Arin Sarris
Google
Review of our 4/27/2024 visit which will have notes on both the grounds and the Sick New World festival. First and foremost, the security was well-staffed, super helpful, attentive, approachable and professional. The grounds were always clean, we never saw overflowing garbage, and staff constantly picking up the few things that people were too lazy to throw into a garbage can. Staff was also constantly attentive to festival patrons and passing out waters all throughout the day to whoever needed them. Onto the festival…VIP was not a “VIP” experience by any means starting with doors/entry as we were there early in the dedicated line and GA got in faster. Many folks missed starting acts because of this. Doors should have opened earlier for everyone to provide ample time to actually be present for openers, and doors should have opened 30 minutes earlier for VIP as many other festivals have done. It was clear early on that this festival was vastly oversold, it was a cluster of sardines. Example, to get from the Gold (main) stage even through the VIP area to one of the smaller stages took over an hour(!) it was basically just another section of GA. Cell/wifi service was virtually nonexistent about an hour or so into the festival and even staff stated “we throttle the service to ensure no one posts to social media before us” wow, really?! That’s fing ridiculous. That all said, the artists were awesome to see as always, and it was a great lineup. Recommendations for the future: 1) don’t throttle service…forget about socials posts, people need to have the ability to contact each other when separated and/or emergencies, 2) move to at least a 2-day event to allow more bang for the buck to the ticket buyers, 3) make VIP an actual VIP experience…even consider an ultra VIP or top tier package even more exclusive at a premium like most other festivals do, 4) lastly, hire better sound engineers/technicians as for the Spiral stage in particular, there were numerous issues to many artists throughout the day. I do commend SNW for having a highly extensive post-festival survey that was sent to solicit feedback and metrics; I would recommend that the same amount of care into so many aspects of the festival be felt as the questions in said survey.