Post by Admin on Sept 3, 2013 10:49:29 GMT
Found this on philtheone.co.uk
IT COULDN’T really have gone much worse for Marketing Blackpool boss Natalie Wyatt in the last couple of weeks. Her headline act pulls out of the Switch On just 48 hours before they were due on stage, and even when one of the UK’s biggest artists came to the rescue hardly anyone turned up to actually watch the show. Then on Saturday there was a long, drawn out event devoid of atmosphere where the main act didn’t appear until over three and a half hours after the event started.
Peter Taylor, one of the organisers of the massive Lytham Proms weekend event, has slaughtered Blackpool Council for what he called shambolic organisation. The man behind the Switch On (according to himself) – Councillor Graham Cain - rebuked this and claimed 20,000 people were there over the two days, inferring a success. This site does not believe these figures for a second. Cain then went on a diversionary rant suggesting that Taylor was only criticising the event because he was not involved in it.
I like Councillor Cain, but the fact that he is picking fights in the media with professionals and telling them they are wrong does his credibility no favours whatsoever, particularly when he is so blatantly wrong himself. Cain went on to blame the government’s cuts, which is quite ridiculous. Were there cuts last year? Yes. Was the event better? Yes. Were there cuts the year before? Yes. Was the event better? Yes.
An emergency services worker who attended both events claimed that the Friday was one of the quietest events they had been to and estimated a turnout of just 2,500 for Gary Barlow who, in January this year, sold out the 3,000 capacity Blackpool Opera House in a couple of hours. I went to the Madness gig and I will tell you about that a little bit later on.
Ticketing problems
The cost of the tickets for the Switch-On was a sticking point for many residents and Marketing Blackpool knew it. But Marketing Blackpool made things much worse for themselves through their own desperation.
In the run up to the event, the 10 percent booking fee was waived and free hoodies were offered to try and coax more people into buying a ticket. After the Script fiasco - mocked by Suggs on Saturday suggesting that the excuse they gave was weak – incentives were being pushed to the point of giving punters a ticket to Madness for free in order to attract people to go to the Friday event. As someone who had a ticket for Madness (£20), I received an email from Visit Blackpool on the Thursday offering me the Friday event for an additional £14, which made the cost of the whole weekend just £34. This was the same cost as a ticket for Friday only. So if you only bought Friday (£34) you felt cheated. If you bought a combined ticket (£45) you felt cheated. If you bought any of the ‘VIP’ tickets you felt cheated.
This was really, really bad form from Natalie Wyatt and her Marketing Blackpool cronies. However, it gets (possibly) worse.
This site has heard a rumour that at approximately 7.30pm on the Friday tickets to see the Switch-On were being handed out for free to people on the street. If true, this not only reeks of desperation but makes anyone who did pay feel like they have been mugged by Blackpool Council (especially by Councillor Cain and Natalie Wyatt who until now have gone to great lengths to emphasise their own involvement in the Switch-On). This site would not be surprised to see the council resorting to these kind of propaganda measures to avoid photographs in the media showing a very thin crowd at the event and prompting criticism. Unfortunately one such photo has appeared, taken from the top of Blackpool Tower.
2013 Switch-On
To give some idea of the layout, the entrance to the venue was way off the right hand side of the picture. Next to the entrance (not shown) was a large bar. The small tents on the right hand side at the top were promoting Jet2, I heart BPL and other naff stuff. The medium sized tent at the top was another bar. The larger one to the left of it was the VIP tent. The stage is on the left and in the middle is a gantry with spot lighting on and a screen on the back. The row of small white blobs along the bottom is the toilets.
Saturday 31st August – Madness
Madness isn’t really my era but for twenty quid I thought I would give it a go.
I used both the bus service and the tramway to get to the event. The bus was over 10 minutes late because of congestion en route, presumably caused by the Promenade being closed. The tram was packed with most people on board of an age whereby they would not be paying. The tram was nice inside; I was surprised as I expected them to have been ransacked by now.
Upon arriving at the Tower Headland venue at approximately 1.45pm, it was apparent that it was very quiet. The bar at the back of the venue was closed and the stalls were all dead. One bar was open and manned by a large number of staff but they were stood around chatting as it was dead. The prices were what you might expect; £3.50 for a lager, £4.00 for a cider. As the weather was good, a number of people were sunbathing on the Comedy Carpet.
At around 2.30pm, half an hour after the show was supposed to have started, Hayley Kay from Radio Wave strutted on to the stage with a pair of massive sunglasses on. She read a couple of words from a piece of paper and then a girl named Nancy something came on. She sang a few cover versions and some of her own tunes over a backing tape but didn’t really look like she was into it until the time came to take a photo of the crowd and put it on Twitter.
