Wilderness 2023 Feedback

Tue 29 Aug 2023, 14:42

Hi all,

Firstly, we wanted to say thank you to all of you who took the time to send over feedback about Wilderness 2023. We know it may sound like something that is just being said for the sake of it, but we genuinely appreciate all feedback received. It’s this information, especially from those of you that live locally, that helps us look at all the different ways in which we can continue to improve and build a show that works for everyone.

Secondly, apologies in advance for the long message, if you fancy reading on might we suggest settling in with a cuppa first.

Having spent the last couple of weeks reading through all the local feedback with regards to Wilderness 2023 and chatting with several of you directly, we wanted to take a moment to come back to you on all the key points we’ve noted from the feedback this year.

We thought it easiest to bullet point these, so you can see the key action points we’ve taken away from this year and that way, anything you think may have been missed can be easily identified and raised.

From everything we’ve read/heard the main impacting factor locally this year was traffic, so we’ll start there and work through the other points raised further down.

Parking on local streets

Without wishing to blame all issues on the weather, we inevitably faced additional difficulties this year with the rainy spells. Of course, we are always keeping a close eye on the weather in the lead up to the event and work incredibly hard to pre-plan and put in place contingency infrastructure and services to deal with this as best we can, but this did unfortunately result in some people choosing to park locally and then enter the festival on foot, rather than parking in our designated on site car parks.

As highlighted on the forum and as some of you may have seen over the weekend, in response to this we worked with the local police to help remove this issue on Grammar School Hill, and it’s something we’ve already began discussing with our traffic management team and will continue to discuss with both them and the local services to look at further measures we can put in place ahead of the festival to prevent this occurring again in the future.

Increased Traffic at North Lodge Gate

As per our traffic management plan, we were using various exits, in the same way we did in 2022 so that:

• Family, Grove, Accessibility and Blue Live-In Vehicle camping were exiting via the Blue Gate/Rangers Lodge exit.

• General, Performer and Quiet camping were exiting via the Red Gate/Witney Road exit.

• Pick up drop off, Boutique, Meadow and Green Live-In camping were exiting via the Yellow Gate/North Lodge exit.

However, as some of you have noted, on the Monday post show, we had to increase the numbers exiting via the North Lodge gate, this was due to several reasons:

1. Due to the wet weather and the affect this had on our Red Car Park (used for General, Quiet and Performer camping) we had to flow a number of the cars that were parked in the bottom corner of this car park out of Yellow/North Lodge exit. Having assessed the land this was the safest and easiest way to exit these cars as they otherwise would have been trying to go uphill, on a muddy and slippery field, whereas by diverting them out of yellow we could continue their journey downhill/on the flat ground and safely out of the site.
2. The introduction of our Green Live-In Vehicle campsite this year, due to increased demand for camping at the festival in campervans/live in vehicles, meant there were an extra 200 live-in vehicles that would be using this route for exit.
3. While the train works at Oxford Parkway had finished and Charlbury Station was open again as an option to travel from on the Monday, we saw an increased number of people choosing to exit the festival via taxi for fear that the train works wouldn’t have been completed in time. These customers would have been picked up at our PUDO area, along the green route, which again due to our internal one-way system which ensures we can keep traffic flowing clearly/safely means they would exit the site via the North Lodge exit.
4. And finally due to the wet weather, we continued to exit any tenants/business operators from the Southill Business Park out of North Lodge, rather than the Green Gate/Southill exit to avoid any 2-way traffic along the green route to ensure there was as much space as possible for vehicles to move along the wet roads and avoid any potential 2-way traffic build ups.

The wet weather is something we of course always hope to avoid but when we’re faced with it we do have to amend our standard plans, most often related to traffic, accordingly to ensure we were getting all customers out as safely and easily as possible and this did mean that an increased use of the Yellow Gate/North Lodge route was one of the best ways we could help manage the conditions and the vehicles needing to exit the site.

Please note, all traffic exiting this gate should have been directed right and out to the fiveways junction away from Charlbury, if you encountered any occurrence where this was not the case, we do apologise, and we will review this with our traffic management company in detail.

Dyers Hill

We also know there were issues experienced on Dyers Hill, particularly on the Monday post show and during some of the build and break days. This has already been discussed with our traffic management company, with a view to implementing traffic mitigation (such as traffic lights) along this route, particularly on the days when we know traffic is likely to be higher. This will allow us to better manage the traffic on this stretch of road and hopefully avoid any standstill/backups.

