Cropredy camping charges

[Billy the fish (Rob)]

I hate to be a miserable toad, but is anybody else slightly disappointed by the £25 camping charge for the festival this year?  With the £64 ticket price (good value) you dont need to be a mathematician to see the end result of £89. 
I understand the reason being given, that extra night time security for the campsites could be needed after last year's increase in theft from tents, but as regular Cropredy goers know that this was an unusual occurrence and that Cropredy is one of the safest festivals around both from a personal and property perspective, indeed this is one of the arguments i use when trying to persuade friends that have not been before to join in and experience a great weekend.
Blame for the thefts has been laid at one or two doorsteps, and i think that the differences to the festival this year from last year will enable everybody to reach their own conclusions.
As many people have themselves experienced over the years, most groups attending Cropredy start off fairly small and grow year upon year (we started off with 4 people in 1985 and our numbers have now swelled to around 25-30 each year from different parts of the country and growing all the time), so if we cut down on vehicles (7 last year) and all park in Banbury and utilise a couple of vans at our disposal to save money on the camping charge then we won't have the available space to site our tents near each other.  So it seems that we will have no options other than to camp seperately or cough up in excess of £175.00. 
After all that, i'm still looking forward to a great weekend with what looks like a promising line up.

[vikki rose]

Yeah Me & kip were having a bit of a heated debate about this one. He claims to be sure that if we magically teleport the tent there we wont have to pay it cause its a vehicle charge whereas I'm sure because we are camping we have to pay it. First time at cropredy & feeling a little bit hard done by (*mumbles under her breath, it's free camping at truck*)
Vikki xx

[Billy the fish (Rob)]

Hi Vikki
According to the newsletter i got yesterday it's definitely a camping charge. The festival is still relatively cheap in comparison to other established festi's so don't get too disheartened.  Great to hear that it will be your first Cropredy - welcome aboard i think and hope that you'll have a great time.   

Hope to see you there or maybe not as i am going to invent an invisible spray between now and August so that nobody will be able to see me or my car until we get the tents set up and spray ourselves with anti-invisible spray which i've already invented.

[Alex Lyons]

It's free if you're on foot or a biker, so really it's a charge to park your car beside your tent. Not sure if that means you can park in the car park and carry your tent etc to the camping fields and get around it that way. Or just leave the car at home altogether...

[johnthegonne]

The £25.00 is per car, so pile 25 people in a Mini and it's only £1.00 each! 

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[Anna]

Couldn't do that in a proper mini!

Disclaimer - I've only read the leaflet (thoroughly) and been twice before, so this is my take on the situation, not official...

To confirm, it's a charge per vehicle so two of you (or a family/group of friends) in a car or a camper-van or whatever would pay one £25 fee for the vehicle.

I  think parking the car in the car park and walking down from there would be frowned upon (I'd frown upon it) but if you can get a lift most of the way - perhaps contributing to someone else's camping fee? - and walk into the village, that's hitch-hiking and is OK...  Discuss...

The comment about not being able to put up eight tents around one transit van is valid though.

[Anna]

And anyway, when the car gets to the back of the queue (can be quite a distance at lunchtime on Thursday or Friday) you'll find that walking is quicker!

[Anji]

Blimeyheck! How about looking at it this way -

we have a whole year between Cropredys, in which to start putting money away for it, bit by bit.

And over a whole year, an extra £25 is probably manageable.

If it will help avoid the theiving situation of last year, that'll be great.

And it wasn't so very long ago that there was a possibility of not having ANY more Croppers at all.

So can we not get into a downer about it?

[Billy the fish (Rob)]

Fair comment Anji, i think that saving bit by bit is what a lot of people (us included) do anyway, but it is a fairly hefty hike in costs,  especially when we have to put £5 away for the weekend's alcohol consumption. 
I'm certainly not on a downer about it as there are several bands that i'm really looking forward to, as well as meeting a load of old friends.  I don't think that i could contemplate August without Cropredy as it has been part of my life for a long time, it's even to blame for me meeting my wife.
As for the theiving blighters i agree, but i also think that we as Cropredy goers have been a little complacent over security over the years as it has been so safe, and have probably not kept up with the evolution of festivals etc.  Maybe extra vigilance and a few packs of semi starving attack dogs might help.

[Anji]

...I just had the feeling that it makes us a little less rich in spirit, somehow.....  

                                                                                                    

[peterwales]

Take everybody's points, but as has been pointed out it still is a relativly cheap festival. I was in London last night, had a look at listings guide to check out any decent jazz gigs and there were several, but at about the £25 mark each-i.e., the cost of Cropredy camping. We are having to pay over £35 each to watch Van Morrison at a local country house outdoor concert in July. No support act, might rain and he probably won't play more than a couple of hours.(wife's idea not mine).  Look how much more we get at Cropppers for the price. And I'm waiting in trepidation for my daughter to announce she wants to go to Reading festival this year, £135 for 3 days, £60 day tickets- now that is a hefty price! Vicki Rose- some tips: stock up on cans and bottles of booze at the Banbury Tesco's, (just minutes from the festival site, as you come into Banbury off the motorway, you'll see loads of other Fairporters on Thursday and Friday afternoons), village hall or rowing club in Cropredy village if you have to have a cooked breakfast and don't want to cook it yourself; when not drinking cheap supermarket booze, drop into the Cropredy Sports Pavilion, (great pint of Hook Norton) and of course the actual festival bar itself for essential socializing.

