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I might leave Jeff Mills at 3.30 to even stand a chance of seeing 30m of Levon

I'm not convinced, but I'm sure it'll be great either way. Think people with those express tickets will get in ahead of anyone else.

who Lekker and Black Amiga are? Sat in Laderaum. Not on the listings. I only ask because I may camp in there in preparation for Oneohtrix.

http://soundcloud.com/experimedia/lakker-arc-ep-album-preview

he's down as playing

that he went to the site yesterday for the free festival that was on and it was very very dusty to the point where he struggled to see anything at one point. Bit worrying.

Muddy yes, but not dusty...

Friday heavy, slow moving and thundery showers. Saturday rain or showers, after perhaps starting largely dry.

http://allthingsterrordanjah.wordpress.com/2012/07/02/london-pleasure-gardens-ahead-of-bloc-weekend-2012/

:)

you can track ships an' shit. i never knew you could do this. i find this quite cool. Block just tweeted the live stubnitz tracker.

http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/default.aspx?mmsi=211218820&zoom=10&type_color=9

Most of the moaning seems to have been from people who popped down expecting a green landscaped garden and found a building site.

Sure, it'd be nice if it was hot, sunny and green but they've still not had all of their grant yet and this was always going to be a long term project. In terms of the look of it, the venues are in place and most of the negative comments seem to say things like 'It's more like a rave site than a green space' and 'Half the site was shut off because it's being saved for Bloc'. Which suit me fine.

Probably best we don't all worry until we get there.

The things that are a tad more concerning are the group deleting negative comments, potentially planting good ones and some of the comments regarding long entry queues and facilities. But hopefully that's an issue that LPG have caused as oppsoed to Bloc themselves, who have a pretty impeccable track record.

Could only really choose one day because of work and stuff and in the end Shackleton swung it for me.

anyone got ideas? is there a unifying act we can all agree on seeing? I mean, I've got a big group of pals going but it's always nice to meet with disfolk, even just by the bar in between DJs.

Pumped.

but do we know what beers and other delicious alcoholic beverages they will be selling?

fingers crossed!

getting very excitable

but now I have to work. Who wants to help?

3. Will there be any more surprise performances from people who are not on the lineup?

Yes.

Hmmm... any rumours doing the rounds?

Now all the Friday tickets are gone :(((((

Gutted. Guess I might have some luck on ebay/gumtree.

Pretty rainy...

a friend has been a right doofus and asked me to buy two tix for today then her friend has bailed. now in possessing of a spare ticket for today only. £60 is what I paid - I absolutely guarantee Im not trying to rip anyone off (ask littlebirds!)

message me on here ASAP if keen

If people still need them.

https://www.facebook.com/blocwknd

If anyone has spare, PM me. Many thanks!

Genuinly so excited for tomorrow. I've been wanting to see Jeff Mills for so long.

If Field Day gets a caning on here, this one is gonna get crucified...

This is an utter clusterfuck so far.

https://twitter.com/RiccardoTr/status/221350277360529408/photo/1/large

Going round twitter that it's been closed by the police?

Stuck in the RA tent cos if I leave I probably will get stuck outside on my own. Apparently half the festival is closed off, can't confirm that but the boat is definitely shut. Music is fucking quiet, all I can hear is people talking. Dread to think what will happen when Snoop finishes and everyone piles out of the main stage. Complete nightmare basically.

And forcing people to leave. Some people are getting angry buy to be honest, I don't blame them. People are still turning up and the crowds are getting dangerous.

Rumour is the website is organising refunds. The police also said they will probably close and lock down the site tonight.

Field day was never this bad and I've been to five of those. Looks like I made the right choice to leave early. The original plan was to make a night of it and get the first train in the morning.
It was obviously way over sold. Couple this with incompetent organisation and the night was a joke. Queued for 30 mins to get in to the main stage( would have been longer but I made friends with people near the front) and once I got in it wasn't even half full. No need for queues like that .Was there for 5 hours and managed to see about an hour of music.I have a weekend ticket but not sure if I can be arsed going to queue tomorrow. If it's been shut down tonight will it actually happen tomorrow?
I don't do this often but I'm so angry I'm going to tweet something mean about them. That will show them!

