Well you don’t need us to issue an exclusive report about how Bloc, ‘the most important festival in Britain this year’ as stated by us, was a complete disaster. If you are a regular reader of ourselves you would have noticed that we’ve been involved in the coverage of Bloc as both punters and ‘reporters’ (of sorts), so you may be able to understand how disappointed we are. Maybe it’s something we will look back on one day and laugh, but I imagine that it will be a while before we get to that stage.

huwho.com

Did anyone go? We've got some Olympics-based conspiracy theories, but it looks like it was just an organisational nightmare...

My brother was meant to go he just gave up, said it was obvious from turning up that no one had any idea what was going on. A million different stories depending on who you spoke to as to why it was a disaster but sounds basically like shit organisation. Having attended Awakenings the other week which was literally organised perfectly, this just confirms to me that pretty much every one day London festival is a waste of money, time and effort. I can't think of a single London based festival I have been to since about 2006 that I walked out of not feeling utterly robbed. They just want to pack you in and then don't give a shit about the rest of it, doubt I will ever bother going to any of them again.

Yeah I went.

Was inside one of the arenas and it wasn't too bad - but kept hearing report of riots and all sorts and it just generally had bad vibes.

Stayed in one arena and you couldn't hear any music properly it was so badly organised! When we arrived people were queuing for 2 hours to get in I thought something seemed wrong then.

Feel sorry for them though a lot of time and money wasted which is always sad to see, line-up was okay too.

I met these girls at Awakenings that had flown over from Miami that were going to Bloc, I'd be pissed off I didn't get in but at least I'd get a refund and probably just go home, imagine having booked flights and hotels and everything!

Do you get a refund Katie even if you attended?

I didn't pay for the ticket in the first place which is lucky, but the website says they will be refunding tickets. Yeah awful for people that travelled to be there!

Sad times. Bloc in administration?
blocweekend.com

Sounds like a disaster!

That's just a clever way of them getting out of paying any ticket holders refunds, and probably getting them out of contractual obligations paying artists as well. The same organisers will probably be back next year with a newly named festival having fucked over all their former patrons and the agencies that worked with them. They've got no one to blame but themselves as they clearly couldn't organise themselves to have a crap with toilet paper let alone a festival.

Ive just read an interesting post about stacks of people printing off free tickets by scaming the site that you purchased tickets from - and this lead to the over crowding - see below

"the issue was with the ticket/bar code system where people who hadn't paid could replicate/easy modify it and still get in, in which case the blame would lie with crowd surge, not bloc, this is i assume where the investigation comes in (although this is all just speculation on my part). As someone mentioned since it was in london i guess a lot of people felt they might as well have tried and if they didnt get away with it just go home.. hope this isnt the death of bloc and hope and look forward to anything that may happen next year (butlins please)
You could just go on this link and generate your own barcdoe by changing the number in the url. crowdsurge.com
crowdsurge.com
www.crowdsurge.com"

I don't think there was over crowding inside the festival as most people didn't get in!

It seems more like the stages they had set up and the security they expected to police them just weren't thought out or prepared enough and as it pissed down with rain tents were just getting rammed out too quickly and they couldn't deal with it.

We went to Love Family Park in Frankfurt on Sunday, which was the complete opposite - plenty of room inside, loud music, and zero queues at the bars .. it was even sunny!

Awakenings was the same, no queues for anything, toilets, bars, you got a free locker to dump your stuff as it was sunny so you could just grab your jacket when needed, the drinks were cheap, the ticket was 50 euros, security were chilled, the sound systems were perfect, it was just so easy.

Contrast that with the SW4's, Get Loadeds, Lovebox, LED etc. and it just starts to seem like a total knock!

SW4 once was enough to convince me that 'festivals' in the middle of residential areas are a total waste of time

The first couple were pretty decent then the sound restrictions came in to play, it's the same at every festival now, you can't hear shit unless you get right to the front and then you get crushed because everyone is trying to get nearer to the speakers to hear the music!

Even Glade was quite quiet and it was supposed to have no noise restrictions. But still better than any of the London jobs.

I missed the first SW4 but went to about three after that and have stopped going for reasons advised above as well, it just wasnt the same on the main stage.

I was going to do SW4 this year, but decided to put my own night on in Hove instead (just waiting for main DJ to confirm his flight). Bank holiday trance=WINNING.

Peachy, you know that eye in a square thing . . . ;)

Yeah it's registered to your life.

Have you put on any of your own nights before stew?