Wakestock Press Release - 12:30pm Wed 25th July 07

[j3r3m7]

No doubt you are all wondering what happened to the Saturday night at Wakestock this year, here is the press release from the Wakestock official website located at:

Wakestock - WAKESTOCK PRESS


[PRESS RELEASE: Wakestock]

WAKESTOCK OFFICIAL PRESS REPORT FROM THE ORGANISERS - (Issued at 12:30pm Wed 25th July 07)

Over the weekend of the 20th & 21st july 2007 the UK has seen the worst flooding in 60 years.

Despite the awful weather, Wakestock managed to have one of the best Friday shows in its 8-year life span. Over 10,000 people arrived at the festival site before the severe weather conditions took a grip across the country and key road networks were closed. Acts who managed to get to the festival in good time were headliners Mark Ronson and Ferry Corsten. Both drew in massive crowds for their sets. Mark Ronson, in an interview following his full live performance said….”the people were really cool, the people were amazing. They were just so up for it. It was great. We love you Wakestock.”

Unfortunately Just Jack and Shapeshifters were not so lucky and, having left London earlier in the day, spent 6 hours in traffic only to get as far as Oxford before coming to a complete standstill following the closure of the M40.
One of the focal points of the Wakestock festival site was the purpose built wakeboarding Pool Gap, filled with over 100,000 gallons of water and designed for the wakeboarders to showcase their sport to the festival crowd. Ironically, this water was pumped into the pools on the Thursday evening from the Afon Penrhos River and there were concerns that the water level was too low to submerge the 10 inch diameter pump below the surface! Showers were forecast but no one could have predicated that less than 24 hours later the water level would rise well over 6 feet, causing the river to burst its banks. This susequently flooded the field and washed away the trakway put down to create a walkway from the second car park and backup access from the free bus drop off point. To add to this, a couple of key emergency access points became virtually unpassable due to the floods on the normally excellent drainage fields, rapidly churning into thick mud and pushing onto tracks crossed by all the campers walking to and from the festival. Despite tonnes of straw, chippings and tarmac being put down throughout the night, the rain just kept on coming and fell heavily and consistentely for over 40 hours.
In spite of the appaling weather, the amazing Wakestock festival crowd were having the best time ever, dancing in the mud to the likes of the Cuban Brothers, Yousef, Rodney P and Mr Hudson & The Library.
The severe weather, that put many areas of the country into a state of emergency, continued into the night and with no change forecast for the whole of Saturday, along with the continuing rising waters around the site, the decision was made at 5am by the police, emergency services, security and organisers to cancel the Saturday’s music event. The risk for the safety of those attending in the exceptional weather conditions was too high.
Wakestock has grown from a party in an overflow car park to one of the most respected and unique festivals in the UK, and throughout its 8 year life the safety of our loyal crowd has always been our priority. We believe that despite the huge dissappointment to everyone that attended and even more so to the organisational team, cancelling the Saturday night was the right decision to make.
We want Wakestock to continue and improve for many years to come, and although the decision to cancel the Saturday will leave us as a business with some tough times ahead, if anything serious had happened to our crowd over the weekend by leaving them exposed to these unexpected risks, then we would not be looking, like we are now, at a Wakestock 2008 and beyond. We thank the huge number of people who, over the last few days, have expressed their understanding and support for the decision we made.
So, while the dozen tractors we had organised at very short notice worked continuously during the day to pull the cars out of the car parks, the pro wakeboarding event still went ahead in Pwllheli marina. One of the biggest crowds to date watched the outstanding riding from an international field. Top UK riders Jonty Green & James Young made it onto the podium but the Wakestock crown for 2007 went to Kiwi rider Brad Smeele and in the ladies catergory, to Auzzie Kath Moore.
Wakestock 2008 is less than a year away and we’ve already started it’s planning to ensure we will cope if such conditions should ever arise again. You can also be assured that we will be working hard to make Europe’s largest wakeboard music festival, stronger and more credible than ever before.
We want to hear your views and experiences to help us do this effectively. Please email us at wakestock2008@wakestock.co.uk
We thank you for your continued support

[END PRESS RELEASE]