If you caught my Twitter rant, you probably know how disappointed I was in this event but after reading my rant over and over again, I didn’t provide much detail to what really upset me, neither did I provide solutions or anything I had attempted to do, to fix the situation. So I am going to break them down point by point.
.@corona / @CoronaZA #CoronaSunSetsZA #CoronaSunsetsFestival has been thoroughly shit. Shit shit, shit.
— Yule (@YuleD) April 1, 2017
Sound setup was terrible. The 2 stages faced the same direction and were so close to each other but the biggest problem was the equipment used on 1 stage didn’t give the other stage a fair chance. The main stage had the good equipment that is completely fair, it is the main stage after all but if you were standing at the Griffin stage, you could hear the main stage clearly. During Lovebirds set, I could hear Culoe de Song playing ‘Rambo’ on the main stage. They would then proceed to decrease the volume on the Griffin stage whilst Lovebirds was playing, which really annoyed because the sound was already bad to begin with. The guys monitoring the sound said they were already playing louder than they should be playing because of sound restrictions in the area but that made no sense because we were in the middle of nowhere. The sound Spring Fiesta is so loud, that you can’t talk to anyone whilst standing next to the speaker and Spring Fiesta is held at Wild Waters Complex, where people have homes right across the road, so Corona Sunset Festival couldn’t tell me about sound restrictions. I even proved a point to the sound technician, where I made him stand where most people were and he could hear the sound from the main stage. We then took this issue to Director and he said the main stage hasn’t increased volume or anything and they would look into it but nothing changed. The bit that got to me the most was that they did sound check earlier and it seems nobody picked up the issue or maybe they were all hoping we would not notice.
Charging R40 for 1 Corona and R180 for a bucket of 5 Corona’s (not a 6 pack) didn’t make sense at all because it was their event. How were people being charged club prices at a music festival by the brand, when that was the only thing available to drink? Even worse was when they made cocktails, which cost a minimum R70 and they were all mixed with Corona. It really felt like they were making up for poor sales. Around 5pm, there were no buckets left, which irritated me so much because Corona (like most beer) taste bad when it’s warm, so they should have known and brought enough buckets for everyone based on ticket sales data. We were then given R50 off Corona vouchers which expire in April 2017 and have to be redeemed only at Makro but there are only 20 Makro stores in South Africa.
The bar service was so slow. They were only serving 2 drinks but the service was really slow and it seemed the people serving us didn’t care. I missed half of Da Capo’s set because I was stuck at the bar. There were only 4 bars but 1 being for Hospitality, people said they should have had a cocktail bar and beer bar, once. Some of resorted to buying in bulk for people also standing behind us, to make things quicker.
There was also a shuttle service organised, which I was happy about till I found out the shuttle only goes to Northgate, Fourways and Paulshof. The best part of this shuttle service was that it costs R80 per person. This is all great if you live in that area but we are not all confined to 1 area in Gauteng.
2017 and your stage doesn’t have visuals? The DJ is only so big.
This event was horrible and Corona need to rethink their presence in South Africa if this is how they plan to treat us. Ballantine’s was able to give us free tickets and free alcohol, with a really good line-up last year but only getting in was a mission and how they used the venue was limiting. The part that angers me the most is that I just wanted to see Lovebirds play and they ruined that experience for me.
You can’t tell me you had a good time if you were in Hospitality because you could only see 1 stage and was only served Corona Cocktails. The food trucks were the only they could not ruin.
Does anyone know why there was a dog (not on a leash) roaming around the venue?
Well Done Yule for calling them out on their issues. I’m actually so happy I didn’t even bother promoting this event because I could just feel it was going to be SHIT! when I was sent the press release and by the sounds of it I was right.
It is sad when these promoters bring out an International act and they have to perform at a SHIT event because can you imagine what they must think and tell their international DJ mates about SA events. It’s like if it isn’t an ULTRA or H2O type event they just don’t care about the attendees, the most important people at the event, the ones who fork out hard earned cash and then leave disappointed.
Dale Kopping
DK EXPRESSIONS