Tramlines 2017: Was it a success? Posted by: Harry Bunting 26th July 2017

Image credit: Simon Butler

Our man Harry Bunting weighs up this year's soggy affair

As always, this year’s Tramlines injected some much-needed excitement into the City Centre, and there was a fantastic line-up of acts. However, it wasn’t perfect, and Vibe have collated a number of factors that could be improved for next year’s festival. Feel free to vent your own gripes in the comments.

Sound

Sound is probably the most important aspect of any festival, and this year the Ponderosa left much to be desired. Attendants have cited The Libertines’ performance as one in which the sound quality was not up to scratch, particularly for those at the back of the crowd.

Queues

Festival bars are always going to be busy, particularly at night, but queues that stretch from one end of the Ponderosa to the other and take more than 40 minutes can surely be avoided. It could be a good idea to implement a similar system to 2016’s Tramlines, when Ponderosa had another bar which sold local beers.

The cup system

On the subject of bars, this year’s Tramlines introduced a system in which you could choose to pay 50p for a cup each time you get a drink, or pay 50p once and keep using the same one. However, when the difference is between £4.50 and £5 for a single beer, the saving doesn’t seem hugely worth it. Maybe if the cups had specific Tramlines branding on them, they’d be more of a souvenir, but as it stands the system is somewhat flawed.

Cover

With this year’s Tramlines being wetter than expected, it would have been helpful to have a few marquees to huddle under.

Security

2017’s security was wildly inconsistent. With some security guards doing no more than asking “have you got anything dodgy on you?” whilst others carried out thorough searches and confiscated nail varnish and hand-cream, some regularity wouldn’t go amiss.

Programmes

The programme had zero Fringe events in it, making it seem like there was a Tramlines and then a sort of bootleg underground Tramlines. People were forced to painstakingly research where and when Fringe performers were playing in order to create their own programmes. Including Fringe acts on a programme seems like a simple problem to fix.

Day tickets

There was a lot of controversy about day tickets this year, and it did seem justified. As Tramlines announced day tickets just 24 hours before the festival began, many who only wanted to attend for a single day had already bought weekend tickets. On top of that, those day tickets were £50, the same price as a weekend ticket weeks earlier.

Price

The ticket price in general seemed particularly expensive. Tramlines look set to increase prices again this year, as Super Early Bird Tickets for 2018 are now on sale for £25, which is a £5 increase on last year. Keeping tickets relatively affordable is part of the appeal of Tramlines, so maybe stop upping the price?