BLOC cancelled.

thank fuck i wasnt planning on going down till the saturday.

i just spoke to my friends who went, they ended up having an amazing weekend anyway. with 15,000 people all of a sudden looking for a new party it seems shitloads of other stuff went down anyway

chock-a-bloc

Just got back from London - I went there with tickets for the full 2 days, and I got in almost as soon as the gates opened. I got to see Deadboy, Steve Reich, Amon Tobin and Shackleton before they shut everything down - FWIW, the little I saw was great (especially Amon Tobin, his gig was awesome).

The planning behind the festival was poor, the layout of the venue left huge masses of people flocking to a small area - the stages where not spread out enough, there were large zones with virtually no people because there was nothing to see/do there, A bottle of water cost 2.5 pounds, a beer cost 5. You had to queue up for a long time to get inside any stage area, When the acts around 11/midnight finished up, no-one came on the PA to let us know they were shutting down - people were kept waiting for something to happen until they naturally peered outside the stages to find a police corridor. Only then I overheard someone from the organization say there were well over 20,000 people in the venue. There were a lot of things that went really wrong.

The Bloc organization appears to be gearing up to refund everyone's tickets. What I'd like to know is whether they will also refund me of my travel expenses and accomodation - I spent hundreds of pounds to book a flight and a hotel, in addition to tube fares and food (both of which are rather pricey in London). More than reimbursing me of lost money, I spent months in expectation for this: I'll never get a chance to see the likes of Actress, Flying Lotus, Monolake, Clark, Scuba and Squarepusher playing at a festival in Portugal. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity for me and now it's gone. They cannot refund me of that. The only possible compensation is if they happen to offer me free tickets to a well-organized Bloc 2013 with a comparable lineup, although I find this very unlikely. I doubt the festival will survive a finance and credibility fiasco like this.

The venue was a huge part of the problem. This does not look at all like what people saw on Friday. The London Pleasure Gardens looked like an abandoned dock, with tens of industrial containers, scarce lighting, erratic layout, unpaved beaten paths and a couple of abandoned buildings. It looked like an old industrial complex. Their site says it has a capacity of 35k, which the Bloc experience proved to be false. They inaugurated the venue roughly a week before Bloc, and it looks like nothing they advertise in those pictures. Obviously the Bloc organizers will still take the flak for the whole thing falling through, but still I don't completely buy into the "they just got greedy" theory.

i can pretty much guarantee that the BLOL2012 organisers will not refund costs for travel and accomodation.

Well there was a shitty 15,000 person gig (Swedish house mafia) in a Park in Dublin this weekend and 9 people got stabbed, with one death due to possible drugs o.d and dozens of arrests......

I'm amazed Bloc didn't go into full-on riot mode but then again I've been to lots of electroncia festivals in Blighty and everyone is always very well behaved. Well done guys!

  On 7/9/2012 at 4:05 AM, usagi said:

also - lol - The Met have apparently cited "rain" as the reason Bloc was shut down

 

as others have already pointed out, this is likely obfuscation. "they can't admit there's a problem with the venue because it's an Olympic site"

flol

Bloc update

(minecraft reference)

Ouch. I hope they can recover - the Pontins weekenders were great

I've put a couple of videos from around the closure.

http://www.youtube.com/user/spratters3803

"We are also working to ensure that everyone will be refunded for their tickets."

Sounds like they're not going (/willing/able) to refund other expenses.

I also hope that they'll organize a decent event next year, I might go. The line ups from past editions are all amazing.

ive always found any festival style event thats in london itsself has been pish. they need to go back to butlins.

  On 7/9/2012 at 4:44 PM, th555 said:

"We are also working to ensure that everyone will be refunded for their tickets."

Sounds like they're not going (/willing/able) to refund other expenses.

 

I also hope that they'll organize a decent event next year, I might go. The line ups from past editions are all amazing.

with the financial hit this will involve, i'll be surprised if there is a bloc next year.

BoLOCcks

  On 7/9/2012 at 6:15 PM, beerwolf said:

BoLOCcks

*BolLOCcks

  On 7/9/2012 at 12:45 PM, spratters said:

I've put a couple of videos from around the closure.

 

http://www.youtube.c...r/spratters3803

wasn't BLOL2012 an 18+ event? I'm sure I saw what appeared to be either a midget, or a child under the age of 18

Hope they move it back to butlins.

  On 7/9/2012 at 7:18 PM, oscillik said:

  On 7/9/2012 at 12:45 PM, spratters said:

I've put a couple of videos from around the closure.

 

http://www.youtube.c...r/spratters3803

 

wasn't BLOL2012 an 18+ event? I'm sure I saw what appeared to be either a midget, or a child under the age of 18

I may have had the camera held a bit high. I can't say I noticed many midgets, although you may be able to fit more midgets in than normal sized people if they stand on shoulders. Then the wouldn't have had to close.

That is where they went wrong.

There seemed to be a fair few young punters who were perhaps only there because it was in London and it was a festival. You could guarantee a large amount haven't been before and wouldn't have gone if it had been elsewhere. Where it was for the last couple of years, for example.

And I heard there was many people planning to see Snoop Dogg??? I would've thought that the type of music that was otherwise on offer wouldn't bring in lovers of a past-it rapper??? "Oh my Goddddd we, like, went to see, like, Snoop Doggggg but, like, we didn't see them mannn and it was totally, like, bad times...."

Maybe that's me being cynical?

Im sure a lot of people were happy to see snoop dogg and pay 45 quid or whatever. A lot of the london first timers probably wont want to touch bloc ever again, and probably never heard of it before this year.

Why not book deadmau5 if you want loads of punters

Bloc has massive hiphop roots, I'm sure they were affiliated with Dedbeat festival?

For me, personally, in the long run it ain't too bad. All the excitement finally got me into Clark's stuff so just waiting on the ticket refund now...

I got a horrid 12+ hour bus over from Dublin with some friends to see this - had to book a hotel, transport around the city, eat... London aint cheap - lot of money wasted. I understand they cant refund such things, and the price of tickets is the least they can - but its still a pretty shitty situation - more so with the fact that I feel the event was cancelled due to their own sillyness of over-booking - so the blame really sits on their shoulders.

on the slightly brighter side of things - a lad by the name of Plex (was not familiar with him at the time) put on a free event on the sunday night to the first 1,000 people to arrive with bloc wristbands or tickets. Turned out to be a fun night - plus we ended up at some after party rave. So all was not lost....except about 20+ musicians i'll probably never have the pleasure of experiencing live again

Also - the sound system at the main stage was absolutley atrocious. Due to massive ques we only got in around the time Tobin had finished his set and DOOM was just about to start - really poor sound quality - could hardly hear/understand what DOOM was saying. didn't get the chance to experience any of the other stages, so can't comment on them.

Lastly - other than full ticket refunds i'd hope in the least that Bloc will offer some sort of major discount on Bloc 2013 tickets (if there is one) to everyone who got jipped