Then there was a long break. This was the story of the day, it was disjointed and incoherent. Hayley Kay came back on, introduced operatic duo Richard & Adam who apparently were on Britain’s Got Talent. This was the last we saw of the Radio Wave breakfast show presenter. Richard & Adam are probably good but the sound system and the acoustics did them no favours at all. This and the fact the sound man seemed more interested in stuffing a baguette into his gob.
Following this, there was a long break before Little Roy and his reggae band came on and did some bizarre cover versions of old Nirvana tracks. Then after that there was another half an hour break before Madness.
On the left hand side of the stage, a woman appeared with a large cool box which she opened and produced loads of bottles of spirits and some beers. These were placed on a table and the woman was seen mixing various cocktails. Glasses of booze were conveniently located around the stage for Madness members to drink.
The timing coincided with the football at Bloomfield Road finishing and at this point – coincidentally or not - swathes of fat, drunk, ‘ska’-type skinheads sporting tattoos and Dr Marten boots piled in to the venue and proceeded to cause mayhem by aggressively pushing to the front of the crowd. I was in amongst it and tensions were at boiling point as one woman with two young children angrily laid the law down to a posse of piss heads who were jumping all over the crowd, swearing and smoking. The children looked terrified. One disabled gentleman in front then explained to the group how he would shove his walking stick up the rectum of one of them if he didn’t stop trying to pick fights and cause mayhem. This threat didn’t work and the stewards were alerted. A lecture was given, but this had no effect. The ‘ska’ drunks were heard stating they would “have him by the end of the night”, referring to the gentleman that had alerted the stewards.
I looked across and more stewards were standing on the railings at the front, telling another group of k-lined ‘ska’ types to back off and stop pushing the crowd forward. This spoiled the first half an hour or so of Madness as the drunks were causing chaos and the security company were doing nothing about it. Most of the men around me were visibly tensing up to repel any of these ‘ska’ thugs away from their partners and families. I was doing the same and had to throw one backwards who attempted to climb on my back.
After this point the ‘ska’ thugs seemed to calm down so Madness could be enjoyed. They were good. Worth the money but it would have been nice to know what time they were coming on beforehand. At the end of the show, a handful of young children went on stage with Madness.
Fags and booze
During the many long intervals a loop of five or six music videos from Cheryl Cole, Olly Murs and Rihanna played over and over and over again, interspersed with heavy advertising for E-Lites electronic cigarettes. There were also dolly birds tottering around promoting this smoking product and when Madness came on stage most of the band were smoking throughout. At a family event like this, it seemed completely at odds with the Blackpool Council policy of banning smoking in as many places as possible, particularly where children were likely to be present.
Similarly, with the EMRO decision on the horizon, to have the headline act openly boozing on stage in front of families with children seemed to be giving out a mixed message.
It seems like Blackpool Council will sell the town’s soul to the devil for a short term cash fix, illustrating their lack of sincerity when it comes to blanketing vices from children.
The venue
Elton John had a go at staging a concert and it had to be cut short due to the weather. John Barrowman had to cancel for the same reason. The Olympic Torch celebration had to be cancelled due to extreme rain. The Gary Barlow event was subjected to some rain and winds. The weather is a big problem for the Tower Headland, but this comes as no surprise to any local. Couple this with the transport chaos every time an event is staged and you have a public space with no practical future.
Overall
The council should never again put events on the Tower Headland unless the road and tramway remain open. The reality is that a proper indoor venue is the way forward, as everyone said before the Tower Headland was even constructed. The council never listens. Councillor Cain doesn’t want to listen to the professionals. He has declared the event a success in the same way Robert Mugabe would declare an election as free.
The ticket prices were too high. The farce that saw ticket prices slashed at the last minute is a bad precedent to set. People now know the desperate levels Marketing Blackpool will go to, and will wait until the last minute in future – that’s if there is another Switch-On event like this.
Blackpool Council should act as a council, not a concert promoter. Both Councillor Cain and Natalie Wyatt are out of their depth. The recent Switch-On shows that were run by Real/Smooth Radio were excellent. The line ups were varied and the pace was kept with no delays. It was two or three hours of constant entertainment, with everything linked by experienced DJ Mark Goodier. This year, the gaps between acts were in the region of thirty minutes each. The naff Radio Wave MC buggered off after an hour leaving everyone stood around being pummelled with electronic cigarette advertising.