Oooooof.
https://www.facebook.com/events/231067446977296/

I'm not coming here tomorrow. I'm not prepared to put my girlfriend or myself at risk like that again.

The atmosphere on site wasn't actually thy bad but I think thy was because everybody could see the problems happening from the moment they arrived. It was no shock.

At 9 the tents were full, but the outside areas were full. I could accept not seeing certain people and staying in one venue, but then so many people were stuck on the same situation that it all got a bit too close and scary.

Whoever set the capacity and ticket numbers needs to take responsibility were Bloc told a number and naively followed it?

the time for that ATP statement!

As long as I get my money back it'll be alright I guess, fucking awful organisation though and a real shame.

Someone massively over promised. We were all concerned that 15,000 into 3 tents don't go but beyond that, the system to get in was barmy. Security lost control, people were selfish and broke down barriers and at one point I was unable to move or touch the floor let alone get out.

Couldn't give a shit about the money or bands to be honest. At one point I was genuinely concerned that some people might not get out alive. Helps that I'm tall but loads of shorter people getting crushed were having panic attacks. Hence why after half hour of the crowd pleading to be let out/in they then let us all in meaning people with day tickets were given weekend passes. If it does go ahead tomorrow (it won't) it'll just happen all over again.

could have something to do with the overcrowding. Glad I resisted the temptation to make the trip down!

Queues for everything inside, massive queue for main arena when we got in, spoke to security guard who said it was running an hour behind schedule so walked a really long way to floating cocktail bar (played on laptops -highlight of festival!) went back across to main arena and saw some of DOOM, left only to find massive queue outside. Started to queue for ship only to hear that it was now being closed for the night - this was 11.30pm ish. Eventually made it into the Hub, sound was awful. Left there to find a police cordon outside, spoke with a policeman who told me that apparently people had forced their way into the site because got frustrated with queuing - not surprising there was a really bad crush when I'd been queuing with people jumping over the fences - they told me it would be shut down within the next hour so I left. Worst festival ever.

that the vibe amongst the people there was very friendly and good natured considering what went on. thank fuck for that; can only imagine what it'd be like if it had been a rowdy more drunken crowd.
sounds like some kind of proper disaster has been narrowly avoided.

Crushes seem to be happening far too often recently....needs to stop. Do they seriously just overestimate the capacity of these things? - a similar catastophe nearly happened at Shangri La for last years glasto - too many people trying to squeeze through one queue for one event

from my perspective, there were clearly too many people for the smaller stages, the main one was the only one close to being easy to get into... if LPG told Bloc the capacity was bigger than was the case they need to be sued, but at the same time it's hard to believe Bloc thought they had the infrastructure there for 15,000 people if they'd actually thought about it.

Hour and a half queue to get in, most of which involved standing looking at the entrance and not being allowed in. No communication from security and a massive police presence made me fear the worst. Managed to see Shackleton but everything after that was one big queue. Bailed when we heard the mainstage wasn't reopening and managed to get the last DLR back.

And even more sorry for you poor sods who went down with the ship yesterday.

http://www.dummymag.com/news/2012/07/07/bloc-shut-down/

That the security stopped scanning tickets and people were just grabbing handfuls of wristbands. What an utter mess!

on route down to london now for this festival now, so freaking stoked!

who's going?!

then the article picture was just a pissed guy dressed as a banana.

Some peoplel need to look at themselves too.

People pushing, littering, throwing beer cans over their shoulder, pissing inside tents, breaking down barriers, barging through emergency exits, grabbing handfuls of wristbands on the way in for mates, abusing the police, one 19 year old twat nearly getting decked for abusing a bunch of blokes for what they were wearing...

