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but good fun. was pretty relaxed security-wise yeah (good thing), the sound
was pretty good considering how ridiculously close all the stages/tents were to each other (not much "bleeding" either. Well done. Talk to the Field Day promoters)

Wire were shite.

Gang Of Four were prettay good. also...
Fotl, Metronomy, Chrome Hoof, Popshop, TCN, Drum Eyes. I think that's all I sawed.

(I know it is in London) It was kinda like East london's day or two out. The crowds were pretty tame which was a bit disappointing but I'd go again.

were nice, as were the fajitas, but it's difficult to maintain your dignity whilst eating one of them. I never learn, and whilst the sensible people buy something that comes in a styrofoam tray and is eaten with a fork, I'm always stupid enough to go for the food that's practically impossible to eat without dropping some of it down yourself.

Gang of Four were dreadful.
Blood Red Shoes were surprisingly ace.
Future of the Left should have been louder.
Everyone in the ECC tent was bad, but entertainlingly so.
Didn't check out the food.

General review: has potential.

agreed about transport and i didn't understand why they didn't let anyone in at first, it was pretty annoying. it made me very depressed that the only lager available was carling, but they also sold brain's bitter which kind of made up for it. kind of.

glam chops was the definitive highlight for me <3

Glam Chops - Incredble, absolutely brilliant.

Chrome Hoof - No joke, the best gig I have ever been to, absolutely brilliant. I don't even like their music as well, it was just wonderful.

The Maccabees - Okay / Too Drunk to comprehend.

Johnny Foreigner - Good, but nothing special.

Overall it was a fucking incredibly good festival and everyone there seemed to be so nice and friendly, had an absolutely great time.

"anyone having an average time?"

Highlights:

Chrome Hoof were possibly the best thing I've ever seen.
4or5 magicians and Ice Sea Dead People in the new bands tent were good fun.
Chapman Family were great.
I also enjoyed slow club, Jo-Fo, Hot Club, Future of the Left and Load click Shoot.
To my suprise I also really enjoyed Metronomy and the maccabees

Lowlights
I got ridiculous sunburn.
3.50 for a pint of carling
Project Komakino
Not really seeing anything in Colins Tent as the timings were miles out.

were logistical, especially the main stage running so late last night, making it near impossible for anyone to watch gang of four and get the last tube home. was there a reason why that happened? it was running to time earlier.

i had a good time, and for the price / location i'd definitely go again next year.

not horrific like field day.

Think it was fairly well done for a first time. Upset that it didn't all actually happen in the woods and involve more girls dressed as indians though.

Had a fantastic time. The selection of food was great, I too had trouble with the wraps. Beer choice wasn't ideal but on the Sunday I realised the chocolate/coffee place was doing hot chocolate and brandy for £3.50 as well. And the guy was sound, very generous with the brandy. Toilets were fine, even had their own toilet paper. Atmosphere was wonderful, especially on the Saturday with the hot weather.

Oh, and some bands played too. Chrome Hoof and Metronomy were utterly brilliant. Also enjoyed Hot Club de Paris, Johnny Foreigner, Future of the Left, So So Modern, Our Friends Are Architechts, Wire, Gang of Four, My Vitriol, Maths Class, Ghost of a Thousand.... pretty good value for £50. Would definitely go again. Brilliant.

I stepped in the Girlcore tent at one point as well, was truly terrifying.

what songs did they play? were they any good?

I really really liked Black Devil, they were one of my favourite acts of the festival, along with Wire and Ulterior being the best Dead Combo covers band I've heard.

Chrome Hoof were pretty amazing. Hadn't heard anything by them at all prioe to the festival, so they were a nice suprise.

FotL were good but a bit on the quiet side. Good banter though.

Really enjoyed Slow Club, Hot Club, ox eagle lion man, untitled music project among others.

Project Komakino were pretty poor.

Wel organised etc. Would go agian. Well done offset.

i enjoyed it. didn't get there until 5:30ish on saturday as SOMEone decided to be sick all day and needed to not allow me to get there ontime for a few acts, but that was alright, as i saw My Vitriol last night :D i'd forgotten how fun they were. i think seeing 'tallica again last week went to my head as i was headbanging rather erratically for the most part, i just wish they'd do something new.

chrome hoof were very good again, as were FOTL, Metronomy, Hot Club and Johnny Foreigner. i was shamed into drunkenly enjoying Fightstar, for the mere fact that when the rest of the band get going, they do actually rock quite hard (albeit, as soon as it gets heavy they wimp out) i was a bit let down by Xcerts and Enjoy Destroy, who both decided not to play their cathiest of numbers, which at a festival i think is a bit silly. Black Devil were ace drum eyes (what i saw) were more makey reece listen in futurey. Unfortunately Tom Mcrae was 4 hours late on so i fell asleep mid set, but not until after some late nihgt raver brought the whistle crew to town. i thought Go4 were standard, but i'm not a massive fan anyway, the dancing in the tent to the left of the main stage last night was fun, and lots of other things were fun.

foodwise chilli con carne wrap great, pannini not so great, needs a few more options.

all in all i'd certainly go again. well done.

dancing to Future of the Left with some hot stuff, was a definite highlight. Other good stuff: Metronomy, Hot Club de Paris, Gang of Four, XX Teens, Load!Click!Shoot!, Dead Pixels, The Young Knives (in spite of the laddish eejits shoving everyone), oh and the dodgems were fun. More stuff will occur to me.

