Review: Westfest 2008

The biggest party brands around including Hardcore Heaven, One Nation, Bionic and Slinky.  The line up didn’t fail to impress the crowds.  With a fantastic atmosphere all night in all arenas, the dj’s delivered throughout the evening, right through to the sun rising, with the MCs driving the crowd into frenzy.  Each arena catered to a different style of music, with the style changing in the immense main arena throughout the night, which housed the headlining acts of the night. 

Each of the arenas were huge, which meant that at no point did it get overcrowded and everyone had plenty of room to dance.  Each arena also had fantastic laser shows throughout the night which went down well with everyone I spoke to.  Another good point was that there were stewards on all doors in and out of each arena, which kept traffic of people coming in and out of each arena moving.

Westfest also had a reasonable sized chillout space, with plenty of seating for those wanting to take a break from the action, which was absolutely fantastic as often at events if you need to take a breath of fresh air or have a chat with a friend, there is often only an overcrowded smoking area.  With other attractions such as rides, stalls and photo booths, there was more to westfest than just your normal dance event.

My group arrived at the Bath and West Showground for 7.30pm, which was half an hour after the event opened.  The queues by this point were verging on insane, which is to be expected for a one night event with a sell out capacity of 10,000 people.  I would highly recommend paying the extra for VIP or to arrive at least an hour early.  Some members of our group did queue for over two and a half hour to get into the venue. Upon getting to the front, it was hard to work out what the hold up was, as there were few people being searched or even patted down.

Slamming vinyl events don’t accept money at bars which meant we had to buy tokens which are used at the bars, but this did however minimise long waits.  The drinks were relatively expensive at £4.00 for a can of Fosters, although this kind of price isn’t unusual at festivals.