I know extreme situations bring out mob mentality but some Londoners are utter pricks.

All the complaints that were posted on their Facebook page before they deleted them. http://twitpic.com/a4pei0

As I queued for a mere 40 mins and managed to see a few things (Shackleton, Ama Tobin, Pinch) - once we saw the boat was closed we sensed trouble and left to get the DLR. So glad we left when we did. What an utter shambles.

LONDON METROPOLITAN ELITE FESTIVAL.

:'(

Arrived at 4pm thinking it would have been open at 2pm but there was a huge queue. We were express tickets and somehow managed to be 3rd/4th in the whole festival just by walking up to the gate and saying we had Express tickets. The fact that there was ONE sniffer dog worried me in terms of how they were going to handle 15,000 peoplk. The first security guard we encountered forewarned us, "These guys don't know what they're doing".

We went straight to the ship as we thought it would be crowded but it was cordoned off. They suddenly removed the barrier and let us through but there was one security guard stopping a bloke saying it wasn't open for another hour AS THEY LET OTHER PEOPLE PAST?! The man said, "The organiser told me to meet him at the Stubnitz" and the guard turned around and realised it was open. Complete lack of communication.

Got onto the Stubnitz which was an AWESOME venue. There was no cider at the bars even though the festival should have opened 3 hours beforehand. They began to carry on crates of cider so my mate bought one. Saw Pinch, went to get another cider but the head barman said Bloc had told them to stop selling cans of cider so he had to empty all of the fridges despite some poor sods carrying all these crates on. Bizarre. There was already a massive queue for the ship at 6pm despite the Lauderam being basically empty inside. Accepted that probably wouldn't get back onto the ship that night as there was still probably 75% of the crowd to even arrive on site.

Bumped into a friend who had a Press pass. He said they had him down on the list but had run out of actually press access ID so they would ring him later when they found one - he wasn't best pleased!

Looked into the Carharrt(sp?) Dome - the sound was abysmal. I could have a proper conversation with my friend at normal speaking volume without struggle. Started talking to a bloke who complained to the sound guy - he said the sound guy said it was a joke himself and they were going to have to turn it down FURTHER at 11pm to comply with noise regulation where I assume it would have been little more than background music.

Got caught into a dangerous funnel getting into the RA tent to see Nicolas Jaar and the poor security guards just didn't have a clue/queue system to let everyone in. There was a huge crowd gathering as people were coming out of the tent and shouting "It's empty inside!". They were right - huge surge to finally get in and nobody inside. Also the official guide timings were wrong! Tried to see Steve Reich at 7.25ish and he'd finished despite it saying 6pm-8pm.

Stayed for DMZ - Mala visibly pissed off as there's a 15min delay because the decks won't work. MC kept talking of sub but there was little to no bass on the soundsystem effectively making their sound redundant. Met a mate who told us of the horror stories at the entrance. Bumped into a conversation between Appleblim and a punter who was praising his set. "Are you going to see Shackleton?" Appleblim's response - "I don't even know if I'll be allowed in myself". All this in front of a dangerously cramped queue developing to the toilets at the back of the Carharrt dome despite there being plenty of available toilets.

Just gave up and went to the main stage - people just pushing to the front and pushing past security at the express entrance in the queue to get in. Absolute no order - the poor guard just let random people in when it got too much. Waited with everyone else for Snoop and when that announcement came on got seriously worried that were would be a riot. Fair play to the crowd - I didn't see much more that boos and a few bottles. I think everyone had just given up and had no energy to kick up a fuss so made their way out. Hung around - walked past security guards who let us into restricted areas for no reason as we were looking for somewhere to sit. Some guards told us to go back to a stage and "enjoy ourselves" despite the bloke with a megaphone telling us to leave.

Now, we made friends with a guy later on at a hotel who knew the organisers and told us that despite setting up Snoop's equipment they knew they'd lost it at 11pm and there would be no intention of letting anymore acts play. If that's true then that's appalling - letting us stay another 1hr 45mins and potentially having a riot on our hands. He even said there was a rumour that they told Snoop to not even leave his hotel room and he shouldn't bother.

