TURN IT UP! - The Festival Sound Petition

[dannybee]

Admin edit: this thread is split off from the does-anyone-else-really-hate-the-reading-festival-t6098.html thread.
The festival sound petition has now been launched and can be signed at http://www.ravetalk.co.uk/soundpetition/


I went to Reading for the day on Friday to see Rage. The sound was fine for them for me but I do remember watching a few acts and being able to hear no vocals and very distorted muddy music and screaming WHY OH WHY DO THESE SOUND PROBLEMS FOLLOW ME!?

Rage were excellent however but who would EVER have thought Reading would have major sound issues? Back in the day it was a Stick everything at 11 sort of festival and the sound quality was usually pretty good for the type of music they were playing.

Now we have all this bollocks where a couple of people can complain and ruin it for 60,000 people. ARGGHGHGHGHGH!!!!

Does anyone want to start some kind of campaign? I think here could be a perfect place to gather people to hand out SOS badges to people at various festivals(Save Our Sound) with some leaflet on who to complain to if they feel sound levels are ruining music festivals in the UK. Surely something can be done to get heard?

Maybe I have gone too far but I do feel it will kill our beautiful festival music culture if we do nothing. It's not even just festivals either. So many venues battle with property owners over sound levels even though they live in a brand new appartment next to a pub/venue that has been there sometimes 100's of years.

</rant>

[Sperge]

Does anyone want to start some kind of campaign? I think here could be a perfect place to gather people to hand out SOS badges to people at various festivals(Save Our Sound) with some leaflet on who to complain to if they feel sound levels are ruining music festivals in the UK. Surely something can be done to get heard?

Maybe I have gone too far but I do feel it will kill our beautiful festival music culture if we do nothing. It's not even just festivals either. So many venues battle with property owners over sound levels even though they live in a brand new appartment next to a pub/venue that has been there sometimes 100's of years.

I do think some kind of campaign is in order.

The balance has been tilted way too far in favour of the sort of people who buy a house near Heathrow and then complain about the planes. It's time common sense prevailed again.

[rymalco]

Start a RaveTalk 'Save Our Sound' movement. Who knows it might work...

the masses brought back the Wispa!

[Sperge]

Let's do it!

I'll have to do a quick bit of research on how to set up an e-petition on the site.

Anyone want to have a go at wording it?

Would also be good if people can put up some good arguments here about why they should stop being so restrictive on sound levels too. Remember we're trying to change the opinion of people in authority who aren't festivalgoers, it needs to be pitched in ways that make them realise they're being unduly harsh.

[laurennoodles]

this is definitely a good idea.
sperge - i would like to help with the wording but unfortunately all i can think of is "fuck off we want to dance"

[Sperge]

this is definitely a good idea.
sperge - i would like to help with the wording but unfortunately all i can think of is "fuck off we want to dance"

That would actually get lots of signatures.

But let's all get our thinking caps on for this one and work out who we're trying to persuade as much as anything else.

[Sperge]

Well, I've been working on this over the weekend and here it is, the Save Our Sound petition!

http://www.ravetalk.co.uk/soundpetition/

It's all been tested and everything (you'll see that some of the test entries on there aren't entirely serious ). If you do spot any technical problems, let me know.

I just want to see what people think of the wording before I wipe all the test posts off and officially launch the campaign. I'd prefer to call it TURN IT UP! rather than Save Our Sound. But some people think that will alienate some of the middle ground we're trying to persuade. On the other hand, I think a strong campaign will get more attention than a wishy-washy one.

[Sperge]

Might as well just take the jokey test ones out now and treat it as the real thing.

Done!

The petition is now LIVE!

[ThE99THReDBallooN]

done & done!!
& sent to lots of people

[Beatmonkey]

done & done!!
& sent to lots of people

Yea the mass facebook spam was a good idea joe

[Sperge]

done & done!!
& sent to lots of people

Yea the mass facebook spam was a good idea joe

Good work, Joe, which groups did you post to? Or did you just send to people on your friends list?

[ThE99THReDBallooN]

ah groups i didnt think of but yeah i just sent it to all the people on me friends list
some out of 144 should sign it

[Sperge]

Just thought people might like to know I've put in a Freedom of Information request to find how much tax revenue was paid by UK music festivals in the last tax year. They have to give a reply by 29 September.

[festival jacs]

Does anyone want to do me a banner advertising this petition and I can add it to my signature on all the various music-related forums I post on

[Sperge]

Does anyone want to do me a banner advertising this petition and I can add it to my signature on all the various music-related forums I post on

Doh! Why didn't I think of that?

What's the usual dimensions for such banners?

