Next Announcement

[Jay1993]

As long as the cobwebs are still in the logo I'm happy. Goth af.

Idle Hands' logo has changed on the line-up page to the new Unto Others logo and yes Jay, it's still got cobwebs

Win!

[Green Man III]

Listening to Mask of the Devil and so excited about seeing Savage Master. Quickly becoming one of my new favorite bands!

[bloodofthekings]

Huge news. Fingers crossed.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55145696

[Black Wizard]

Matt Hancock should prioritize anyone who wants to go to Metal gigs for the vaccine.

[metaldinosaur]

I reckon it will be NHS people and old people who get the US vacations. Assuming it all goes ok, most of us will get the more user friendly Oxford vacancie. Hopefully gigs can start by May... fingers crossed.

[Green Man III]

I reckon it will be NHS people and old people who get the US vacations. Assuming it all goes ok, most of us will get the more user friendly Oxford vacancie. Hopefully gigs can start by May... fingers crossed.

US vacations? Oxford vacancie? Did you mean vaccines?

[metaldinosaur]

I reckon it will be NHS people and old people who get the US vacations. Assuming it all goes ok, most of us will get the more user friendly Oxford vacancie. Hopefully gigs can start by May... fingers crossed.

US vacations? Oxford vacancie? Did you mean vaccines?

Yep, vaccines. My bad.

[WorMzy]

Latest update I've seen:

But as the summer progresses and vaccination levels rise, events will become more viable. “The vaccine’s rolling out at an incredibly good speed – we’re quite confident that we’re going ahead,” Greenfield says of Bloodstock, which is due to begin 11 August. “We can adapt so quickly, and we’re so small in comparison [with Glastonbury], we do have the best chance.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/ ... d-covid-19

[metaldinosaur]

Latest update I've seen:

But as the summer progresses and vaccination levels rise, events will become more viable. “The vaccine’s rolling out at an incredibly good speed – we’re quite confident that we’re going ahead,” Greenfield says of Bloodstock, which is due to begin 11 August. “We can adapt so quickly, and we’re so small in comparison [with Glastonbury], we do have the best chance.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/ ... d-covid-19

I really hope so.

[Green Man III]

It's nice to hear something so positive. Happy to hear the update. I was wondering what Bloodstock was thinking for this year. Looks like I should be ready to buy my plane ticket this year and stay excited for this summer.

[Green Man III]

Now, how about some more band announcements?

[phuqsticks]

Latest update I've seen:

But as the summer progresses and vaccination levels rise, events will become more viable. “The vaccine’s rolling out at an incredibly good speed – we’re quite confident that we’re going ahead,” Greenfield says of Bloodstock, which is due to begin 11 August. “We can adapt so quickly, and we’re so small in comparison [with Glastonbury], we do have the best chance.”

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2021/ ... d-covid-19

I really hope so.

It gives me absolutely no pleasure to say that I can't at the moment see any way of Bloodstock going ahead safely in 2021. Even if we take what the government say as gospel, they are currently stating that it will take until the autumn to get every adult in the UK vaccinated. Therefore, there is likely to still be a significant proportion of the population who won't have been immunised and under those circumstances I'm not sure that I will feel safe spending 5 days in August with 20000 friends. I don't just want Bloodstock to happen, I bloody well need it after the shitty last 12 months we've all had, but based on the information currently available, I've no idea of how that can be achieved.

[JPMC]

You have to look at the logic of things.

OK so first of all, let's assume there is no guidance issued by the Government that outright prevents festivals going ahead. There are still very concerning things in that article.

For instance, Ray of Slam Dunk says “The government are going to stop social distancing before the whole population of the UK is vaccinated”. So is the idea that we have vaccinated enough, if someone gets sick we can then afford the hospital bed space to treat them? I like many others would most likely prefer the vaccine than gamble life by going to a festival, picking up Covid and hoping they survive the hospital trip. And if they happen to fall ill with Covid at Bloodstock, well let's just hope Derby's hospitals are ready and waiting for the influx of some boozed up Covidy metalheads!