I suppose the whole point is that from the very first minute no-one seemed to know what was going on. We could forgive the cider/wrong wristbands as teething problems but these small problems just seemed to escalate as the night went on until the inevitable. There just didn't seem to be any communication between organisers and security and they didn't know how to manage the crowd flows into tents.

Indicative of the whole event - after receiving the wrong wristbands we went up to a girl with a walkie talkie and a Bloc t-shirt and asked how to change our wristbands. She got out a map, said she didn't who was best to talk to and that she was guessing where the production office was on site. Eventually a steward just walked up to the entrance and just grabbed the right wristbands out of a bag and bought them to us.

Appalling.

are there any fallback events happening? All those acts in London at a loose end, is anyone putting anything on?

http://yfrog.com/ntzh0ndj

were banging out 'True to Myself' by Villalobos when we passed, I think.

worried for Bloc. refunding everyone is going to be damaging.

But given that the Pleasure Gardens' whole opening hasn't exactly gone well in the last few weeks, this all feels like it was somehow inevitable. Bloc should probably have been a lot wiser following the complaints and "teething problems" last weekend, particularly given that it was widely reported that much of the site wasn't open yet and the DLR couldn't cope and the site entrances weren't big enough.

To me, it looks like they took a big gamble and it's backfired on them pretty badly

I'm in shock at this, it seems to have gone worse than anyone could possibly have imagined. Feel very for all the people coming from outside London (and the UK) especially. As the facts appear to stand, this has been basically negligent and they surely won't get consent to put on any major events ever again?

is playing XOYO tonight, £5 FYI

they'll have insurance to cover cancellation - though it could take a while. When beacons was cancelled at the last minute last year the messages they were sending out implied the insurance would take a while to pay out though. That was due to weather though, not sure what the deal is if they've massively messed up themselves

artists in this thread :)

Worst thing about the last 24hrs is the lack of communication from the organisers. You would expect much more than a not apologising post from who lives entertaining PEOPLE.

In regards to getting in, I arrived around 5-6ish and had to queue for around an hour. The mood was good and things seemed to be going smoothly. Got in and the site looked great, plus there were few queues for bars etc, although it was already very busy in the hub and there was a lengthy queue for the Subnitz. Had a scout around before joining the queue to get on the boat. Took around half an hour as by that point it was already one in one out. Best decision I made all afternoon. One of the biggest shames is that so many people won't have been able to see it. Incredible space and the sound was fantastic. Spent a couple of hours or so in the bow of the boat at the boiler room secret showcase where Xhin and Ben Sims came on and Richie Hawtin was supposedly coming on to do a set a bit later. We decided to head out however around 8/9 ish to meet a friend and that's where the evening ended. Came out to find a massive scrum of people fighting to get on, pushing down the metal barriers and jumping onto the quayside. Security looked like they had no idea what to do.

Met the friend before attempting to head to the hub, where we joined a massive scrum to get in which didn't move for about 20 mins. Did eventually manage to get in only to find it insanely busy (durr)and the sound muddy at best. Decided to fight our way out, finding hundreds of people forcing their way in through the exit. At that point people at the boat were being informed that the boat was being shut and wouldn't reopen again, with police starting to appear. After a bit more standing around deliberating what to do it was then the barrier started going up between the acide waltzers and the main area and things looked like they were rapidly going down the pan.

Shortly after that was when the main arena started to pile out after finding out snoop would be a no show, with people rushing out quickly trying to find other bits to go to and that's when it decended into chaos. After much standing around we finally headed for the exit and ended up walking round to ExCel to get a night bus.

