David Wood Right, I will be honest here. Beats For Love are very professional and cannot be classed the same as these two. I have played at b4l twice and never had any problem collecting the money that was agreed. they shuttled us to and from the airport both times and everything in that respect was very professional. very professional. the b4l brand cannot be tarnished by this as it is not strictly their doing.
The first year we played it was brilliant. We were in a hotel that was right next to accreditation so was pretty much on the festival grounds. we had an amazing time. no issues with money / travel / accomodation, nothing at all. both guys were really attentive to us as artist and made time to speak to us.
We were booked again to play and did a deal on price with crackenn to get the same hotel. he assured us we would get the same one. we were really excited to go again. i had heard about the fuckeries that went on with highlander but i knew b4l had nothing to do with that so i was still in high spirits. crackenn messaged me and told me that we werent in that hotel but were in another one that was nearby, veronika. he said freeze and everyone was in there and it was still in walking distance so i didnt mind too much. so we get picked up from the airport and took us to another hotel that was a good 45 mins - 1hr walk to the festival ground. now dont get me wrong, this was a really nice hotel. had i been told i was in this one i would have been ok. but we were lied to. he told me i was in the same one as you and you told me we werent in that one. the entire festival cracenn avoided speaking to us claiming he was really busy as stage manager (and playing a set between nearly every single dj/act on our stage), I could understand that but he woalked past us and then sat with people drinking while we were stood there watching. he didnt have the same kind of attention to the rtists as he did the year before. yeah i could understand that if he was just bust but he wasnt. he was blatantly just avoiding us. artists who hadnt been before he was all over. but if you had been you certainly didnt get the same treatement as you did the year before. i did see a big d
I did see a big difference in hospitality this year. maybe it is becuase we were in a hotel that was close enough to walk the time before. re: the runners - we werent asked what time we wanted picking up from the hotel. we were told. and they wanted to get us 8 hrs before our set. and once we were there they refused to take us back to the hotel. i was not happy about this at all. nobody in our hotel was. we came to the site, not realising they werent going to take us back. luckily i had my djing stuff with me. one of our group didnt and they refused to take him to the hotel because they were busy. i think i counted crackenn playing 4-5 times on the stage that day. jumping around like he was on something. the attention to artists was poor this year on our stage. not to mention one of my go pro cameras went missing back stage. maybe i shouldnt have left it back stage. maybe security should be tighter as to who gets let into that area. it seemed like everyone and their dog was back there.
again to reiterate, this is not the fault of Beats For Love, my interactions with them have always been professional and they have treated me very well and i appreciate them bringing us over twice to play. the crowd and people were amazing. it is just a shame that the hospitality and artist care on that stage was a bit of shambles this year (and we were avoided the whole time). as ever you make the best of any situation and we still had a great time, met up with some old friends, made some new ones etc. The czech crowd is awesome and if there is an option to play in the future we would definitely love to come back!