Dour Festival? (1 Viewer)

[Aíló]

Well, it looks like I'm headed to a big smelly quarry full of unfriendly peoples. Booked me ticket last night And I've recruited a mate who speaks French and a bit of Flemish so I can put this unfriendly crowd thing to the test

Tbh I've been to gammy festivals with way worse line ups and well organised events with predominantly unfriendly people (the crowd at ATP last weekend weren't exactly up for a laugh) and I've always had a good time so it's worth a shot me thinks.

 

[theoootini]

don't camp near the ditch. we did for shade purposes but it ended up being a piss river. yuck.

 

[ratmonkey]

If you've a few people going, there's a 10 journey train ticket you can get between you that'll cost practically nothing.

 

[cyclotron]

The friendly/unfriendly thing is total bollocks. Does a crowd get together and decide to be unfriendly.Like Dktr. Faustus says, it's a lingo thingo... Any road...it is a bit like the Belgian Oxygen. Here's an edited version of last year's ups and downs You won't get any peace at it. Bring earplugs if you need sleep. And all the water you can carry. Get there very early - otherwise you'll end up camping about kilometre away from the entrance/exit. Here's some basic yays and nays.... BADEN-BADEN ! ------------- -No shops nearby - or indeed, people selling essential stuff on the roads nearby. Dour pounters were forced to walk to supermarkets to buy cheaper, more nutritious nosh - markets which were frigging miles away and hellish to get to when the weather's on extreme sides (a gruelling 3 mile walk in the midday sun on cobblestone paths to queue up for food and water is not what you want to be doing when you're camped aeons away from the festival site as is - nearly fucked up the whole of Saturday for us.) Behave next time or it's high time for "a CENTRA FOR EUROPE" campaign. -TOKENS at the venue- You couldn't buy drinks or food without these itty shity bits of arse-cardboard. 9 euro gets you 5 beer tokens, 9 gets you ten food tokens. On the plus side, they make the staff's job a bit safer I suppose but it's a rip-off considering that you have to USE THEM ALL AND QUEUE UP TO BUY THEM TOO !!! Try doing that late at night when you're 3 sheets to the wind. -Scabby food portions. -Watch out for the GREY burgers. -Usual festival things - warm drinking water, queues, stink, struggle and morning tent-saunas... -Too many fucking sports-metal clone-bands by far. GOODEN-GOODEN ! --------------- -Showers -Car wash nearby for hosing down sweaties. -Lovely beer that you don't get hungover from drinking. -General atmosphere of extremely good natured madness. -The line-up -Dry weather.

 

[ostrichsyndrome]

a lingo thing? seriously...
i think you'll find werchter is a bit more equivalent to oxegen. dour is more like electric picnic

rent a car, camp in the car park, its way better

 

[Aíló]

Ta muchly for the tips / warnings / etc! With these in mind I shall go far - well, to Dour... and a decent camping spot

Although I'll kindly ask you not to mention the 'O' festival word... oxegen... urgh.

I think we have a driver recruited now so that always makes life a wee bit sweeter...

yipee

 

[shitepipe]

i still stand by the unfriendliness thing, although its really more that they tend to stick to the group of friends they're with. I speak dutch/flemish and was trying to chat to people on the campsite, but it was like getting blood from a stone. it's not that they're arseholes or anything, just a different mentality...

anyways- you'll probably have a great time. to be honest the main reason i found it tough was generally trying to deal with unbelievably bad hangovers in the heat with no water on the campsite. so it was mainly self-inflicted....

 

[Dktr. Faustus]

I didn't encounter any unfriendliness, but maybe that's because I'm Finnish and for us talkative people are suspicious, you can't be unfriendly without some unfriendly activity. But things are different around here I know

What is sports metal anyhow? They had some hard rocking bands there in 2003 but they were mostly loads of fun, but most of the bands were either punk or some sort of eccentric whatever. Like Nashville Pussy, haha. Don't seem to have any jock bands this time around either.

Lidl is about mile or two away, serves all your needs. Lots of friendly people around with their cars so go to the car park and ask for a lift, handy.

Food and drink on the campsite were great. The basic beer they've got is Hoegaarden and Stella, the beer gardens sell Kriek and all that stuff as well. Had some good second hand record stalls as well.

And I for one think a sunny festival is a good thing. Even when in 2003 the heat was a bit too much, grannies dying in Paris across the border and shit. Still better than rain and shivering nights.

 

[ernesto]

a lingo thing? seriously...
i think you'll find werchter is a bit more equivalent to oxegen. dour is more like electric picnic

rent a car, camp in the car park, its way better

i found Werchter to be very friendly.

and Dour people to be aggressive, abusive and witnesses thievery.

 

[Aíló]

Dead pleased I went to the Dour Festival - got back yesterday and I'm tired and happy Trying to organise all my happy thoughts in my messy head!

I think all accounts of bad organisation from previous years were noted because everything ran amazingly this year, and most of the people I met had been going for years and said there was a vast improvement all round.

Our campsite was really nice - no messier than normal - usual scummy people leaving crap around the place but for the most part clean. Lots of water and taps and CLEAN HOT SHOWERS!!!

The music was savage - so SOOO much stuff to choose from, had to make some tough decisions as acts overlapped. Plus, tonnes of deadly French music to hear for the first time.

I would definitely recommend anyone go to this next year - it was ridiculously cheap and dead easy to get to. I can understand how some people may have felt there was an unfriendly atmosphere. It IS a big effort to speak to people in broken English and alot of people had no English at all so it's worth being able to speak a little bit of French and German. However everyone we met was very patient and completely sound.

Happy daze

 

[Dr Winston Umbogo]

did it smell like shit? Serious bang of the place last year

 

[Aíló]

did it smell like shit? Serious bang of the place last year

Well by the last day with fellas pissing everywhere except the urinals there was a bit of a whack alright but really not that bad at all... the toilets were cleaned regularly and they even had a table at each set of portaloos that you were given toilet paper ...

Yeh bit manky though by the last day but not so bad tbh.

 

[kings lead hat]

unfriendly my arse, they were sound wheni was there,.....