BOA 2018: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly.

[florencethemachine]

The Good

- Poor sound at the main stage. I could barely hear the vocals for Devildrier

Glad the sound guys got something right on the mainstage.

[Methuen]

The motherfuckers camped near us that drove me mad over the weekend. There was one guy who had the worst laugh I have EVER heard. Imagine Jimmy Carr's dying seal laugh but worse, Sounded so false and made my balls crawl into my body. The fool with the acoustic guitar that knew about half a chord and the guys whose entire music collection was a Dio covers album that they played on repeat during the whole weekend.

Were you the guy that shouted (Saturday I think ?) "get a proper laugh for fuck's sake", at about 7AM ? Made me smile over my first beer of the day.

The boys with the speaker were playing Tyketto, Journey, Dio-era Sabbath, Manowar, and actual Dio, you heathen - had a great time with them & their encyclopaedic knowledge of great guitar solos.

I don't suppose you approved of our Sonata Arctica ballads / Manowar DEMON WHIP ! / Motley Crue soundtrack ?

[ScrumpiesVeteran]

music being played through the night at a festival campsite shocker ? You should try sleeping next to the 200 strong "Camp Cannibal Corpse" at WOA a few years ago. CC played 24/7 for 5 days !

[fearoftheduck]

The Good

- The last night (morning technically?) will go down as one of my all time favourite last nights of a festival. Absolute fun nonsense.
-The bands, didn't really see anything I'd call shit other than the Amaranthe guys "banter."
-Watching the crowd for Gojira from the very soggy big wheel
-That yorkshire pudding stall, wasn't the cheapest but was probably best value for food per pound. Special mention to the chorizo and steak pie place. In fact, most of the food was great apart from the usual pishy campsite burger vans.

The Bad

- Fat Franks full volume Dad Rocks style playlist
- Suicidal being so close to Emperor that I missed the start of Emperor and watched way from the side because I was dead, worth it for ST.
-I'm even sure I'll count this as bad because I laughed myself awake but some guy absolutely refusing to go to bed in the tent beside us because he was sorry for being annoying as his friend/girlfriend/whatever told him repeatedly to go to sleep. It would have probably been more irritating if the guy didn't have my name and the more she pleaded with him to sleep, the more it wakened me until I conceded it was time to get up. I hope she woke you to see Wednesday 13 like you so wanted, name brother

The ugly

-That "comedy" show, though hearing a full crowd chanting BOOOORRING made up for it.
- That fucking queue...again! If you make the capacity bigger, adding an extra lane isn't going to improve a thing!
-The poor bastard I found wandering at the back of 5am on Monday without shoes in the mud by the toilets who had his shoes stolen and seemed dazed as absolute fuck (still not sure if he was crying or if it was shivering, either way - fucked). Eventually had to get a Welfare guy to help out after the Samaritans and Security couldn't/wouldn't help. Full power to the Welfare guy who found the chap (who had wandered off), settled him down and made efforts to find where the guy lived despite the fact he was pretty much just repeating "my shoes..where's my shoes? Help me find my shoes". Hopefully he found his bed and shoes!
-Me even today, I don't think I'll ever be well again.

[florencethemachine]

Were you the guy that shouted (Saturday I think ?) "get a proper laugh for fuck's sake", at about 7AM ? Made me smile over my first beer of the day.

The boys with the speaker were playing Tyketto, Journey, Dio-era Sabbath, Manowar, and actual Dio, you heathen - had a great time with them & their encyclopaedic knowledge of great guitar solos.

I don't suppose you approved of our Sonata Arctica ballads / Manowar DEMON WHIP ! / Motley Crue soundtrack ?

Haha Sadly it was not I but I did also hear the unsung hero whom shouted that. We mainly grumbled in silence as I didn't want to dampen his fun.

I'm not sure we are talking about the same guy with the speaker because the guys next to us were playing Corey Taylor's cover of Rainbow in the Dark and Killswitch's cover of Holy Diver as well as some other metal tracks. Didn't hear any Manowar or Journey though. Didn't hear your playlist as it must have been out of my earshot. I was brought up with Trad Metal and love Power Metal so I wouldn't have minded your playlist, as long as it was longer than 5 tracks!

music being played through the night at a festival campsite shocker ? You should try sleeping next to the 200 strong "Camp Cannibal Corpse" at WOA a few years ago. CC played 24/7 for 5 days !

