‘Hours of queuing’ at music festival
Festival goers have shared horror stories after attending the Burning Lantern Fayre in Cardiff on Saturday night.
Thousands of people packed out the inaugural festival at St Fagans National History Museum.
But many took to social media to complain about:
queues of between one and two hours for food and drink;
quality of the sound and lighting; and
food and drink being taken off people before they entered the event.
The festival included performances from Tom Odell, Jack Savoretti, The Shires, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas and Into The Ark and tickets sold out ahead of the event.
However, pictures posted on social media on Saturday showed massive queues for food and drink at the event, staged by Welsh promoter Orchard Entertainment, with many people saying they left early because of their negative experiences.
Kathryn Richards, 50, from Llanishen in Cardiff, attended with her partner Danny Kenny, also 50. She said: “We got there around 5pm and there was a family outside with a picnic who had been stopped from going inside and people were having bottles taken from them. On the Saturday morning I had tried to go online to see what the rules were about food and drink but the website was down. Lots of people were saying they didn’t know they couldn’t take food or drink in.
“When we walked into the site we could see there was a queue for drinks and when we were told it was over an hour to get served we couldn’t believe it. There was nowhere to sit and it was heaving. We were taken aback.
“We met up with some friends and were told there were drinks on sale at the Gwalia Stores at the back of the site. When we got there around 6pm we were told they had sold out of everything. We couldn’t believe it.
“We went to try and find somebody to speak to and joined another couple who said they were going to leave and wanted a refund.
Kathryn added: “One couple we were with queued for coming up to two and a half hours to get some gin from the gin bar. It was awful. It just took away from the atmosphere. We missed Martha Reeves and the Vandellas because we were trying to find somebody to ask what was going on.
“The sound system was also horrific. There were no screens for people at the back and the lighting was dreadful. It was so badly organised.”
Simon Watson-James, 55, from Rhiwbina, attended the festival with his wife Rosemary, 60, and a large group of friends and family.
He said: “The bar queue had to be seen to be believed. Martha Reeves and the Vandellas came on and the sound was embarrassingly bad.”
Graham Jenkins, originally from Aberbargoed, travelled from Cornwall for Burning Lantern.
He said: “I went for some food and by the time I had got my food one hour and 30 minutes later, The Shires had been and gone.”
Orchard director Pablo Janczur said: “We acknowledge there were issues with queueing for the bars and food, and we want to apologise for that.”