The only saving grace is that £20 is reasonable to see Madness.
Jim
IT COULDN’T really have gone much worse for Marketing Blackpool boss Natalie Wyatt in the last couple of weeks. Her headline act pulls out of the Switch On just 48 hours before they were due on stage, and even when one of the UK’s biggest artists came to the rescue hardly anyone turned up to actually watch the show. Then on Saturday there was a long, drawn out event devoid of atmosphere where the main act didn’t appear until over three and a half hours after the event started.
Peter Taylor, one of the organisers of the massive Lytham Proms weekend event, has slaughtered Blackpool Council for what he called shambolic organisation. The man behind the Switch On (according to himself) – Councillor Graham Cain - rebuked this and claimed 20,000 people were there over the two days, inferring a success. This site does not believe these figures for a second. Cain then went on a diversionary rant suggesting that Taylor was only criticising the event because he was not involved in it.
I like Councillor Cain, but the fact that he is picking fights in the media with professionals and telling them they are wrong does his credibility no favours whatsoever, particularly when he is so blatantly wrong himself. Cain went on to blame the government’s cuts, which is quite ridiculous. Were there cuts last year? Yes. Was the event better? Yes. Were there cuts the year before? Yes. Was the event better? Yes.
An emergency services worker who attended both events claimed that the Friday was one of the quietest events they had been to and estimated a turnout of just 2,500 for Gary Barlow who, in January this year, sold out the 3,000 capacity Blackpool Opera House in a couple of hours. I went to the Madness gig and I will tell you about that a little bit later on.
Ticketing problems
The cost of the tickets for the Switch-On was a sticking point for many residents and Marketing Blackpool knew it. But Marketing Blackpool made things much worse for themselves through their own desperation.
In the run up to the event, the 10 percent booking fee was waived and free hoodies were offered to try and coax more people into buying a ticket. After the Script fiasco - mocked by Suggs on Saturday suggesting that the excuse they gave was weak – incentives were being pushed to the point of giving punters a ticket to Madness for free in order to attract people to go to the Friday event. As someone who had a ticket for Madness (£20), I received an email from Visit Blackpool on the Thursday offering me the Friday event for an additional £14, which made the cost of the whole weekend just £34. This was the same cost as a ticket for Friday only. So if you only bought Friday (£34) you felt cheated. If you bought a combined ticket (£45) you felt cheated. If you bought any of the ‘VIP’ tickets you felt cheated.
This was really, really bad form from Natalie Wyatt and her Marketing Blackpool cronies. However, it gets (possibly) worse.
This site has heard a rumour that at approximately 7.30pm on the Friday tickets to see the Switch-On were being handed out for free to people on the street. If true, this not only reeks of desperation but makes anyone who did pay feel like they have been mugged by Blackpool Council (especially by Councillor Cain and Natalie Wyatt who until now have gone to great lengths to emphasise their own involvement in the Switch-On). This site would not be surprised to see the council resorting to these kind of propaganda measures to avoid photographs in the media showing a very thin crowd at the event and prompting criticism. Unfortunately one such photo has appeared, taken from the top of Blackpool Tower.
2013 Switch-On
To give some idea of the layout, the entrance to the venue was way off the right hand side of the picture. Next to the entrance (not shown) was a large bar. The small tents on the right hand side at the top were promoting Jet2, I heart BPL and other naff stuff. The medium sized tent at the top was another bar. The larger one to the left of it was the VIP tent. The stage is on the left and in the middle is a gantry with spot lighting on and a screen on the back. The row of small white blobs along the bottom is the toilets.
Saturday 31st August – Madness
Madness isn’t really my era but for twenty quid I thought I would give it a go.
I used both the bus service and the tramway to get to the event. The bus was over 10 minutes late because of congestion en route, presumably caused by the Promenade being closed. The tram was packed with most people on board of an age whereby they would not be paying. The tram was nice inside; I was surprised as I expected them to have been ransacked by now.
Upon arriving at the Tower Headland venue at approximately 1.45pm, it was apparent that it was very quiet. The bar at the back of the venue was closed and the stalls were all dead. One bar was open and manned by a large number of staff but they were stood around chatting as it was dead. The prices were what you might expect; £3.50 for a lager, £4.00 for a cider. As the weather was good, a number of people were sunbathing on the Comedy Carpet.
At around 2.30pm, half an hour after the show was supposed to have started, Hayley Kay from Radio Wave strutted on to the stage with a pair of massive sunglasses on. She read a couple of words from a piece of paper and then a girl named Nancy something came on. She sang a few cover versions and some of her own tunes over a backing tape but didn’t really look like she was into it until the time came to take a photo of the crowd and put it on Twitter.
