Wickham 2020

[JeremyRS]

It’s not ridiculous to suggest that a festival should be prepared for torrential rain, particularly as has been pointed out above, they have form in this area. The incompetence of the stage supplier has yet to be proven. And, as I said, there are a lot of other problems that shouldn’t have occurred - wristband exchange, communications, marking out of fields, not enough disabled camping. I could go on.

[Poor Will (Bill)]

It’s not ridiculous to suggest that a festival should be prepared for torrential rain, particularly as has been pointed out above, they have form in this area. The incompetence of the stage supplier has yet to be proven. And, as I said, there are a lot of other problems that shouldn’t have occurred - wristband exchange, communications, marking out of fields, not enough disabled camping. I could go on.

Torrential rain and farmland equals mud!
Have you never seen what happens at Glastonbury or the Isle of Wight?
If you can’t cope with a bit of mud, maybe festivals are not really for you!

[PhilipK]

If you can’t cope with a bit of mud, maybe festivals are not really for you!

"A bit of mud" is hugely trivialising the reality of the situation - it was positively dangerous, with reports of people on crutches falling over. We saw one man in a wheelchair having severe difficulty in getting out of the car park. The age profile of people attending Wickham is also a lot older than those at Glastonbury or Isle of Wight.

We sat in our car for 2.5 hours waiting to be towed out by a tractor - and other had longer waits - instead of seeing the bands that we had paid to see. that's not just "a bit of mud".

The weather forecast over the last week or 10 days had said that there would be heavy rain, yet there was no sign of any preparation for that - there was not even any straw, let alone the plastic walkways that you see at Cropredy, Cambridge Folk and other festivals. The site is also quite steeply sloped - that made the going underfoot actually dangerous, not just inconvenient.

And the rain cannot be blamed for the lack of any Covid precautions; the shortage of toilets (and the failure to put toilet paper or hand sanitiser in those toilets); the lack of information; the choice of a sub-contactor who could not build a stage; the lack of properly-briefed stewards; the overcrowding in the camping field; the long queues for wristband exchange.

Your patronising (and frankly ludicrous) suggestion that "maybe festivals are not really for you" suggests that perhaps you have never attended a professional, properly-organised and SAFE festival yourself.

[JeremyRS]

Torrential rain and farmland equals mud!
Have you never seen what happens at Glastonbury or the Isle of Wight?
If you can’t cope with a bit of mud, maybe festivals are not really for you!

I have been to at least a hundred festivals, including the infamous flooded Glastonburys of the late 1990s and I know what a good and a bad festival looks like. If you’re at Wickham and everything’s going well for you that’s great, I’m very happy for you. Many were not so lucky. And as I keep saying and you keep ignoring, there were are remain many other issues.

[Poor Will (Bill)]

I have also been to hundreds of festivals starting with Reading in 1975.
I have been through far worse conditions to this, so kindly stop making ridiculous assumptions!
The organisers have managed to keep the festival going against all the odds.
The problem with the main stage has meant that it cannot be opened and they were faced with the two options; carry on in a reduced manner, or send everyone home.
Fortunately they decided to carry on.
I would be interested to know why you doubt that the contractors are to blame for the problem with the stage. Inside information or just another baseless assumption?
Along with most of the crowd I am grateful for the gargantuan efforts everyone (including the many volunteers) has made to keep the festival going.
There will always be those who moan about things without trying to see the bigger picture.
Anyway, I have far better things to do, like basking in the sunshine on a straw covered dry patch of land with a pint of Meon Ale, listening to excellent music in the knowledge that I am attending a festival in  2021.

[Nick Reg]

I can remember Talking to people at the cricket club not so long ago whom had been to Wickham the week before and there had been similar problems  involving a lot of mud.

[Andy]

It's called making a professional Risk Assessment with mitigation measures defined and in place, Bill.

The weather cannot be unexpected, given what happened in 2017.

[Poor Will (Bill)]

It's called making a professional Risk Assessment with mitigation measures defined and in place, Bill.

The weather cannot be unexpected, given what happened in 2027.

Not having a crystal ball or time machine I am unable to comment about the festival in 2027😉

[Adam]

An interesting Saturday spent at Wickham for the first time. The music was fantastic, with the Young ‘uns and Seth Lakeman standing out for me. I haven’t seen Seth for a few years, and the inclusion of an excellent keyboard player/backing singer (I didn’t catch her name) certainly gave a very full rounded sound to his songs.

Parking was a complete debacle; I’ve never been anywhere where you had to be towed on by a tractor to park! We declined, and drove on to the community centre down the road. I can only imagine the queues and confusion at the end of the night. Talking of which, there were no floodlights, etc post show, which made leaving the arena rather adventurous.

I did feel for the crew and volunteers who had to deal with numerous problems, and did a heroic job under the circumstances. However, a lot of the problems caused by the mud could have been anticipated and mitigated (never seen those problems at Cropredy in 30 odd years). Toilets were predictably grim (toilet roll and sanitiser run out), if you could negotiate the thick mud to get to them.

