This company,based in Worksop,Notts, are involved in the organization and planning of concerts such as the one my daughter and her 3 friends attended this week at Clumber Park.
We booked our tickets through them a few months ago, and approximately 3 weeks before the concert the wristbands arrived...along with vouchers to get discounts off of alcohol (my daughter and friends are all 16 years old!).
On the day of the concert my wife and I arrived at Clumber at 2:30pm with the girls intending to drop them off and then return home. Unfortunately we were not allowed to drive to the drop off point until after 4pm (not made clear in the instructions which accompanied the wristbands).This meant that we spent over one and a half hours in a queue waiting to be let in!.
Whilst in the queue a security guy (K-9 security) came along the line and told everyone that neither food nor alcohol would be allowed in to the concert area.Yet again, this was not mentioned in the instructions!. And, having made my daughter a packed lunch and having spent £10 earlier to do this, i was not happy at this new revelation.
At 4:10 pm we finally dropped the girls off and left them to enjoy the concert, arranging to pick them up at 9:45pm or there abouts as that is the time we had been told it would end.
The pick up point was relatively quite when I arrived at 9:30pm but soon became rather mad as more people arrived to pick up others.The security / car park control also seemed to be rather disorganized to say the least with cars paying no attention to half hearted parking instructions and rather haphazard strategies regarding parking organization.I was also very concerned at the number of drivers who seemed to have no regard for the safety of the large number of pedestrians who were in the area with some speeding around at a ridiculous rate of knots and others seeming to not know what a rear view mirror was for!.
When my group eventually arrived at the pick up point it was approximately 10:45pm and they all said that the concert had been excellent, except for the several fights that took place in the crowd, their concern about the lady who was allowed to take a very small baby into the concert and had been changing his nappy whilst leaving him lying on the floor (the crowd was packed very tightly and this was clearly a very dangerous thing to do!).
One more rather annoying bit of news was that when the girls had passed through the entrance they had had their bags searched and had had bottles of coke "confiscated" by the security people who told them that only water was allowed!...the drinks were not returned.Yet again this detail was NOT MENTIONED IN THE RULES, and appeared to be nothing more than a perk for the staff who must have "confiscated" a great deal of "illegal" drinks on the night.
It is sad that this company seem to exploit the youngsters in this way, and their methods leave a bad taste in your mouth as after having paid over £40+ for a ticket your child is treated in such a shoddy and cynical way.
Of course the kids would not think of challenging the security people due to the chance that they could be refused admission, so they simply complied.
Shame on UK Events for this heavy handed and pathetic approach.And stop sending beer vouchers out to 16 year olds (And UK Events,Don't plead that you are not aware of the ages, YOU charge ADULT prices for 16 year olds and YOU can improve YOUR website to ask this question!). read more