Such a shame and i'm bitterly disappointed. Incredible line up and potentially fantastic site marred by poor events management and massive over subscription. Half the number of attendees would have probably only just been manageable. Of course it is the first time they have done it there and there were always going to be teething problems but it was pretty clear from even before the festival (and much discussed on here, although I didn't really want to speculate on it) that the capacity of the venues was not going to be sufficient to deal with the alledged numbers of people going, especially as there were few places outside the tents/boat where people could just sit, or listen to outdoor music. Such a disappointment, and it looked so glorious when we arrived in the evening sun on the DLR!

Oneohtrix Point Never (live) - 11pm
Factory Floor (Electronic Set) (live) - 10pm
Blanck Mass (live) - 9pm
Andy Hung (Fuck Buttons) (DJ Set) - 8pm

Plus a host of special guest DJs TBA over two rooms from midnight

Doors 8pm-3am, £5 OTD until 11pm, TBC after

Spead the word

Steve Reich ensemble were brilliant
Nicolas Jaar was brilliant
Amon Tobin visually was INCREDIBLE
And DOOM was great as per

Even though we had no personal incidents or saw any, you could tell it was so poorly run. Really makes you think about why other festival organisers make artist clashes.

everyone doing these fallout nights would give up their 'super secret guests' – I'm sat at home stuck trying to decide between three events!

is at Rhythm Factory

Hyperdub night? Flylo heavily rumoured...

XOYO at 1.30
Rhythm Factory at 3(ish)

was really looking forward to seeing Oneohtrix this weekend too so I'm all over that.

https://twitter.com/jacquesgreene/status/221624417350991874/photo/1

GO SOUTH LONDON

gis a wave, DiSers.

Met up with a friend today to debrief from yesterday's horror story. As he moved into the tent for Snoop Dogg he spoke to a "security guard" and mentioned what a nightmare he might be having, The "guard" told him that this wasn't his job and he was told to don a flourescent bib to control the crowd even though he was from the PRODUCTION TEAM. Poor bloke.

Bloc was billed as a "Dystopian nightmare of sorts," right?

we were first in line for the Hyperdub night. tracking down nights over Twitter was great fun. considered XOYO, realised the two big Peckham nights were too far away, then heard about the Hyperdub one just down the road :o ...and I figured FlyLo would end up at the hd night, which turned out to be correct.

just got back, couldn't handle any more of the heat. Ikonika and Bok Bok, Cooly G, FlyLo, fucking great. Kode9's new tune is also a monster.

http://www.factmag.com/2012/07/08/met-police-bloc-issues-not-due-to-over-ticketing/

Just want to say a massive thank you to the artists, management, venues and punters who managed to salvage something from the wreckage of this year's Bloc. Seeing Blank Mass, Factory Floor, Oneohtrix Point Never, Darkstar, Flying Lotus et al all for £5 was pretty unbeatable. You're all brilliant.

http://www.blocweekend.com

'It was a massive fuckup, but a dream bill. We still had fun and there's talk of refunds so might get to have seen Amon Tobin and Nico Jaar for free :-))'

sounds alright really

still pretty gutted about Bloc but made the most of the weekend.

Got down there at 14:15, gates didn't open till almost 16:30 which was a pain, especially as the whole queue was disregarded and we ended up behind people who had turned up 5 minutes ago, but still the sun was shining and the day looked promising.

Went straight to Stubnitz for the first hour, brilliant venue, it was already rocking at 5pm as we watched Deadboy (i think). People were already queueing to get on at 17:45 when we left and it was nowhere near full.

Good points:
Saw Steve Reich, Amon Tobin, Midland and Xhin.
The giant light board penis people made on the way to the floating cocktail place (anyone have a picture?)
I think overall we did pretty well musically and glad we got to board Stubnitz.

The bad: pretty much 9pm onwards
People people everywhere. A few more friends arrived and said the entrance had been stormed and people were just rushing through, ripping up fences, snatching handfuls of wristbands. I know it said crowdsurge on the tickets but come on...