Then there was a long break. This was the story of the day, it was disjointed and incoherent. Hayley Kay came back on, introduced operatic duo Richard & Adam who apparently were on Britain’s Got Talent. This was the last we saw of the Radio Wave breakfast show presenter. Richard & Adam are probably good but the sound system and the acoustics did them no favours at all. This and the fact the sound man seemed more interested in stuffing a baguette into his gob.
Following this, there was a long break before Little Roy and his reggae band came on and did some bizarre cover versions of old Nirvana tracks. Then after that there was another half an hour break before Madness.
On the left hand side of the stage, a woman appeared with a large cool box which she opened and produced loads of bottles of spirits and some beers. These were placed on a table and the woman was seen mixing various cocktails. Glasses of booze were conveniently located around the stage for Madness members to drink.
The timing coincided with the football at Bloomfield Road finishing and at this point – coincidentally or not - swathes of fat, drunk, ‘ska’-type skinheads sporting tattoos and Dr Marten boots piled in to the venue and proceeded to cause mayhem by aggressively pushing to the front of the crowd. I was in amongst it and tensions were at boiling point as one woman with two young children angrily laid the law down to a posse of piss heads who were jumping all over the crowd, swearing and smoking. The children looked terrified. One disabled gentleman in front then explained to the group how he would shove his walking stick up the rectum of one of them if he didn’t stop trying to pick fights and cause mayhem. This threat didn’t work and the stewards were alerted. A lecture was given, but this had no effect. The ‘ska’ drunks were heard stating they would “have him by the end of the night”, referring to the gentleman that had alerted the stewards.
I looked across and more stewards were standing on the railings at the front, telling another group of k-lined ‘ska’ types to back off and stop pushing the crowd forward. This spoiled the first half an hour or so of Madness as the drunks were causing chaos and the security company were doing nothing about it. Most of the men around me were visibly tensing up to repel any of these ‘ska’ thugs away from their partners and families. I was doing the same and had to throw one backwards who attempted to climb on my back.
After this point the ‘ska’ thugs seemed to calm down so Madness could be enjoyed. They were good. Worth the money but it would have been nice to know what time they were coming on beforehand. At the end of the show, a handful of young children went on stage with Madness.
Fags and booze
During the many long intervals a loop of five or six music videos from Cheryl Cole, Olly Murs and Rihanna played over and over and over again, interspersed with heavy advertising for E-Lites electronic cigarettes. There were also dolly birds tottering around promoting this smoking product and when Madness came on stage most of the band were smoking throughout. At a family event like this, it seemed completely at odds with the Blackpool Council policy of banning smoking in as many places as possible, particularly where children were likely to be present.
Similarly, with the EMRO decision on the horizon, to have the headline act openly boozing on stage in front of families with children seemed to be giving out a mixed message.
It seems like Blackpool Council will sell the town’s soul to the devil for a short term cash fix, illustrating their lack of sincerity when it comes to blanketing vices from children.
The venue
Elton John had a go at staging a concert and it had to be cut short due to the weather. John Barrowman had to cancel for the same reason. The Olympic Torch celebration had to be cancelled due to extreme rain. The Gary Barlow event was subjected to some rain and winds. The weather is a big problem for the Tower Headland, but this comes as no surprise to any local. Couple this with the transport chaos every time an event is staged and you have a public space with no practical future.
Overall
The council should never again put events on the Tower Headland unless the road and tramway remain open. The reality is that a proper indoor venue is the way forward, as everyone said before the Tower Headland was even constructed. The council never listens. Councillor Cain doesn’t want to listen to the professionals. He has declared the event a success in the same way Robert Mugabe would declare an election as free.
The ticket prices were too high. The farce that saw ticket prices slashed at the last minute is a bad precedent to set. People now know the desperate levels Marketing Blackpool will go to, and will wait until the last minute in future – that’s if there is another Switch-On event like this.
Blackpool Council should act as a council, not a concert promoter. Both Councillor Cain and Natalie Wyatt are out of their depth. The recent Switch-On shows that were run by Real/Smooth Radio were excellent. The line ups were varied and the pace was kept with no delays. It was two or three hours of constant entertainment, with everything linked by experienced DJ Mark Goodier. This year, the gaps between acts were in the region of thirty minutes each. The naff Radio Wave MC buggered off after an hour leaving everyone stood around being pummelled with electronic cigarette advertising.
The only saving grace is that £20 is reasonable to see Madness.
Jim
