So it is now the day after returning from the mass sprawl that was the Dour festival 2007. I have been to many festivals at this point and can easily notice the differences in organizational skills and atmosphere.
The Dour festival lacked many small elements that would have made the average punters life a little easier during a very tiring experience.
When arriving at the festival a couple of beer cans were consumed, then my mind turned soar as i saw this ridiculous sprawl of people all scrambling to enter the site. To enter the site one first had to bring your ticket to a small hut located quite far away from where you had to have your armband secured and enter the site, due to this poor organization it resulted in many people sleeping where ever they could until the sprawl calmed down, many people skipped the queue or got crushed.
My particular problem with this particular way of entering the site was the beer cans that i had previously consumed, as there were no toilets before entering the site my bladder became gradually agonizing. I cannot imagine how others survived, during this poor entry. The relief that was experienced several hours later, saved nearing permanent damage.
So after this queuing nightmare we entered, setup the tent, chatted and then slept.
Day one of Dour water, water......where is the water...ah there it is, oh crap the queue is massive.So organizational error number two. I think it is slightly ridiculous that in a campsite with forty thousand people the organizers only provided two tap facilities, which resulted in even more queuing.
Too the music 'aww' a random spike sticking out of the ground, i wonder how many people damaged themselves on this or the many other spikes that stuck out of the ground - once again a lack of thought for the welfare of the punters.
So after dancing for quite a period of time i decided to search for some free water and once again this proved to be quite a challenge. Eventually i found a water source ( 1 hose with a tap for 120,000 people or so ). Luckily i was not the guy who slipped down the slippery slope into the large puddle of urine, water and muck, the guy proceeded to fall asleep in this wonderful concoction, luckily for him his friends were on hand to save him.
So several days of fun were had that were slightly compromised by poor organization, yet it had its perks like the bbq and microwave area that saved me a considerable amount of money and the odd colored lake that was damn refreshing and picturesque, yet could have had a life guard (yet however this would be acknowledging that the lake was part of the festival and i am sure that this would have led to a substantial insurance hike).
Ah Monday morning and more annoyances. The campsite lacked security so a gang of youths were able to cause havoc. The gang hassled soft headed party goers and searched tents where some people were sleeping. Some people reported that there money was stolen.
Several people that i met on Monday were having an extremely stressful day, the safety locker facility that they used for passports, etc were removed before everyone had retrieved their belongings. The belongings were all put into random bags and stored in the festival police station where u could only get to if you had a +3 wristband! These were only given to semi vip's and i think they went up to +5 with normal camping tickets being +1 or 2. So as you can imagine some people were getting very angry by this and as far as i know some violence was close to occurring. Then after a period of time the belongings which weren't retrieved were shipped off to the local police station in Saint Gislaint which was just sending a lot of these people on journeys they really could have avoided. This was the biggest mistake of the festival and makes me question where did the stupidity of the situation derive from?
Surely after 18 years of this festival the organizers would have learnt to avoid such problems. I know it is a cost friendly festival, but if low cost means poor quality in the customer safety and satisfaction areas, you have to weigh up what you as an individual look for in a festival. Obviously lineup and cost would be most peoples first consideration, but maybe if some of these issues affected you, you may agree that Dour needs to reflect on things in order to cover all areas...