We decided to get onto the boat and stay there til Joy O/Jackmaster, but no. The queue to get on was obscene but seemed to be moving and people were getting on and off so we stuck it out for half an hour. Got to somewhere near the burger van on the left hand side before all hell broke lose, never seen anything like it, people just mindlessly pushing despite shouts and screams from people to stop, absolute cuntish behaviour. We had to climb over the barrier to stop getting crushed ourselves, felt fear for the people down at the very front near the herras fencing that just buckled as people trampled to get further forward, absolute cunts, they could clearly see what their actions were doing but carried on regardless, am still angry now thinking about it. That was it after that, we managed to get out and regroup. My gf and some other mates decided that was that and left, a few of us decided to stick it out in the RA hub for the rest of the night, until it was (thankfully) shutdown.

Ended up going to Cable and having a pretty good night. Saturday at XOYO was great too so at least something was salvaged from the weekend.

Just glad nobody was seriously injured and it looks like we'll be getting refunds.

Was justing reading some of the comments upthread and people were airing concerns about capacity a week or two ago. There just wasn't room for 15,000 people and it was a real shame it all went tits up because it had the potential to be incredible.

HIGHLIGHTS

- The XOYO show... Obviously. The line up was fully ridiculous - Blanck Mass, Oneohtrix Point Never & Factory Floor Live, with DJ sets from Andrew Hung, Darkstar, Oneman and Flying Lotus. To be fair, I can't imagine having had much of a better night at a properly organised Bloc festival.

There was 3 or 4 cracking Bloc replacement parties on across London, which really is one of the most heart-warming displays of affection I've ever seen from a group of artists towards their fans. FlyLo was clearly stoked to be there, playing to a crowd hanging on every beat & drop, supported on stage by a bunch of mates, DJs, a surprise hype man (The Weeknd) and bizarre celebrities (Venus Williams, anyone?).

Obviously, this is no comfort to the thousands who couldn't make these events, but I think the artists who played did themselves proud.

- Steve Reich was great apart from the loud chitter-chatter of the crowd, and Amon Tobin's ISAM set was an awesome spectacle... the sound was pretty spot on too.

- DiS's SCROTUM who went out of his way to buy a weekend ticket for a complete stranger, and reminded me that among the bitter trolls there are some pretty cool peeps on here.

LOWLIGHTS

- All of the above and more really. No refund will cover the costs for the girl I met who flew over from Sydney to the festival, or hundreds of others in similar positions.

Regardless of whether we all get refunded, nothing will make up for the bitter disappointment of missing some of the acts on that line up, especially those who rarely/never play in the UK.

On top of everything, the London Pleasure Gardens is truly a horrible venue, I'm sure the OP didn't realise how apt his prophecy of a dystopian nightmare would be. Little more than a few fairground rides, tents, and a shit dome dumped in the mud by the docks. I'd urge any non-goers not to attend any future events there, even if it isn't sold out to twice the appropriate capacity.

Ooh I don’t know, what did I do today? We kind of get up late and probably go for a stroll down by the canal in Hackney Wick, and then it’ll probably be time for some lunch, so go and have some lunch and talk about what we did at the weekend and music, that sort of thing. Answer the phone, shout at each other – we bicker a lot, probably bicker and argue about money, disagree with each other’s decisions that have been made over the weekend on email. Then it’ll probably be time for another walk, might get to the office for the first time by about 3.30pm, go on Facebook for a little bit and then fuck it off and go to the pub at about 5.30pm or something.

(Laughs) That sounds a lot of fun, I’m sure there’s a lot more hard work in it than that but yeah.

(Laughs)

https://www.facebook.com/blocwknd/posts/10151090252748023

And it got me thinking that who would allow them to put one on?

For instance Mendip County Council have said that they will never grant a license to Glastonbury with Eavis as the licensee so they have to get someone of the calibre of Melvin Benn to do it as they're staking their professional reputation on adhering to the terms of the license.