Covid precautions were non-existent (tents were crammed, no masks, no tests/checks) but I guess ultimately you have to make your own judgement on what is safe.

It did make me appreciate just how much preparation and planning goes into Cropredy to make it run without a hitch and unfortunately Wickham (at least this year) felt more like a village fete, albeit one that charged £75 for a day’s entertainment.

[davidmjs]

It did make me appreciate just how much preparation and planning goes into Cropredy to make it run without a hitch and unfortunately Wickham (at least this year) felt more like a village fete, albeit one that charged £75 for a day’s entertainment.

Just heard from my mate who is there (or more accurately, was), and he is utterly damning.

[Adam]

It did make me appreciate just how much preparation and planning goes into Cropredy to make it run without a hitch and unfortunately Wickham (at least this year) felt more like a village fete, albeit one that charged £75 for a day’s entertainment.

Just heard from my mate who is there (or more accurately, was), and he is utterly damning.

It is also a bit naughty that they are deleting any negative comments as soon as they appear on Facebook. I was surprised at how amateur it felt when compared to Cropredy. Off to Beautiful Days in a couple of weeks for the first time, let’s see how that stacks up!

[Poor Will (Bill)]

Meanwhile the thousands of us who are still here are having a wonderful time and can appreciate the Herculean efforts involved in keeping the festival going!

[Cardew]

I went this year and to be honest, it was poor. I wouldn’t go again. I go to a lot of festivals and have never felt so glad to leave one as I did this one. It was just dire. Their echo-chamber of a Facebook page tells you all you need to know… not that I was inclined to leave a comment. I did see the messages with people’s concerns along with criticism all deleted and the page sanitised. No thanks.

[GubGub (Al)]

I wasn't there this year and clearly there were problems but I would like to say that I have been many times in the past and that has not been typical of my experience except in the one other year when they got deluged by rain (not normal rain but a month's worth in one day). They seem to have been a bit overwhelmed this year but still managed to put on some sort of festival. I would advise against judging it on this one experience.

Of course I never camp and rarely book until there is a reasonable certainty of fair weather so that might make a difference.

[davidmjs]

I wasn't there this year and clearly there were problems but I would like to say that I have been many times in the past and that has not been typical of my experience except in the one other year when they got deluged by rain (not normal rain but a month's worth in one day). They seem to have been a bit overwhelmed this year but still managed to put on some sort of festival. I would advise against judging it on this one experience.

Of course I never camp and rarely book until there is a reasonable certainty of fair weather so that might make a difference.

Isn't the whole point about management of 'this kind of thing' that one learns from past experiences?

[Martin F]

Using stubble fields for a festival site is a mudbath waiting to happen.

The one time I wen to Wickham the live-in field was stubble, you could feel the ground move underneath you as it was still soft underneath a firm crust. Luckily there was no rain during the festival to make it too soft to drive out.

[Tasha]

I can remember Talking to people at the cricket club not so long ago whom had been to Wickham the week before and there had been similar problems  involving a lot of mud.

oh God yes that is etched on my memory forever! 4 foot deep mud.. having to be towed by tractor onto the motorhome field in the pitch black after having queued for hours.. damage to the vehicle... t left sitting in a literal sea of mud surrounded by 4 ft deep ruts! it was awful..... Seems they have learnt very little from that time....

[Poor Will (Bill)]

Saw Doctors have now been added to the already excellent lineup for 2022

https://www.wickhamfestival.co.uk/

[garrypbrooks]

Saw Doctors have now been added to the already excellent lineup for 2022

https://www.wickhamfestival.co.uk/

The Friday looks very good - I'd especially love to see The Longest Johns, Skinny Lister & Yves Lambert - but sadly I'm already busy that day. Not very impressed with the rest, TBH.

BTW the website was painfully slow on Chrome, esp. when I tried to look at who was on each day. It worked much better on Microsoft Edge.
 

[gordon]

Yes, many rose-tinted bespectacled views of Cropredy (v Wickham) here, particularly with regards to last year's (2021) Homeric Episode, but this is primarily a forum for rose-tinted bespectacled Cropredy goers, is it not ?! 15 years a regular at Cropredy between '94 and '09, I never saw those organisers having to deal with the repeated sustained rain we had at Wickham last year ! I'm with Poor Will, who like us, saw it through, with many positive observations and criticisms. The Saturday at Cropredy in 2008 saw just one day of constant rain, and egress became a trial to the far fields beyond the Canal. Vehicles were left to be towed out on the Sunday morning that year. Perhaps Peter at Wickham left it indecently late to cancel 2020, and punted too heavily on the 'Festival Stage' last year. The arena sites are so very different, and short of the fringe fests at Brasenose and Red Lion, one has more opportunity to wander into a more eclectic selection at Wickham. Wickham just bears the brunt of the early August rains, so I would not recommend it to Cropredy goers !