Bad- food wasn't so great, no cash point (or at least we never found it), the Essex bint who kept shoving her boobs into everyones face and then the joy of coming home to a burgled house. FUN.

Drama!

First year of the festival, and a new site I believe, although of course the same people ran that 2005 TMF festival or whatever it was called.

Got there at 1pm on Saturday, ended up walking through the woods to find the site. Not much signposting around really, apart from one poster on the main road. Not much advertising was done locally either from what I hear. (my mate found out about it through going on Hot Club de Paris's Myspace).

I didn't camp, so don't have a clue about the quality of the facilities there. But queuing for wristband didn't take too long, and it was a lovely location, not too crowded, hardly any queues at bars and tents were usually big enough. Only tents I saw absolutely crammed were for Slow Club and Metronomy.

Great variety of acts, saw lots of artists I wouldn't normally bother to see at gigs. Chrome Hoof and Ulterior were great, Drum Eyes were pretty interesting and DDD in the Experimental Circle Club were a good find on Saturday. There were sound problems there for Futureism v Passeism though.

On the Sunday, Slow Club, Future of the Left, Black Devil and Metronomy were all great to watch. Thought Gang of Four put in a far better performance than Wire though. Another highlight of the weekend was the amazingly hot blonde barmaid at the main bar, please do another shift next year!

Girlcore tent was pretty jokes on the Saturday night. I presume the festival shut down so early on the Sunday night because of licensing/noise issues? It seemed a bit ridiculous to chuck everyone out at 11.30pm out of the arena, when the party could have gone on long into the night. Maybe the weekend could be a Friday/Saturday thing next year?

In terms of value for money, well I got to see 16 acts for £35, which was brilliant. Am definitely going back next year I think.

was seeing 'brigade', a band who slagged my band off in the music press a few months ago, playing in front of 2 men and a dog on the dreadful 'guitar heroes' stage, and showing everybody what a bunch of 3rd division emo nobody sub busted bunch of ballbags they really are.

The music wasn't crap as some people are saying, it was quite niche,
but the line-up isn't a surprise, so why go if you don't like the bands on
offer. My highlights were Violet Violet, Future of The Left, Princehorn Dance School, Johnny Foreigner, Young Knives, The Violets, So So
Modern, Blood Red Shoes. Ipso Facto were different to how I thought they'd be, but very hypnotic and robotic. I liked the new stuff VEGC were playing, but wish they had done more than one song off the album. XX Teens were
fairly enjoyable. WIRE and Gang of Four just drunkenly washed over me. I only walked passed but some of the bands on the guitar hero stage seemed to
be Spinal Tap cliché rock bands. I enjoyed the dancing and décor in the girlcore tent.

Organisation wise the festival was pretty poor, had to wait to get into the campsite Saturday morning and later on it was complete chaos when they first opened up the arena, none of the security or staff had a clue
what was going on and we were shunted between different queues and entrances for at least half an hour. When they did start letting people in staff were completely careless what they did with tickets/ wristbands and I saw people just picking up whole tickets and wristbands and walking off with them. Also people had up to 3 wristbands, with different queues for each, one for camping, one for the arena etc, which didn't seem very efficient at all. I think the organisers kind of got away with it this time because there weren't many people there, but I think the disorganisation would have really started to show if it had been sold out.

Obviously not good for the organisers, but I enjoyed there not being
many people there. It was good to be able to walk straight to the front to watch any of the bands and sit down in front of the main stage and still be able to see. Half the time there did seem to be more people at the side of
the stage than in front of it and half of the crowd was made up of members
of the bands you had just watched and music industry guest list types. And OMG the haircuts - there were A LOT of too cool for school haircuts!

Security generally seemed okay, although they had all deserted the campsite by 8:30 Monday morning, which is a bit worrying.

As for next year - will it go ahead again with the low numbers in attendance? If so, will they still have the same sort of artrock focus - I hope so as I liked that, although I reckon they may go for a more popular appeal to get the numbers up. I'd go again, it certainly wasn't perfect, but felt like a pretty good deal for £45.

Overall, thought Offset was brilliant! Can't comment on the camp site / organisation as was lucky enough to be able to "commute" for both days, but parking was easy and well organised.

It was also the first festival in a long time where I wasn't looking for "fillers" to cover gaps between bands I was keen to see, and on the way stumbled in on Slow Club, Load Click Shoot and The Violets.

Atmosphere was relaxed and friendly, unlike some of the other bigger festivals where there seems to be an undercurrent of alcohol induced simmering violence (!?!) and pints of warm liquid being thrown for "fun".

I hope it was enough of a success to be put on again next year, with the same sort of approach to music and band selection. The fact that all early bird tickets sold out would be one positive sign......