Forest Live Reviews

Pleasantly surprised by the car park for Paul Heaton at Westonbirt. On previous concert visits, the walk was long and mostly in the dark. However, somehow managed to park 5 min walk away and easy exit. Paul Heaton and Billy Bragg were brilliant. However, if you are going to charge £10 to park, at least have a way of checking. Didn’t need to pay as no one checked, many people will just turn up next time and not pay. TOILETS, way, way too few, causing ridiculous queues and a few arguments!

5 Stars for Sting It took longer to get into the car park than driving from Swindon to Tetbury. (stop start for about the last 2 miles). We paid £10 for parking but nobody checked. 20 odd minutes each way from parking to venue!! We also missed the first act and caught 15 minutes of Imelda May. We have attended most years for over a decade, this is the worst parking ever. Very poorly organised, must do better.

Took an absolute age to get into the venue we had allowed what we considered enough time Missed the first act and only saw a bit of the second act Sting was excellent thoroughly enjoyed We paid for parking but no one checked VIP was a joke the bar was slow and did not have much variety limited stock Who wants flavoured carling lager and food mediocre and long wait We have been attending Westonbirt for many years but this was a complete rip off and our worst experience Getting out was a nightmare The long walk to and from the carparks were not exactly fun for an angina suffer!!!

Great location (Delamere), performance and atmosphere however HUGELY let down by very poor management and operations of the event. It took FOUR team members to check our bags and tickets before we could go in. Once in all okay however, if you're thinking of driving to and from one of these events, you'd be better off planning on walking home. Yes, you'd expect queues and traffic however the organisers know what time the event finishes. We sat in a non moving queue for almost 2 HOURS trying to exit the car park!!! Huge lack of operations would put me off recommending or attending again.

Went to see Sting at Westonbirt Arboretum on 18th June. Sting was great but the evening was ruined by the car park management at the end of the evening. We finally got to the exit after sitting stationary hour and a half. We were then met with one attendant looking completely out of his depth trying to control four queues of traffic trying to get out on to one road. Six men from the venue in high viz jackets standing watching doing nothing except laughing at the chaos. Will not return. There are plenty of well run live event venues out there. Avoid, this is not one.

Very sad to return to such changes! The venue appears to have put profit over giving people an open air concert experience. If you're going to charge £10 a car to park, please have good signage to enter and exit the car park, having a good system in place for the exit chaos. Your spectator view for those not worthy of the VIP area ( that cost double) has tree branches spoiling the view of concert area! If you truly want people to use this venue, think about people, safety over profit! It was a real let down! Our car was nearly hit exiting the venue by two cars trying to push onto our right of way!

Dreadfully organised. Went to see Beverley Knight / Gary Barlow at Delamere Forest, and there are too many issues encountered to even document. Ruined the evening and we ended up leaving early because we were so unsettled. Rudeness from start to finish. My visually impaired 72 year old mum was spoken to like garbage. The acts were brilliant, but couldn’t fully enjoy it! Absolutely will not be returning.

Avoid VIP Glade. Avoid. Had an incredible night at Snow Patrol BUT ruined by the scam that is VIP Glade at Delamere. So it’s sold as a premier experiance but having experienced VIP concert festival experiences many times this was anything but VIP So here goes Thousands of people ( how can that be VIP if it’s not limited to a size that you can deliver against?!) in a very small area with limited toilets ( three small blocks and an accessible toilet which of course was used by everyone ) compared to an excess of toilets outside the VIP area. Then onto the food and drink One Bar One slow as F burger van One Crumble store ( sweet and savoury ) One crepe place And that was it, for thousands Outside the VIP glade.. Loads of space Loads of food options Loads of bars Loads of toilets To top it off was the miserable staff chasing everyone out at the end ( myself as disabled needing more time to get myself pack up being asked 6 times to go now really did get to me ) Snow patrol were amazing but there was nothing about that that was VIP. Avoid and save your money.