It was mainly during the day it was playing and the lack of variety was what irked me. Years of festival going have given me the superhuman power of sleeping through anything. A magnitude 6 earthquake in Japan being my proudest achievement! As much as I love the Corpse that would have severely tested my resolve!!

[Cassius]

Well that was hell of a fucking weekend. Iv only just remotely recovered after sleep 31 hours over the past 2 days

Good
The Bloodstock atmosphere was great as ever. Always the best time hanging out with the dickheads in my camp and made a shit load of new friends. Already missing partying all night in Midgard

Bands where great with my top 3 stand outs being Alestorm, Bloodbath and Ingested. The Sunday was a bit quiet for my tastes for after a busy Friday/Saturday this was not neccesarily a bad thing as the extra tent/beer time was needed.

The Yorkshire Pudding stand. Some of my friends didnt rate it but fuck me I needed a big plate of stodgy goodness on Sunday night and these guys sorted me right out.

Texas smoker as always filling me with all the dead things.

Proper labels on the ales this year

This might be just because I was utterly fucked every time I went in there but I enjoyed the party tent more this year. There seemed to be a lot more people in there and the theme nights forced some variety on the DJs though they played way to much non metal shit.

Bad
The queue is still a fucking joke. They need to add a shit load more lanes which they could do by widening just the entry point temporarily and then bringing it in sometime later on Thursday

I personally had a much better time with the showers this year getting in without a queue on most days so the increased numbers have improved things but this is mostly because I shower late afternoon where as my friends who shower in the morning still had an insane 2 - 3 hour queue. Bloodstock should look into a communal cold shower area so people who aint bothered by a bit of cold water/nudity can use that instead like a lot of other festivals do.

Not gonna list the weather here as its completely beyond the control of the festival but they could have done with putting down some hay/wood chips in the muddiest areas.

Ugly
Me pretty much every night due to hitting it particularly hard this year. This especially goes for Thursday where I may have started off dressed as a disney princess(Belle) but im pretty sure I ended up a right state and cant remember anything past about 2

[thejamma]

Good
-All the usual things I've taken for granted for the last 6 years; great atmosphere, lovely people, relatively peaceful VIP camping, still has the feel of a small festival
-Contactless payments, especially in the bars
-Sophie stage headliners were all great for me this year
-Movies in the New Blood tent. I didn't watch any this time, but its a good use for the New Blood stage later on
-Jasta's set was much more fun than I expected. Maybe try to get more "..and friends" type special sets in future? Doesn't have to be Jamey, but it was nice to see a mix of musicians playing each other's stuff and having a good time
-Putting those extra cubicles into the toilets area by the Sophie tent
-Decent boxed cider in the Sophie bar. One of the main reasons I go VIP is for better ciders, I might not need to in future!
-Toilets stayed in good condition all weekend. In the arena and VIP camping anyway
-Sound quality; mixed comments on here already, I thought it was more consistent than recent years, especially on the main stage? Might have been less wind

Bad
-VIP goody bag process. It's sensible having it separate from the initial wristband process, but it still feels like it could be a lot smoother and faster
-Personally I thought Nightwish were a bit naff after Judas Priest & Gojira. I like their songs but they seemed to have less energy, less of a show etc.
-Perennial sound clashes and bleed between the main stage and New Blood/Jager stages. Either try to time the slots to avoid clashes (I appreciate slots can run late on the day) or alter the New Blood/Jager stages to reduce the bleed. Or move the Jager stage altogether. Or all three
-Weightlifting. Still feel this is largely a waste of time and space. If its practically free to run I guess its just wasting a bit of arena room, if it is actually costing much money too then definitely get rid. People I spoke to enjoyed the battle reenactments, but nobody had anything good to say about the weightlifting
-Sophie "club" nights. Nice idea, the DJ and music variety made a nice change from the 4DJS.., but the quiz thing was definitely a failed experiment
-Rubbish sorting in the campsites; is recycling actually separated from non? The bins were labelled, but it all seemed to be mixed together

See you all next year!

[houston4044]

The Good

- Poor sound at the main stage. I could barely hear the vocals for Devildrier

Glad the sound guys got something right on the mainstage.

I'm glad i'm not the only one who froze on friday night, I thought it was just me as none of my camp felt it; I just remember my legs and feet being frozen in the middle of the night.

