Lost your password?

Team Love, the promoter of Love Saves The Day (LSTD) festival in Bristol, has pledged to invest more in sheltered areas after a large number of people left halfway through the event’s second day due to torrential rain.

The festival’s capacity was increased by 5,000 to 30,000 and consisted of ten stages across the site at Ashton Court.

Several complaints were made on social media following the festival, which ran from 2-3 June, with frustration raised about a lack of tented structures as rain cover. Access witnessed attendees resorting to hiding under bins and fence covers.

In a statement Team Love said, “Love Saves The Day has been an outdoor open-air festival since its beginning 10 years ago. We have had some tents over the years, but we have always been predominantly outdoors and uncovered.

“Fundamentally it would not be possible to provide cover for 30,000 people simultaneously during a biblical downpour without putting all the stages into tents and completely changing the whole identity of the festival – but with that being said, we will look to provide more cover and shelter next year at the event and to ensure that the site-wide response system is strengthened.”

The festival’s Lonely Hearts Club stage was flooded at around 7pm which led to the cancellation of Arlo Parks’ show. Around this time the site’s bars were also closed before later reopening.

Several complaints were made about the behaviour of the festival’s security staff, as well as miscommunication on whether attendees were able to re-enter the site after leaving. There were also complaints about acts cancelling their slots last minute and the main stage speaker not being loud enough when artists such as Shy FX were performing.

“We are disheartened to hear reports of some security of staff who were unhelpful or aggressive; this is totally unacceptable and hopefully it goes without saying that is not what we are about,” said the promoter.

“We recognise that communications around re-entry were unclear for a time – the team was working dynamically in response to the evolving circumstances and were addressed it as soon as we were able to.”

Despite the disappointment of the second day, the first day of the festival was an overall success in the Bristol sunshine.

LSTD organiser Tom Paine said the new location allowed for a greater customer experience over the previous site. The festival first launched at Castle Park with a capacity of 9,000 and was then held at Eastville Park until this year.

“From an audience point of view, there wasn’t an area to sit down and relax [at Eastville Park]. There’s so much more space up here, with nice hills and views over the sight,” said Paine.

“It’s a nice full-circle moment. We started the first one ten years ago on the Jubilee Weekend, which was a 9,000-cap party in Castle Park right in the centre of Bristol. So it’s nice to be here ten years later to be doing 60,000 people across the weekend.”

Team Love launched a sustainability campaign ahead of the festival, including the banning of single-use plastic and glitter, which Paine said was picked up by mainstream media and was well received by the LSTD audience.

“It’s a lot of what we’ve already been doing over the years, but we realised we haven’t really been shouting about it. Not in way of ‘look at us we’re great’ but in a way of raising awareness to our audience of why it’s important and why everyone should support it.

“The response from the audience has been amazing, they’ve been really buying into it.”

In terms of infrastructure costs, Paine said his team experienced a sharp increase, with 30-40% over its production budget.

The promoter also launched an artist development scheme with its charity Big Team CIC in partnership Bristol Beacon (cap. 1,834).

Paine said, “Out of the six finalists, we managed to offer three of them shows at the festival and we’re going to support them across the summer at other shows as well.”

LinkedIn