The next is the concept of event passports. I, like many others, have been sitting on their tickets for two years, just as eager to get down front and cause a ruckus. Are you telling me that if you have a bunch of people who are facing the prospect of not being admitted for lack of a negative Covid test that they won't somehow try and cheat the system? Have you ever seen The Wire, where the guy buys day-care urine in order to pass a drugs test... well let's see what 2+2 equals if that is indeed the case!

Of course, as the article points out, there is the concern of another year of lost revenue. So what could that potentially mean for bloodstock? Well I haven't a clue, but if it was indeed another missed year, if Bloodstock did indeed need to scale back for 2022 I could well imagine punters would be happy with putting up. We don't need an extra day really, we can cope with less bands maybe. At the end of the day, it will help with the festival trying to have as profitable year as possible so future years could be better. While I have no idea whether the likes of Boomtown could expect that from their punters, I feel that Bloodstock could well indeed.

I don't fully agree with Rachel Greenfield's notion that if the Government gives them the green light that punters will flock. While some definitely will and I would wager that they will be at capacity, I would also wager that a lot of people will opt to not go, sell their tickets on or attend at great risk. At the end of the day, we are not going to see the elimination of Covid in 2021. I would say even 2022 is unlikely. Given the amount of people going and thus the likelihood of them spreading to immuno compromised friends and family, I honestly feel most punters will make that connection. In other words, if it is green lit, it could be a great time to pick up a Bloodstock 2021 ticket on the cheap as I reckon there will be a lot of them - mine included if I'm being blunt.

There are two big gigs before then, that being Guns n Roses and Rammstein. My eyes are more on them. If they cancel/reschedule, then I think it's extremely bloody likely that Bloodstock will too!

As a light aside, I fully think Covid is my fault. I've been waiting decades to see Guns n Roses. I was too young to go to gigs when they were around in the 90s, never caught Axl's cover version, I didn't get to that Download where they played, so this would be my first time seeing the all original GnR lineup. I think it's just destined that I am never ever meant to see this band. And thus by buying a ticket, boom worldwide pandemic! So ya, sorry about that!

[Powerslave]

just to throw some numbers out there, a quick Google suggests there are 55 million adults in the UK. It's just shy of 29 weeks to Bloodstock, which means that we would need to vaccinate around 1.9 million people per week to have given everyone at least one dose by then. we're currently well over that figure.
so assuming that a) we can maintain the current numbers and b) nothing unforseen happens regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine, i really don't think it's unrealistic to think it could happen.

[phuqsticks]

just to throw some numbers out there, a quick Google suggests there are 55 million adults in the UK. It's just shy of 29 weeks to Bloodstock, which means that we would need to vaccinate around 1.9 million people per week to have given everyone at least one dose by then. we're currently well over that figure.
so assuming that a) we can maintain the current numbers and b) nothing unforseen happens regarding the effectiveness of the vaccine, i really don't think it's unrealistic to think it could happen.

Your figures for total number of adults aren't too far out. The population of the UK is between 66 and 67 million. I've seen a figure of 12 million children in England alone; i'm not sure what the number is for the UK as a whole. As of the close of play yesterday (23/01/2021) 6353321 people had received a vaccination. The first person in the UK to receive a vaccine did so on 08/12/2020. Therefore if we round the number of weeks the programme has been running, the average number of people vaccinated per week currently stands at 1058887 per week.

Clearly, as more venues are pressed into service as vaccination hubs, capacity will increase and we will get somewhere closer to the promised 1.9 million per week mentioned above. However, we are talking about 2 separate decisions to be made; Bloodstock deciding whether they are going ahead this year and ticket holders deciding whether they want to attend. The former decision is likely to be made by the end of May at latest, as that is when Bloodstock have to start paying suppliers. I don't envy them one bit, as I find it hard to comprehend how they will at that time be able to say with absolute certainty that it will be safe for 20000 people to gather in one place 2/3 months ahead and that social distancing will no longer be a thing. I as a ticket holder will have a lot longer to make my decision, but I stick by my evaluation outlined in the earlier post, namely that my current feeling is that it unlikely that I will feel safe enough to attend the event.