Festival traffic using the wrong entrance / driving through Charlbury

As per our traffic management plan, all working vehicles were meant to use the Green Gate, Southill Drive, OX73EW entrance to access the site this year and are sent numerous maps/directions/reminders about this. Unfortunately, we know there were some instances of vehicles trying to use the old Yellow Gate route, whether due to habit/sat nav directions/missing the signage, it’s hard to know, but please rest assured we will continue to look at ways we can further reiterate the designated access routes to further minimise the risk of working vehicles driving through the town centre.

We’ve also been in discussion with our traffic management company about other points externally/within Charlbury where they could have staff stationed to help direct anyone who may otherwise go the wrong way and possibly create a backup of traffic on the surrounding roads.

Taxis

We’re hoping this last point might also help us lessen the occurrence of taxis continuing to attempt to access the site via Yellow/North Lodge Gate. As many of you have noted, this is a continual issue for us and one that is harder for us to completely lock down, but we will continue to liaise with local taxi companies about this, to build an understanding for why we ask specific routes to be used, and as mentioned, we’re hoping a review of the local traffic management positions will also help mitigate this.

Signage

As per other years, we know there was an issue with signage either being removed, relocated or damaged this year. Based on feedback already received, we’re going to review our AA signage plan for next year to make sure we not only have the most useful signage in the best locations but also to explore potentially adding some new signage in areas where we think this could be helpful, based on your feedback.

As part of this we will also discuss the potential of, in some key locations, securing signage to fixed positions, to try and lessen the risk of it being moved/damaged. As ever, any support you can offer in reporting incidents where signage has been tampered with is so appreciated, as it is the best way for us to help monitor this throughout the duration of the set up / show / derig.

We hope the above goes some way in helping explain some of the issues you may have experienced with regards to the traffic this year and the ways in which we are already looking to mitigate these for the future. As a more general note about public traffic, we will continue exploring other ways we can encourage festivalgoers to opt for alternative methods of travel such as train, bus, cycle and, if they are driving, car share. A positive, we saw come out of the train closure this year was a sudden spike in people opting to use our direct bus service, so we’ll continue to explore ways we can push the various alternative travel methods we have available forward, to try and get as many vehicles off the roads as possible.

In terms of some of the other points raised from this year that will form a key part of the planning process for 2024:

Pedestrian Access

In a similar vein to the above, we’ve seen a few pieces of feedback about either a lack of information/signage on how to access the festival on foot or conflicting information from staff in the area. Please be assured this has been taken on board, so again it can be reviewed in terms of what signage we are putting up and where, how we’re relaying this information to you and also ensuring our staff in external positions have a full understanding of what the best access routes into the festival are, depending on the customer and where they’re trying to go/how they’re trying to get there.

Local Information

We also know several of you found it tricky to find local information this year pertaining to various aspects of the event, and for this we can only apologise. We’re really grateful for your feedback on this and have started looking at a few different ways we can improve this for next year. Some ideas for this so far are adding a local/resident information page to the website and ensuring we’re proactive in getting key information added to the forum and other local touch points, in the build up to, during and, where applicable, after the festival. These could cover information on things such as: local tickets, gate times, arena & entertainment times, access routes and maps, local resident phone number, spectacle information, key information about certain things occurring that may affect you locally and general show information that you may be interested to hear about. 

Any other suggestions you might have for helping disperse this information locally or key things you think it would be helpful to know about would be really appreciated.

Noise

While we know some of you experienced some issues with noise this year, we’re pleased to say that the significantly reduced impact we managed to achieve last year with some key site layout changes seems to have largely carried into this year.

As ever, things such as the weather and atmospheric conditions play a part in how and where sound is travelling but we will always continue to monitor this throughout the event. For those of you that have fed back on the noise, we’ve pinpointed all the areas mentioned so that we can look at this in detail with our acoustic consultants to see what may have affected this and the measures we can take to mitigate it in the future.

At this point, we’ve taken up quite enough of your time. So, let us round off by saying thank you once again for all the feedback you’ve sent over and for continuing to allow us to hold this festival in your beautiful hometown.

In the coming weeks we’ll be sending out information with regards to the Local Bursary and our Local Residents Meeting. We would love to encourage as many of you as are able to come down to the meeting when we hold it, it’s so helpful to put faces to names and also touch base in person.

Wishing you all the best and we hope you had a lovely bank holiday weekend,

The Wilderness Team