BF For me it was something a little different from the normal pre bar and then off to a club seeing bands in the evening and getting to go to bars where u know what sort of music would be playing (different promoters and different parties) sounded really good on PAPER! Also getting to go to different clubs was cool, in reality I knew that I would only be able to go to 2 clubs @ the most – had all the venues had later licenses this could have been better.

Ok, well the evening started off going down hill straight away having planned to go straight out from work, I decided however to go home for food and shower and to get changed. I was called by a friend who started his evening @ 4 and was told the King and Queen pre party had been cancelled the pervious day at 9pm – gutted as this was the venue where pretty much ALL the bands were playing. There were going to supposedly ram all of that into the ocean rooms now! I didn’t believe that for a second.
He then went off to MORE bar to be told by someone that worked there that they didn’t even know that they were part of the festival! In the end he went to Suga Cube which was open and part of the festival.

I made my way into town and was expecting the worst after that – thinking that the whole event was just going to be a disaster. I went to easy bar on my way to Sugacube picked up my wrist band (a good move I was to later find out) The guy who gave me the wrist band didn’t seem to have a clue what was going on. I thought stick it on were going to be @ Easy Bar – looks like they didn’t know that they were part of the festival. Sugacube was good but it was just a bar playing music so nothing special there! I didn’t pay my money for this! We discussed what we think had gone on and had come to the conclusion that they hadn’t sold enough tickets and had to cancel loads of acts as they couldn’t pay them.

Well on to the club arriving @ Tru @ bang on 10 was greeted by a huge Q! That stretched right round to the seafront. Luckily after 10mins of Queuing someone shouted that all those with a wrist band could jump the Que. A chaotic crush for the door ensued as everyone with a wrist band ran for the door like maniacs – trying to down the litre bottle of vodka and coke we just bought for the queue was interesting. WTF was all that about I was left wondering as we were herded like sheep in to the main room only to join another massive Que to put my coat away.

The bands playing before Soulwax all seemed fairly good as was the support Dj :) playing some crowd friendly choons to get the party going. Soulwax came to the stage and played a blinding set which had all the crowd forget the shambles in the pre parties and getting in to the venue jumping up and down and having a good time. We didn’t stay to catch 2 many dj’s dj set and set off for Concorde2 to catch the main man Laurent Garnier – and he played a blinder playing loads of different styles to a busy but not packed room. Had we had set times I might have been able to catch Streetlife Dj’s – god knows if they were there or not.

Overall not a bad night but it could have been so much better. Brighton Festival an event which promised so much... “Glastonbury with out the mud” but turned out to be like most large events a piss poor miss managed event which didn’t go to plan! Well there is always next year, learn from the mistakes!

Fair comments ... we played the smugglers pre party as promised and went on to Tru & C2...

C2: UR & Garnier plus disco boy , alex downey & Billy Nasty ... good night

I was impressed by the amount of people out & up for it, but the communication of who, where, when was poor. Where were the programmes? I saw the odd flyer sized print off, which proved innaccurate.

A brilliant idea & I REALLY hope it grows into A REGULAR FEATURE IN BRIGHTON. I really enjoyed it and the I love the concept.

The truth is a bigger - better organised team are gonna be required to make sure the next one flows better & punters are aware of whats on offer ...

The 2 day event schedule would probably improve things but it'll need staffing properly with better communication & wristband exchanges on offer.

Nice One Guys ... I'm supporting the event and hope it has a future here in Brighton.

I'd love to see it happen again, despite the problems.....it really didn't need much to make it really good - basically, set times (and map for out of towners), things opening when they're supposed to, and wristbands available from all the bars - including for internet tickets. The main problem we had with getting wristbands was being told at Ocean Rooms (having queued for ages) that they could only give wristbands out to people with actual tickets, were told to go to Tru for internet tickets but the queue was onto the seafront - luckily, we persuaded the guy at the Loft to give them to us, as I think going home was a serious consideration at that point rather than queueing yet again in the cold!