Ramfest has always been my favourite festival because of the type of people who go and the combination of music. It’s seems the least pretentious of all festivals and people just love rock n roll and don’t worry about being filmed (LOL). This year saw Ramfest 2013 relocate to the Circle of Dreams near Riviersondend. The pictures looked lucious and gorgeous so I was intrigued to visit the venue. This year’s venue has some pros and some cons to is as any new venue would. It’s to my understanding though that the venue has been hired for the next 5 years and will be developed over these years to create the ultimate festival venue. Sounds good to me!
PROS
- Isolated – no noise complaints because there’s no one around except cows!
- Open space – people can camp next to their cars again halleluja
- Trees! – When the sun starts baking you at 6am it’s the biggest festival kill joy. Trees in general camping = major plus.
River – The river was in general camping! I guess this keeps those who are NOT staying out?- Ablution blocks – I didn’t actually go in but I did see there were proper ablusion blocks for campers.
- Bars – A massive bar at each dancefloor & sponsored by Hunters. I’m SO sick of being forced to drink shite sponsored brands, Hunters is my drink and I love that I can have any version there!
- Lots of toilets – We all know festival loos suck but the more the better and there banks of them at Ramfest.
- Music – There were a couple of sound issues here and there but overall, the Ramfest line up is always awesome. And with 3 stages, no one can complain. This is why it’s my favourite. Each stage is treated properly with big line ups.
CONS
- Far Away – After 8 years of festivaling, we’re over camping. So we had to drive 2.5 hours there and 2.5 hours back in the middle of the night. It’s pretty far out for a 1 day excursion.
- Ugly – Ok although the venue has MASSIVE potential it was DAMN UGLY and NOTHING like the idealistic pictures posted on the Circle of Dreams website that looked really lush. I hope this improves!
- Food – There weren’t the greatest food stalls around. I do like familiar brands, maybe they can look into that?
Over all, there’s not much to bitch about. It’s still a fantastic festival. Monster was on board this year so they had guys doing motorbike gymnastics which was kinda cool.
It was very cold out there at night though, much colder than Worcester so make sure you bring warm clothes in the future. Until 2014 – my 6th Ramfest – can’t wait to see the line up 🙂
P.S I don’t bother talking about the music too closely as it’s subjective. No point starting an internet fight about that!
