Forest Live Reviews 34

Book tickets for mcfly at Thetford next year for a family Christmas present, paid for the refund your ticket upgrade. Since found out my son is away on a school trip and we are out of the country as a result, went to arrange refund, been told it’s not a good enough reason? Really disappointing service.

Went to the Halloween Night in Moors Valley... It has to be the most EXPENSIVE DISAPPOINTMENT I've ever had after a my car broke down, then returned to dealership, only 9 days after purchase. OVERPRICED TAT. I can do 10x better for half the price and still make a profit after giving away fre marshmallows and hot chocolate.. THIS KIND OF EVENT SHOULD BE BANNED FOR FALSE ADVERTISING AND BEING A RIP OFF!

If I could give it zero stars I would, Hangs, doesn't update, 2 hours of trying to buy tickets for a Halloween event and no closer. How these people expect to make money and sell tickets with this website I don't know. it's a shame as the events are good - but good luck getting a ticket. Horrible experience. :(

Just went to rejoin FE for another year at my local forest and was shocked at the now nationwide joining fee. What a shame for an organisation linked and with a remit for creating healthy outdoor persuits. Have been a member with FE for over 8 years in which time I have seen pricing structures change making it less and less affordable for the average single person. Went from two sites combined at a reasonable cost to the one site only, with site specific and choices given to join other sites independently to now a nationwide site cost. I have one forest and one forest only I visit for dog walking, £90+ a year. Sorry FE you've just lost another customer or maybe I should join the queues of people parking on the hard shoulder to avoid excessive charges and the contracted out parking company with the newly installed ANPR cameras!

Absolutely shocking. What a joke and I will see these people in a court of law. For anyone reading this. I'd urge you to spend your money booking tickets within a venue that has experience in the field of event management.

Elbow and support acts were tremendous and a wonderful occasion at Westonbirt. The whole experience was marred by traffic and parking management (again). We stayed in Tetbury for the evening - six minutes away. On arrival, despite having very expensive VIP tickets, we were directed to park north of the venue and then walk 30 minutes to the stadium. Extremely hot that evening and no water stations were provided - so by the time we reached the gate all our water supplies had been opened and therefore would not be allowed in the venue! Unkind and illogical. On leaving, we faced the 30 min walk back to our parking area only be held up crossing traffic coming from a car park south of ours and nearer the venue! Illogical. And then, on leaving the car park, we were forced to take a long detour through country roads and were not allowed to join a closer road leading back to Tetbury. Our six minute journey therefore took 45mins. After midnight back in the hotel. Please could the organisers pay attention to the reviews. If you wish arrivals from the north to park north of the venue, and vice versa for the those arriving from the south then stick to it on departure and don't let traffic cross. Please, Please, Please don't spoil the entertainment with such frustrating and poorly thought through logistics.

Pleasantly surprised by the car park for Paul Heaton at Westonbirt. On previous concert visits, the walk was long and mostly in the dark. However, somehow managed to park 5 min walk away and easy exit. Paul Heaton and Billy Bragg were brilliant.
However, if you are going to charge £10 to park, at least have a way of checking. Didn’t need to pay as no one checked, many people will just turn up next time and not pay. TOILETS, way, way too few, causing ridiculous queues and a few arguments!

5 Stars for Sting
It took longer to get into the car park than driving from Swindon to Tetbury. (stop start for about the last 2 miles).
We paid £10 for parking but nobody checked.
20 odd minutes each way from parking to venue!!
We also missed the first act and caught 15 minutes of Imelda May.
We have attended most years for over a decade, this is the worst parking ever.
Very poorly organised, must do better.

Took an absolute age to get into the venue we had allowed what we considered enough time
Missed the first act and only saw a bit of the second act
Sting was excellent thoroughly enjoyed
We paid for parking but no one checked
VIP was a joke the bar was slow and did not have much variety limited stock
Who wants flavoured carling lager and food mediocre and long wait
We have been attending Westonbirt for many years but this was a complete rip off and our worst experience
Getting out was a nightmare
The long walk to and from the carparks were not exactly fun for an angina suffer!!!

Clearly the organisers or “Forestry England” don’t read these reviews or are making so much money that they simply don’t care. Attended James at Thetford
• Badly managed traffic system. No right turn towards Thetford on exit, with no signage to advise where to go resulted in hundreds of cars driving around clearly following sat navs telling them to go back the way that was blocked. Shambolic.
• £65 ticket pricing that limit where you can actually stand. So if you want tyo get near the stage you will need to spend over £100 – yes £100.
• Strict restrictions on drink that can be brought in, with security that are very keen to enforce it….why, well read on
• 187ml can of “Most Wanted Wine” that’s not well chilled, £8.50. RRP of £2.25, so you can bet these cost £1 at the most. We’re not wine snobs, but I wouldn’t use it to cook with.
• Insufficient toilets. 10 mins to queue for a urinal.
Overall, a badly organised rip off.

