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We recently sent this reply out to everyone who had sent us feedback for our first I'll Be Your Mirror London event, and we thought we should place it here too for those of you who were interested but didn't send us feedback...
Dear I'll Be Your Mirror attendees,
Thank you a huge amount for all of the feedback that came in after our first I'll Be Your Mirror London event in July - the positive and the negative, we have read every email - and it will help us to improve things for future events at the venue. We're very pleased that the majority of you had a great time and were pleasantly surprised by the sound and venue. We'll be trying to repeat and improve everything that you liked about the event, but most importantly we'll be trying to fix those teething problems that we know caused issues for some of you - again we hope that they didn't make your experience less then enjoyable. It's always hard running a large event in a new location for the first time - but hopefully with your feedback we can improve on things for next year.
Sorry that this reply has taken a while to reach you - once all the feedback was received we had to look at each area of concern and talk to the venue and some of the companies we worked with to ask them some specific questions from your feedback.
The feedback we received over the weekend was overwhelmingly positive so thank you for that, but today, let's take a look at the major areas of agreement that arose from your emails about things that can be improved on:
1. One Way System
The biggest complaint was that the one way system was confusing, inconsistent and frustrating and that this led to an unpleasant feeling between attendees and the security whose job it was to implement it.
The one way system is a requirement for hiring the venue in the way that we did - it is necessary for health and safety as the venue had never had an event like this before that used so many of the spaces simultaneously and thus we had to be careful of crowd flow between each area - as you can appreciate sometimes certain rules are in place for legal reasons, and especially since the 19 deaths at the German Love Parade festival last year security companies and venues have to be extremely careful in order to satisfy insurers in order for the event to take place at all.
However you and we realise that the one way system was definitely not working efficiently the way it was - it wasn't well signposted enough, people were confused and some security were confused which led to an unpleasant stand-off feeling between attendees and security who were trying to do a complicated job in a tough situation - so not good for anyone overall! Unfortunately as explained we will not be able to get rid off the system completely, but we will be looking to make some changes where possible to make it run smoother, to signpost things better throughout the venue and provide more maps on-site to make the system clearer. We will make sure the system stays as consistent as possible throughout the weekend and most importantly we'll make sure that every security person is fully aware of the whole system so that incorrect information isn't given out and the confusion that occurred this year doesn't happen again.
2. Food Vendors
The other major problem people had was that we definitely didn't have enough food vendors for all of you to be able to get food quickly - and although your wristband meant you could leave to go to local places to eat, we understand you wanted to stay close to the action so it was frustrating that we weren't able to provide as much food as was needed on-site.
This was the first time the venue has ever used so many vendors and we were actually at maximum for what the facilities allowed us - power, water, distance of vendors with gas from walls.
Therefore we are talking to the venue about other areas we can potentially take over next year, which will see the food court expand greatly.
On another note we will not be inviting back any vendor that put their prices up over the weekend as reported by a few of you. We're not interesting in working with anyone who would practice such unethical behaviour when it was obvious there was already too much demand.
3. Lack Of Water
A small amount of people complained that they couldn't find water or that they were denied water by bar staff - which was a big problem considering how hot it was on the weekend and that you were unable to bring water in.
The bars were providing free water on request and all of the staff should have been directing people to it - we will be discussing this with the bar company and making sure our attendees are not given incorrect information in future and have easier access to the free tap water.
We'll also make sure waterpoints are more clearly signposted.
4. Some other areas for improvement!
A big complaint was that you ale lovers couldn't find enough ale. Unfortunately demand was so high for the ale that it was all drunk on the Saturday and we were unable to source more from the brewery for Sunday - we'll make sure to order a lot more next time!
We'll try to make the cinema a little less hot for next time - more air conditioning was needed. We'll also have a more dedicated staff member to oversee the room, and to make sure people aren't queuing outside needlessly if a session has filled up.
Our lovely Rose Garden seemed to go down very well other than that fact that some of you couldn't find it! So as mentioned above in our discussion of the one way system we'll make sure it's better signposted and feels more connected to the main venue.
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We understand there may have been some other issues you emailed us about - and we will take all of your comments and criticism into account, so if they do not appear above don't think we've ignored them - rather we wanted to keep this letter to the major points of agreement between you all. If you do have any more concerns or didn't get in touch with us initially you can always reach us directly via email at feedback@atpfestival.com and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.
We very much hope to see you at another ATP event soon - and thank you again for attending I'll Be Your Mirror London.
best
Everyone at ATP Concerts