[Sperge]

OK, here's a very basic one until someone can do something better:



You'll need to right-click on the image and save it, then upload it to whatever board you're using. You can't hotlink to it, the server doesn't allow it.

Dannybee> What have you started, eh?

[Sir Bill McTory]

Disgraceful!

I shall be writing to the Times and the SAGA letters page about this right away.

[yohankiwi]

may be worth sending a message to the admins of the glade 2008 facebook group and getting them to message everyone in the group to sign the petition as there as over 5,000 members on that. also setting up a general facebook group would be a very good idea, i'll see if i can get round to it in a bit

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=5506639403

Also if we wanna do it properly then its a much better idea to do an official petition on the govt's website instead, would be much more likely to get noticed then, especially if we get lots of people to sign it (which will be easily possibly if you go to all the relevant UK festival sites and music forums and let them know about it, i'm sure there's a LOT of people in the UK who feel the same way.) Oh and if you do do an official one then use save our sound and not turn it up, it sounds slightly less yobbish. hehe

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/

[Sperge]

No, it isn't. The government routinely ignores petitions on the Number 10 website. It's a well-known repository of lost causes and this issue is not within the PM's remit anyway. And take the biggest one they ever had on there, signed by two million motorists against road charging and they basically stuck two fingers to it (I don't want to get into the merits of that issue here, I'm just giving it as an illustration of the attitude to petitions on the No 10 website).

I disagree that it will get more attention on there. There was one a while back that mustered up 20 signatures. Last time I looked we've had 84 on the first day and it's barely lunchtime yet.

The best petition on there ever was at http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/AntiPetition/

So why am I pressing ahead with this then? Because starting a campaign like this is a means of rallying people to a cause, letting them see that they're not the only ones feeling this way and start discussing ways of taking the campaign forward.

It's highly unlikely that someone at the HSE is going to look at it and think "Holy shit, I've been getting this so wrong, I must change tack immediately!" Although if they do, that's a bonus of course. The purpose of the petition is to draw like-minded people together on this - hence why it's probably better to have a provocative name like Turn It Up than a wishy-washy one (in my opinion) like SOS.

Let this campaign grow by word of mouth and let's see where it takes us.

P.S. This board is considerably more active than the FB group but yes, no harm in asking the admin to pass on the email. Ans is away at the moment though - and I'm not sure they'll feel able to lend official support to something like this. Ned Overkill is already backing us though. So is Ben of Wrong Music.

[Beatmonkey]

F-book G aiiiiiiiiii http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25082069822 Invite everyone

[BARRY SCOTT]

FESTIVALS ARE DEFINITELY GETTING TOO QUIET, THEY CAN HEAR ME SHOUT ALL THE WAY TO SHEPTON MALLET FROM GLASTONBURY THESE DAYS. WE NEED MORE CILLIT BANGIN CHOONS PLEASE!!!

[dannybee]

Good work Mr Sperge !!!

I will do some hard work on this and see what we can do. Could we possibly have some sound engineers opinions on noise cancelling technology and mention that the 90 decibels allowed at Glade's Overkill is "As lound as a personal hi-fi system on full and any other info people can put in a more information link. I think just saying turn it up may be a little vague. Maybe quoting some people on this forum about hearing people talking quietly over the music etc...

I deffinately think we can raise even more awareness at festivals for this next year too.

Any details of if any festivals have had Decibel limits reduced and by how much over the years?

Right I'm off to post on a few forums

D

[Sperge]

Good work Mr Sperge !!!

I will do some hard work on this and see what we can do. Could we possibly have some sound engineers opinions on noise cancelling technology and mention that the 90 decibels allowed at Glade's Overkill is "As lound as a personal hi-fi system on full and any other info people can put in a more information link. I think just saying turn it up may be a little vague. Maybe quoting some people on this forum about hearing people talking quietly over the music etc...

I deffinately think we can raise even more awareness at festivals for this next year too.

Any details of if any festivals have had Decibel limits reduced and by how much over the years?

Right I'm off to post on a few forums

D

Nice one, Danny.

The petition is only the start, we do indeed need to get professional opinions to move things up a gear and create a "What you can do to help" page. I'll pm some of the engineers who've posted on here before (such as opusjody) and get their take on things. I've also put in a Freedom of Information Act request to find out how much revenue festivals contribute to the Exchequer.

Any more thoughts on those lines is definitely welcome.

[muppet]

Here's another worthy cause:

Get Bono to retire from public life and we'll donate a ton of money to fight Aids

[admin]

We're past the 200 mark now.

http://www.ravetalk.co.uk/soundpetition/results.php