[peterwales]

Fair comment Anji, i think that saving bit by bit is what a lot of people (us included) do anyway, but it is a fairly hefty hike in costs,  especially when we have to put £5 away for the weekend's alcohol consumption. 
 

£5?  What do you get for that?? Would last me and some of my friends the first hour on Thursday when we get there!

[Mix (Mic)]

A lot of Festivals charge for camping, vehicle or no!!!
Cropredy camping is free if you're on foot and if you're a biker
and as someone else said, you can have more than one tent to a vehicle (within reason)

I reckon that Cropredy is still excellent value for money

mic

[The Happy Man (Rob)]

Any of you lot actually go camping apart from croppers? I do, and up on the North York Moors or Scarborough in August its around £15 per night to pitch your tent. So cropredy is pretty cheap in comparison!!!

From Rob

[abby (tank girl)]

hmmm, not sure which way i lean on this one.
crop IS cheap compared to many other festies, but i still think they are ALL too expensive.
and i believe that sleeping in a muddy field is part of the festival experience, and you should not haVE TO PAY FOR THE 'PLEASURE'? OF DOING SO.
AFTER ALL, WHAT DO YOU GET FOR YOUR £25?
BUGGER ALL, THAts what.
(oops sorry, i got me caps in a muddle, not shouting)
on the other hand, we camp a very lot, and £15 a night will get you proper toilets, clean sinks and showers, acommunal washing up kitchen, hot and cold running water and often a laundry and a freezer.

after all, festie camping is no B&B, and i think its appalling to charge extra for it. security? what security?
(discuss.)
if you mean people walking around telling other people to put out their camp fire.........

in my experience of festivals and bike rallies, crop is the only one where we have paid to put our tent up - car parking is another story.
now dont all shout st once, i said 'in my experience'
BTW, sunrise is £25 to park (i think i remember right) for 6 days, camping free,  and the whole festie is £65 for 6 days, as has been said, reading about twice that for three days.
so who's got it right?
maybe there ought to be a 'festival pricing ombudsman'  or whatever they are.........

however, i DO love the fact that crop is one of the only places you can camp next to your car/park next to your tent, so we'll pay the £25 through gritted teeth and shut up now.  when we camp, we camp proper, and i hate lugging kit for miles over rough terrain!

rant over.

ab

[Mix (Mic)]

There are showers at Cropredy (ok not many )... and the extra charge is for more security, because of what happened last year (when a lot of people actually said [at least I think they did] they'd be prepared to pay a bit more for better security.

You do get to camp by your vehicle, and they're not pedantic about how much canvas comes with the vehicle (within reason)

Sleeping in a muddy field may well be part of the festie experience... but not for this old lady anymore   I will miss it in one way, the camaraderie! but my joints won't miss it one little bit So in order to continue to enjoy the festival, I'll be paying for B&B which adds a lot more to the ticket price than £25... I still think it's worth it (even though as a pedestrian I could camp for free), and it's not the festivals fault that I'm decrepit

Still think it's one of the best value for money festivals. I imagine that festivals where they charge for car-parking but give free camping have simply re-named the charge.

mic

[AdrianW]

Personally, I'm happy with the camping charge if it improves camp site security. Some people had very frightening experiences, not just having unattended valuables stolen which they should have secured. At night the much maligned Other Place had better security than the fields, where you could walk in and not see any visible security staff at all, let alone be challenged, as I did at 02:00 two nights running. Time will tell.

[Finovski]

 I tend to agree with Bob the Cod, £25 is a bit steep, it was only £15 in 2003, I that's quite a hike even allowing for the extra security. Why can't it just be included in the admission charge and then we wouldn't feel like it was such a big sting.

[jude]

I tend to agree with Bob the Cod, £25 is a bit steep, it was only £15 in 2003, I that's quite a hike even allowing for the extra security. Why can't it just be included in the admission charge and then we wouldn't feel like it was such a big sting.

Possibly because not everybody camps, I would have thought.........

Oh and welcome to here Finovski

Jude

[PeteD]

Remember its not just security that has to be paid for. The landowners need to be paid as well. By making these fields available for camping they are potentially having to re house livestock, commit to keeping the land as pasture year in year out when it could possibly be put to more profitable use. Reduction in the yields of 2nd cut silage after the damage caused by the weekends activities and potential damage to forage harvesters caused by abandoned tent pegs, etc, etc.

With farm incomes reducing every year particularly on the small mixed farms typical of the type found around Cropredy I am sure the organisers are having to, rightly, pay these farmers more for the use of this land.