After Friday, who would give Bloc a license for an event

Here's how it went for me:

- Got there around 6pm, immediately shocked at the length of the queue. Having paid extra for Express we went down to where the express entrance was marked on the map, only to find no such thing. Eventually decided to leave the massive queue that had formed and go ask at the main entrance - good thing we did as it turned out Express people could go straight through so we didn't queue at all. Single sniffer dog smelling each person individually seemed a bit ridiculous, and the bag searches seemed to be taking way too long as well. Already obvious it was poorly organised.
- Once in we thought we'd have a wander and see what was going on. Already a queue for the Stubnitz, so decided to come back later. RA Hub seemingly not open yet with a huge queue. Express bar all the way on the other side of the 'gardens' - what kind of idiot thought that could qualify as an 'Express' bar? Also no express toilets to be seen anywhere. Girlfriend reported that the toilets were already disgusting and there was no toilet paper, despite it still only being 6.30pm. Bought some overpriced 'cocktails' at the Ableton bar. Very little alcohol, and stupidly sweet. No other cocktails available.

- No sign of Bloc tv - anyone see them? It was supposed to be by the Silo D thing...

- Went and caught the end of Steve Reich. Didn't really see enough to comment. Finished a lot earlier than scheduled, especially as the stage was seemingly not even open when he was due to start.

- Decided to queue for the Stubnitz as there was nothing else going on, got in after about 20 mins. Queue still fairly calm. Boat was awesome - plenty of space inside too. Both dancefloors quite empty. Saw some of Redinho and a bit of Midland, then decided to head out in good time for Amon Tobin.

- Huge queue outside the Stubnitz now, as well as a huge queue to get into the main arena.

- Grabbed some food (decent enough) and then decided to wait in line for Amon Tobin. Once we got to the front a steward came and shouted at us that we were in the wrong line and Express people go straight in. Why there was no-one going down the line saying that I don't know, and it was also never mentioned before the festival that express would get you to skip queues for stages.

- Amon Tobin was amazing.

- Queues apparently still crazy to get into the main arena. Next thing we really wanted to see was Snoop, but thought we would go catch some DMZ/Shackleton at the RA Hub first now we knew we could skip the queue with our Express tickets.

- Crazy scrum-style queue to get into the Hub now. Security hardly letting anyone in, lots of people at the edges jumping the barriers or pushing past. Security seemingly not bothered about stopping these people, instead concentrating on shouting at the people trying to queue to get in. Got pretty hectic for a bit - my girlfriend was getting properly squashed and starting to panic. Luckily they then let enough people in that we managed to get through.

- Once in it was obvious there was still loads of room for moer people. Was maybe 75% full. Sound pretty muddy, weren't really feeling it so decided to go back to Main Arena for Doom.

- Huge queues to get in Main Arena now. Went around to get in the Express entrance, only to be told to get lost by the security there. Spoke to several people, who all said different things (i.e. try over there, go over to the exit, etc). After 10 mins of frustration some people decided to push through the barrier, so we took the opportunity and used that as a distraction to sneak through ourselves at the other side.

- Doom was ok, just sat down at the back for a while to rest up ahead of Snoop.

- They started setting up Snoop's stage show, so we got a spot in the middle-ish and waited. And waited. And waited. Didn't seem that packed from where we were - we could certainly move around a bit if we wanted to - it wasn't crammed. Eventually (I guess around 12.30 or so?) someone from Bloc came out to say Snoop wouldnt perform, and the main stage was closed.

- Fearing a panic we though best to wait for the inevitable surge out to the other stages to die down and waited out the side by the toilets for a bit. By the time we left the main arena it was obvious the whole thing was shutting down. We had already heard the Stubnitz had been closed due to tilting (!?!) and the Hub was still rammed. Large line of police separating the main arenas from the entrance/bars area, but they let me through to get out coats. One steward we spoke to said a girl had been gang-raped in the main area, which seemed unlikely at the time, and now seems almost certainly untrue.