Sting was amazing, but shame on the lack of organisation in helping cars leave the car park, truly shocking and dangerous nearly Two hours of bedlam and road rage

Great location (Delamere), performance and atmosphere however HUGELY let down by very poor management and operations of the event.
It took FOUR team members to check our bags and tickets before we could go in. Once in all okay however, if you're thinking of driving to and from one of these events, you'd be better off planning on walking home.
Yes, you'd expect queues and traffic however the organisers know what time the event finishes. We sat in a non moving queue for almost 2 HOURS trying to exit the car park!!!
Huge lack of operations would put me off recommending or attending again.

Went to see Sting at Westonbirt Arboretum on 18th June. Sting was great but the evening was ruined by the car park management at the end of the evening. We finally got to the exit after sitting stationary hour and a half. We were then met with one attendant looking completely out of his depth trying to control four queues of traffic trying to get out on to one road. Six men from the venue in high viz jackets standing watching doing nothing except laughing at the chaos. Will not return. There are plenty of well run live event venues out there. Avoid, this is not one.

Very sad to return to such changes! The venue appears to have put profit over giving people an open air concert experience. If you're going to charge £10 a car to park, please have good signage to enter and exit the car park, having a good system in place for the exit chaos. Your spectator view for those not worthy of the VIP area ( that cost double) has tree branches spoiling the view of concert area! If you truly want people to use this venue, think about people, safety over profit! It was a real let down! Our car was nearly hit exiting the venue by two cars trying to push onto our right of way!

No seating, Sting spent his whole performance playing to the regular crowd.
The bar was understocked.
Very few of the products advertised where available.
Modovian wine please what an insult!!
Who ever issued the the franchise licence is a clown!!!9

Saw Snow patrol at Westonbirt Arb and the organisation was horrendous! H&S guidelines say for the 8000 crowd there should have been a minimum 107 toilets but they only had 40! Leaving the car park was an absolute shambles taking over an hour and half to leave! The management team of the car park were untrained and ineffective with one girl doing her best but coming close to being hit by cars on several occasions. I’m shocked no one was seriously injured.

Dreadfully organised.

Went to see Beverley Knight / Gary Barlow at Delamere Forest, and there are too many issues encountered to even document. Ruined the evening and we ended up leaving early because we were so unsettled.

Rudeness from start to finish. My visually impaired 72 year old mum was spoken to like garbage.

The acts were brilliant, but couldn’t fully enjoy it!

Absolutely will not be returning.

Avoid VIP Glade. Avoid.
Had an incredible night at Snow Patrol BUT ruined by the scam that is VIP Glade at Delamere.
So it’s sold as a premier experiance but having experienced VIP concert festival experiences many times this was anything but VIP

So here goes

Thousands of people ( how can that be VIP if it’s not limited to a size that you can deliver against?!) in a very small area with limited toilets ( three small blocks and an accessible toilet which of course was used by everyone ) compared to an excess of toilets outside the VIP area.

Then onto the food and drink

One Bar
One slow as F burger van
One Crumble store ( sweet and savoury )
One crepe place

And that was it, for thousands

Outside the VIP glade..

Loads of space
Loads of food options
Loads of bars
Loads of toilets

To top it off was the miserable staff chasing everyone out at the end ( myself as disabled needing more time to get myself pack up being asked 6 times to go now really did get to me )

Snow patrol were amazing but there was nothing about that that was VIP. Avoid and save your money.

We recently bought a National Forestry membership for North Yorkshire. All was well until my husband received two parking fines and today I received a parking fine. We paid good money so that we could take our dog for walks around Allerthorpe woods and do the right thing. We could park in the pull in places or the Verge of the road like most people but wanted to help. What a mistake that was. We will never buy a membership again. It's a complete waste of money. Very poor performance for Forestry England.

As we were holidaying in the area of Thetford Forest, we visited your site today, to see if it was worth a longer visit later in the week.

Upon arrival, without any option of turning around, we were faced with a minimum charge of £3 just to drive through and out again.

On exit, we were trapped into an exit only road, and unaware that we wouldn't be able to leave, without parking at the exit barrier and trekking some distance to the centre of the park, to pay £3 for 0.10 [mins?] stay. Now we know where Mike Seddon ceo gets his £95,000 p.a. from!

By contrast, just 15 minutes down the road, we found another entrance near Brendon, where we were able to drive in and out for free, and for the same ten minutes at the Thetford Forest Lodge, we could park ALL DAY.

Far better value, and a more enjoyable stay, knowing that we were not taken for a ride.

AVOID AND USE B1106 Brandon Park instead!