Needs a lot more refining. I have used the Thetford venue 3 times and will not book again this summer despite there being artists I really like . Parking and walking to the venue is all good , security could be a lot better, the layout is poor , seated people obviously can’t see a thing as they have all the standing crowd in front of them , in terms of standing people can’t see due to obvious reasons of height differences however it’s because the staging is way too low , and as for the sound , absolutely dreadful as someone else said it’s like having a system just turned up a bit nowhere near the sound quality and volume I would expect from a live event and trust me I have a lot of experience!! Just seems a bit amateur, I left early on my last visit last year as it was underwhelming . Shame as it has huge potential to be a lot better.

I will never use this company again, and strongly advise overs to do the same. I tried to book tickets to see the light show at westonbirt arbitration but actually booked for begegebury (over 100 miles away). I had paid the extra charge for the option of a refund (just in case) but when I contacted them I was told that it was against there policy. I’ve lost over £70 with no chance of redeeming it!

We recently bought a National Forestry membership for North Yorkshire. All was well until my husband received two parking fines and today I received a parking fine. We paid good money so that we could take our dog for walks around Allerthorpe woods and do the right thing. We could park in the pull in places or the Verge of the road like most people but wanted to help. What a mistake that was. We will never buy a membership again. It's a complete waste of money. Very poor performance for Forestry England.

Live Time 22:36 We were told last bus would leave Delamere at 22:30 …. So we left Bryan Adams concert early !!! Still several buses waiting for those that waited for the best bit of the concert all the golden oldies!!!! If we let it , it could put a real dampener on the night Forest live you so nearly got it right !!!!

Service dog poisoned in woods complaint procedure waste of time,they can't afford to pay us obviously Mike seddon ceo a £95000 waste of a wage,poor dog left permanently sick now shortened life expectancy I suppose £1200 is more then forestry england can afford!also wanted insurance company name to find they re not insured as such due to being govt department !appalled by staff not reading and understanding a vets report brushed off with standard company response don't walk dogs where they are clearing trees,no signage,warning s in place useless and illegal and don't admit to mistakes as I have pointed out with corrections

Absolute disgrace , enept at the job . Cancel events due to winds that happen days before the events ( chopwell woods )

Went to Cannock Chase for Paul Weller last night! He was brilliant as usual but the sound was dreadful it kept dropping out so at times we couldn’t hear him we were about 10 rows from the back and I’ve been to concerts there before but it has never been that bad! £58 for a ticket and may as well have sat in the local pub and had the same sound!!!! Not impressed!! The ONE screen that was there should have been zoomed in on him and the band all the time but it kept zooming out so you got a tiny image which was the same view I had standing up, poor organisation, you need to sort yourselves out it is not good!!!!!!!!

Please, Please Read. If you are going to Westonbirt and arrive more than 10-15 minutes late, outside you're pre-booked slot (can't believe I'm really writing this), then you will not be allowed onto site! This 'strict designation' of slot times leads to a lot of stress and unwanted pressure to the day out. It also makes driving to Westonbirt uncomfortably stressful. If you're unfortunate to get covid or a positive test result and are unable to attend then you've lost your money (tough luck!!). Avoid, avoid avoid Westonbirt. Too many rules and regulations. Go for a free walk in your local wood and save any stress and your money.

Went to wareham forest. Forest has ben trashed by ‘graffiti’ … red paint everywhere for an organised trail. Temporary signs should have been put up, not graffiti’ing public roads, bridleways, tree roots etc … public demonstration of the lack of regard of their own forest. No wonder so many of the general public treat countryside with disrespect, when the owners allow organised events to trash the place and surrounding public/disused roads. Looks like trash now, far worse than the fires.

Has anyone yet had a refund for the Cannock concerts. I do agree it is unprecedented times and we should be patient. However, the money for cancelled tickets would come in quite handy at this moment in time. To say you should be ashamed for asking for your money back that is owed you really does not make sense.

Given these unprecedented times, this company are doing all they can. As annoyed and angry as this is making me feel, I refuse to take it out on the company or worse still, take it out on their staff. Nobody has ever had to deal with circumstances such as these! #BE KIND! What happened to that? You disgraceful people! These are humans having to deal with 100s of our responses. Humans for all we know that may be effected by this disease! They emailed, they responded to questions and they refunded! Every live event will keep your booking fees!

Understand the cancellation. Keeping the booking fee really shabby.