- Once we were out it was a matter of trying to navigate the chaos and get home. Missed the last DLR, so it was taxi or shuttle bus. Figured we would wait for the shuttle bus, but it got really chaotic for a while. Police/stewards really struggling to contain and organise the crowds.

- Went and chilled with some friends at a nearby hotel for an hour or so while the crowds died down, then went back to find it pretty much the same. Eventually got on a bus to liverpool st, made it home for 4.30.

This is probably super-long, but I thought it could be useful to get our experiences and perceptions out there to help piece together what happened over the night. Didn't make it to any replacement parties as we were knackered from the stresses of Friday, and figured everywhere would be rammed and didn't fancy the hassle.

then I genuinely hope that the promoters never run an event again. It needed about half of the amount of people who'd actually managed to make it through the gates, forget the thousands left outside them - you can't expect the majority of people to stand like sardines outside the venues not watching music. That isn't what anyone pays for and it isn't fair. Clueless.

And that's exactly all it was, a path, where obviously there was ridiculous queues on no room to maneuver. Absolutely ludicrous, there was no sort of 'chill' area to begin with even if it hadn't had been momentously overpopulated.

And again as I said about clashes up there, there just wasn't enough for the amount of people.

I feel like one of the lucky few who actually saw 4 acts who I really enjoyed, and saw no stampedes or aggro whatsoever. I think the majority of people saw 1 act at best.

Print your own souvenir Bloc festival ticket thanks to CrowdSurge's handy complete lack of encryption: http://www.crowdsurge.com/et-TicketBarcodeBig.php?code=847042 (just change the code number in the URL to one you fancy...)

I'm sure in many places they said that the Resident Advisor Hub stage was "The Hub Stage from Glastonbury" - I've not actually been to Glastonbury for years but the pictures I found of the Hub - http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/areas/shangri-la/the-hub http://www.pfevents.com/case-studies/client/glastonbury-festival-2010 - look very different to the relatively small tent they had at Bloc. Also - at what point do we think LPG told Bloc that the bridge to the floating cocktail bar wouldn't be there? It's still shown in the artists impressions on the LPG site http://londonpleasuregardens.com/site/the%20site/

bloc2012@baselogic.net

Going to be fun reading for someone at Bloc.

And there's an updated statement on - www.blocweekend.com

they probably just think itd be easier to get some vaguely sensible replies from people who take the time to email. Not some guy who think they owe him £700 etc.

had a good weekend, but fucking hell what a waste. hyperdub night was really cool. fair play to kode 9 and everybody else involved.

they said they'd give refunds though didn't they?
have a lot of friends who were shafted because of this.

http://thequietus.com/articles/09321-bloc-statement-ticketing-provider-crowdsurge

A few points to pick up on...

1. Bloc had set a daily capacity of 18,000 not the 15,000 they advertised on their site
2. 15,796 Friday tickets were sold - if we assume that these are only the paid for tickets and do not include artist passes / complimentary tickets / press passes etc then there were likely well in excess of 16,000 tickets distributed
3. The entrance gate was shut at 9.27pm by which point 8,000 people had been admitted (plus whoever went in the press and artists entrances) - I was inside the festival at this point and it was already very crowded with long queues for all the stages - that's with only 8,000 people on site
4. Scanners did not break and they don't suspect a high level of fraudulent tickets

So I think we're getting closer to the real answer of what happened - they basically sold way too many tickets for the capacity of the stages and were either working on an assumption that the stages could hold more people or that a very high proportion of festival attendees would not be in a stage at a given point.

The 30,000 capacity of the LPG site mentioned in the statement seems somewhat irrelevant when all of the music was inside - it's essentially like saying the area around Wembley Stadium can accommodate 250,000 people so let's sell them all tickets and hope they don't mind that only 90,000 at a time can watch the football.

http://thequietus.com/articles/09308-bloc-festival-london-pleasure-gardens

The whole thing sounds like a massive clusterfuck. Hope those who did have tickets do get refunds