[IrishViking]

Must have left your beer coat at home

[NeglectedField]

Right, trying to keep this short and sweet:

GOOD
- Judas Priest, Emperor, Mr. Big proving they could be good outliers, Watain and Gojira although I don't listen to either, Alestorm despite the fact I can't stand the music. They were an appropriate fit for bill and I can't argue.
- Ever improving selection of food (dat bunny chow tho)
- Ability for VIP ticketholders slumming it in standard camp to mosey on through the big queue to the standard entrance
- VIP beer selection as always
- VIP silent disco (teehee!)
- Toilets not being terrible as they have been before (except that guy who seemed to miss the hole completely in the Serpent's Lair VIP portaloo)
- The burger stall giving me a free unclaimed burger
- Merch/CD stalls as always (big shout out to Mercian Storm)

BAD
- People responding to the rain by retiring to camp and ending up falling asleep in their tents. Rain only spoils a festival if you let it. C'mon, get your waterproofs out and carry on the party! In fact no, the thing with the weather is it's down to your ability to prepare for it
- Ironwood ground being 'ribbed for her pleasure'; my fault for camping on an incline though
- A deterioration in the overall lineup in my very humble opinion, but of course if they're selling more tickets than ever then they're doing something right. It's just it's turning into Download when it should be offering something distinct from it, and as someone said, the New Blood and Sophie stage would be half generic not-quite-death-metal with one of those names that you can just tell they're gonna be shit.
- The annual inevitable instances of shit behaviour from some quarters. It's a festival, this won't go away.
- Dodgems going up in price
- RJD stage sound. Bad enough Emperor were on during the day time.
- Organisers could consider having a few caches of hay ready like Wacken does to cover over the squelchiest areas of mud. Just a thought.

UGLY
- Me, probably.

All I can think of for now.

[bloodofthekings]

BAD
- A deterioration in the overall lineup in my very humble opinion, but of course if they're selling more tickets than ever then they're doing something right. It's just it's turning into Download when it should be offering something distinct from it...

Given the festival is about 1/5th the size of Download, I don't see how you can say it's not offering something distinct from it. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a huge fan of the line-up this year but when your main stage sub-headliners are Emperor, Cannibal Corpse and At the Gates, I don't see how you can compare the line-up to Download.
Just because Fozzy and Devil Driver played I wouldn't say that's cause for panic.

[zombieman]

BAD
- A deterioration in the overall lineup in my very humble opinion, but of course if they're selling more tickets than ever then they're doing something right. It's just it's turning into Download when it should be offering something distinct from it...

Given the festival is about 1/5th the size of Download, I don't see how you can say it's not offering something distinct from it. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a huge fan of the line-up this year but when your main stage sub-headliners are Emperor, Cannibal Corpse and At the Gates, I don't see how you can compare the line-up to Download.
Just because Fozzy and Devil Driver played I wouldn't say that's cause for panic.

I guess its personal preference, I had no interest in any of Emperor, Cannibal Corpse or At The Gates and quite frankly I'm looking at my 2017 shirt I have on today and thinking how much better the lineup was that year.

That said one of the people I went with didn't go in 2017 because he thought the lineup was poor.

I guess that's the point everyone likes different things and over time there's bound to be lineups you don't like and if that means you don't go so be it.

Reality is I've been for the last 10 years but will struggle next year due to already booking a family holiday.

It may be a day ticket for Saturday and/or Sunday depending on if the lineup suits.

[varangian]

The Good:

Good friendly festival- all ages, sexes, races, disabilities, I never saw an ounce of trouble or nastiness
All staff encountered were happy and helpful
Finally seen Judas Priest!
Strongest Sophie line up Ive seen on Friday

The Bad:

The Weather but does it every year

The Ugly: No complaints really, its still a bargain rather than fill Andy Copping`s pockets even more at Brownload

[bloodofthekings]

The Bad:

The Weather but does it every year

So have you not been for the last 3 years where it's been sunshine all weekend?

[Tet]

Ugly
The sight of fully grown men trotting around in mankini's. Not cool. Not funny. Should be banned.

Seriously? You'd genuinely ban the way someone chooses to dress because it offends you in some way? I think your idea of what it means to be a metalhead differs from mine. Live and let live. It's not doing any harm. You don't like it? Fine. But don't stop others from enjoying themselves and ditching societal norms for the weekend at a festival.