On Saturday I went along to the Big Freeze Festival in the grounds of Battersea Power Station.
Now, before I start my rant. I’m all for the venue, and despite being a pain to get to (thank you TFL for closing the Victoria line and Waterloo underground on that day) it’s nice to see Battersea power station sort of being used. I can only hope it does get saved and restored.
Anyway, back to the rant. I was fortunate enough to get a free ticket so didn’t have to pay the £30 entrance fee. And I’m glad, otherwise I’d be wanting my money back. In fact it was so bad, despite not paying I’d still like the time back.
Here’s why:
- Poor layout. Upon arriving, they had to hold people entering, as they let people out. The same applied when we left. I actually had to queue for a few minutes to leave. Even worse, to get to the toilets you have to go through the main stage area, which was packed so going to the toilet became quite a mission.
- Poor view. The massive inflatable jagermeister bottle positioned right in front of the main stage didn’t help the view of the jump area. In fact the best view was probably outside the venue along the road side (which quite a few people noticed). One of the reasons I went was to see the competitions they had on, but found it to be poor setup.
- Cost – At £30 a ticket, I found that far too expensive. Especially given the cost of food and beer in there. I would have valued it at £10, no more.
- Small, and poor tents – There weren’t any decent chillout areas. No decent shop tents (just small ones with high prices). We went round the tents in about 10 minutes and didn’t find any of them interesting.
- I could probably list a few more points but I won’t kill the event completely. To be fair I didn’t stay beyond 8pm, so missed all the music they had on (the line up looked quite good).
I would go again, as I think it has potential. But, it needs fixing before I do. The layout, the view of the jump, better tents, more things to justify the cost.