Rage in '08 for the day. 3rd festival this year - Primavera & Sonisphere being the other two. I had a gap between '02 and '06 after the 'last days of Soddom & Gomorrah' episode of sunday night in '02. The fact that i came back to Leeds after '01/'02 shows that FR are doing things (on the whole) right.
 
The good:
 
- Decent variety in the line up. Saw people from UNKLE Sounds (i.e James Lavelle pretending he is a DJ), from Deftones to Miles Kane. Quite a few people have been questioning the 'identity' of R&L but i think the future is in emphasising the diversity of acts available on offer.
- £10 for lanyard and program gets a thumbs up. The lanyard might be tattered but the book i will be able to keep.
- Brown campsite people. Lovely.
- Hadn't taken my car since '06 (nightmare) so for me the biggest plus was the 1 way system and car parking. Also the drive through the woods to brown camping on thursday night was a bit like a Harry Potter themed slow speed rally. Fantastic.
- My friend greeting me with a wheelbarrow on thursday after the drive up (i'm guessing FR didn't arrange this to happen but you still get bonus points, i'm feeling generous)
- Talking to a Monk about Deftones.
 
The bad:
 
- FOOD PRICES / QUALITY:  my GF & i are late 20s, don't have kids and have decent jobs = disposable income. If needed, we can afford £6 for a terrible burger/noodles etc. I wonder how/what the 16-18 year olds ate? Did they busk for money to share half a tray of rubbish food? Did they eat each other? The festival is primarily for these kids - stop hammering them at every oppo. Give them a break.
 
- Sound was pretty clear, but quiet (or maybe after 3 festivals this year i just can't hear anything anymore?). Not sure what you can do about this. They had the same problems at Sonisphere to be honest. Pesky local residents ey?
 
- £4 for a flat, mediocre lager is terrible and Tuborg should be ashamed.
 
- And You Will Know Us By The Trail Of Dead haven't played R&L for ages.
 
That's all.
 
 
 
p.s book Tool for next year and i will have a portrait of Melvin Benn tattooed on my face with the words 'GENIUS GENIUS GENIUS BOW BEFORE HIM' underneath (maybe on my chin?) I will also name all of my children Melvin Benn.

When I was 16 to... well 20 really, I wouldn't have been able to afford a single hot meal in the whole weekend at those prices. I bought 2 pints in my first 5 Leeds festivals and had the odd hot meal but if it was that expensive I'd have just brought all my own food and even now I'll do that as a statement.
 
It's really far too far and I really hope they listen. It's part of the reason people have fallen so out of love with the festival. There's no justification for it being more expensive than, say, Glastonbury, or any other festival in the UK (it's the most expensive by far). Most expensive pints, most expensive food, most expensive tickets. No justification. Really does need looking at or at least an explanation for why this is, though I guess there isn't a good one

eddie


When I was 16 to... well 20 really, I wouldn't have been able to afford a single hot meal in the whole weekend at those prices. I bought 2 pints in my first 5 Leeds festivals and had the odd hot meal. It's really far too far

It was a disgrace. The prices weren't great at Primavera but at least there was some choice (god, i sound like David Cameron). Same for Sonisphere - anyone see the 'Crumpets with Crumpets' food stall there? Great idea.
 
I think R&L should have a serious look at the food issue. Prices were shocking especially in the middle of a recession.

Well ticket prices are going to be at least the same, since they've just put up early birds and this years prices. Soon it'll be £10 a burger. In fact if the rate of increase was the same as this year that'd only be 2 years away!

Conside switching from Viagogo to TicketTrust?
 
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