Glastonbudget

I have been to GB five times so that speaks volumes. They bill themselves as the biggest tribute band festival and so long as you are prepared to suspend your disbelief (which isn't difficult) you could just as easily be watching Michael Jackson, Madness, AC/DC, Guns 'n' Roses, etc in the flesh because most of the tribute bands REALLY ARE that good.

These acts are supplemented by a host of other original and cover bands and even comedy acts on the other stages. GB13 was helped a lot by the fantastic weather.

But GB is growing and changing. It's no longer cheap and on Saturday night the organisers put 'Guest Stars' on the main stage, a real departure from the likes of Queen, The Who, Oasis and Coldplay (or their tribute equivalents). Now I, for one, did NOT come to the festival to see the likes of ABC and Howard Jones and it seemed the majority of the crowd agreed as they left the main stage to see the likes of Guns'n'Roses in the smaller Big Top arena, this year billed as the Main Stage Number Two ... yeah, right!

We go in a motor home so I can't comment on things like toilets and campsite. Likewise we don't sample a lot of the food except on the last night I had a very passable noodle dish. Beer is good though and no huge queues anywhere.

The atmosphere at GB is good. A real mixture of age groups and it's still small enough to get to wherever you want and move around with leaving your base for the day.

I will be looking to see the line up next year. If they revert back to big names on the main stage I will go back. If not I might try TribFest for a change.

A festival consisting with only tribute acts sounds like a great idea, it didn't seem this way once we were inside the shoddily erected, poorly guarded fences.

Our first mistake was assuming that this ever growing festival would accept card payments for tickets, they did not. We were then advised to go to the local village to use their cash point... but there was no cash point. The nearest cash point was in Keyworth which is about 5 miles away, but the festival staff advised us we could walk there in 25 minutes.

The bands and the toilets were really good, the campsite was horrible and badly guarded, many tents were broken in to and robbed. Its really the poorly informed and unhelpful staff that really let this festival down.

I heard that a Saturday ticket was £57, it's called glastonBUDGET!!!

Next time we all decided we'd spend a tiny bit more and go to a real festival... one that accepts card payments.

My friends and I are real festival veterans but this is the first year we decided to visit Glastonbudget. We had a great time and there are many plus points to the festival.

Good bits:

- Some great cover bands which replicated the real thing extremely closely. Stand outs for me were Mercury, Abba Revival, Whole Lotta DC, This is Nirvana and Green Date. Stand out moment was when This is Nirvana's bass player snapped a string and they had to play several songs with just "Kurt Cobain" and "Dave Grohl" which still sounded amazing. Seriously though, who plays a gig this size without bringing a spare bass guitar or strings?

- Short distances between stages, camping and parking.

- Good number of people who were all just having a great time. We had an 11 year old with us (her first festival) and she found the atmosphere not at all overwhelming.

- Fantastic local ales and a real focus on local bands/produce.

- The weather on Saturday and Sunday.

- VIP toilets and showers.

Bad bits:

- Sound in the Big Top was really dodgy. The mixing was all over the place. For example "Slash"'s guitar way too soft in Guns2Roses. Couldn't hear the rhythm guitarist (I think it was "Gilby Clarke" rather than "Izzy Stradlin") at all. The balance for Jilted Generation and The Dark Side of Pink Floyd also ropey.

- Queues for drinks were longer than they needed to be (apart from the Ale bar). Should have dedicated staff just pulling popular pints during peak times and create more of a production line.

- The drinks token increments are ridiculous - why not just 1.50 per token or even 2 pounds if need be?

- Glastonbudget as a name does still sound a bit naff. This could be a bigger festival than it currently is!

Overall there were more plusses than minuses and will hopefully be back next year. Thoroughly recommended.

Good points:

The bands, in general, were really good. Even some that I don't like particularly, like Coldplay, were well 'tributed', and sounded good live anyway. Loved 'One Step Behind', 'Green Date', and 'Four Fighters' particularly. The crowd were friendly, the mad costumes were good, and I never thought I'd see a mosh-pit start to develop at a Dire Straits tribute! When the sun came out on Sunday it was a great place to be. The food we tried was well-priced and tasty. The price for the whole event lived up to the 'budget' name, given that so many festivals are giant rip-off machines these days.

Bad points:

What was that stupid token system for beer all about? We invented this value token called 'money' a few thousand years ago, but you thought you'd improve on it? Don't you trust your staff to handle money or something? Was it supposed to reduce queuing By making people queue up twice? Why not make the beer a round price (keeping the coin change factor to a minimum) and have done with it?

Campsite was OK, but where are the water points? Why are you not allowing people to make a cup of tea in the morning? I heard of people having camp-stoves taken off them, presumably because we're not to be trusted with naked flames. But then you allow people to be sold barbeques?

Another reviewer mentioned thefts from tents, which thankfully didn't happen to us, and which I didn't hear about until now. Someone else mentioned providing a 'quieter' camping area: Very good idea. I'm forty years old, and spend a lot of weekends at motorbike rallies, which have hardly the quietest or most sober of campsites, but they're a haven of peace compared with crowds of drunken fools (like some of our neighbours) shouting all night! The only thing that stopped me inserting a tent pole in them was the sneaking knowledge that I had probably been just as much of a noisy b*stard twenty years ago! Karma's a hard mistress sometimes, ain't it! I just hope it someday catches up with the idiots who sprinkled the car park field with empty glass bottles- you do realise that car tyres and broken glass are a bad thing, right? And that it's farm livestock land, too? We did our bit by taking home some other people's bottles before going home anyway.

Conclusion:

Good points probably outweigh the bad, so we'll consider giving it another go next year.

Glastonbudget was a great weekend overall (shame about the weather ). Needs to run more professionally and will soon be a fantastic festival. The toilets were the best I've ever seen at a festival.

Glastonbudget is an absolute must. What a great day to spend the weekend.

My rock band dirtylaws played here and we totally enjoyed all of it,very relaxed,good beer,very good atmosphere in all,,recomend to everyone and i do most festivals each year.

Sit in a field and watch some music. Good if the suns shining but even if it had been this is a shoddy festival on the whole. Better to sort the cover bands out and the facilitates, forget the new band thing, most of them were just that, forgettable

Lots of youths drunk too. If your 15 and want to run wild and drink then ideal

Was actually better 2 years ago, is a good idea but needs someone competent to run it

We went to Glastonbudget hoping to have a laugh - the idea of going to a festival with music supplied with tribute bands is an excellent idea!

Admittedly the weather did not help but the lack of proper proffesional mangement really showed. The security, or lack of it was eveident with in the region of 30 - 40 tents being slashed and contents stolen put a dampner on things for some.

The signage seemed inadequate and not much for young kids to do except the bouncy castle!

No eating/seating areas as we all know May can be very wet and cold at night.

The people in charge of the gates etc were young adults with not much guidence and appear to just love the fact they were wearing a high vis to show their importance!

The food and Ale prices were excellent and not rip off as promised but unless you are there for the music and the beer tent while the sets are changing over you will be bored out of your head! No entertainers or anything, a real shame the concept is excellent but sadly there was no atmosphere from the crowd or anywhere else. It's as exactly as it called - GlastonBUDGET we were so disappointed we went home on the Sunday... along with many others.

Let the early arrivals into the car park so they dont block the road with their cars...And us new boys can have a beer with the old hands and get some tips while waiting for the their wristbands.

Could we have a map of the site on the web next time ?....so we can camp in a quieter (family?) corner and maybe get some sleep.......(us "olds" cant keep up with the late night revellers any more!)