Rally Upton Blues Festival Meet 19-23 July 2018

[jimbow]

Thanks to Karen and Alan @Wombles for all their hard work organising the meet and then pitching us all. We had a fantastic time and enjoyed meeting other funsters
Jim and Rosemary

 

[Wombles]

Glad that you all joined us & thank you for your lovely comments & company - our role was made much easier because Pete & Shirley @petenshirley kindly helped us despite the heat Even after arrivals time they offered to work longer as many were delayed due to the problems on the motorway so many thanks again to them.

 

[Oscar]

What a fabulous meet - thanks to Alan & Karen @Wombles and Pete & Shirley @petenshirley , for their hard work in parking us up and making sure we all had a good time. Upton is a brill town & we thoroughly enjoyed our 1st Blues Festival. Lovely to catch up with funsters and meet new ones! Hope everyone had a safe onward journey

 

[Campervanannie]

What a great festival the Blues was this year this was my 5th, did not stay with the funsters as I was there with friends from another forum but met a few of you guys at various points we were the two ladies running all over Upton on our mobility trikes glad you all had a great time.

 

[Sandancers]

Adding our thanks to Alan & Karen for their hard work. Saw some great bands and a couple of rubbish ones. Made the mistake of watching an old time hardcore blues band, in one verse the guys dog had died, his wife had left him and his house burned down ! Luckily I had The Samatians on speeddial or else I'm sure I'd have been taking a dive off the bridge.

But thankfully the weather was great.

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[BobtheBass]

That has the makings of a great blues classic! Was it Billy Connolly or Mike Harding who said that folk music was three men in Arran jumpers singing songs about dead dogs?

 

[Janine]

Adding our thanks to Alan & Karen for their hard work. Saw some great bands and a couple of rubbish ones. Made the mistake of watching an old time hardcore blues band, in one verse the guys dog had died, his wife had left him and his house burned down ! Luckily I had The Samatians on speeddial or else I'm sure I'd have been taking a dive off the bridge.

But thankfully the weather was great.

Was it these guys? My festival favourites for the last 3 years

 

[patricia the newbie]

Lol, soo funny

 

[Wendo55]

Can I add my thanks too for another great time with you all.
Got to do it again on Thursday at the 3Fs!
See some of you there and then at Lymington.

 

[Gaston aires]

This was our first "Upton" but it wont be our last. Loved it, and thanks to Alan and Karen, also Pete and Shirley, for all your help in organising it.
Good to meet the other Funsters too. See you soon hopefully.
Phil and Gill

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[Sandancers]

Adding our thanks to Alan & Karen for their hard work. Saw some great bands and a couple of rubbish ones. Made the mistake of watching an old time hardcore blues band, in one verse the guys dog had died, his wife had left him and his house burned down ! Luckily I had The Samatians on speeddial or else I'm sure I'd have been taking a dive off the bridge.
But thankfully the weather was great.

Was it these guys? My festival favourites for the last 3 years

No, can't remember their name but they were on at Seven bar Sunday evening. Never mind, Cambridge Rock festival next weekend, bring it on!!!

 

[Dorwyn]

What a great festival the Blues was this year this was my 5th, did not stay with the funsters as I was there with friends from another forum but met a few of you guys at various points we were the two ladies running all over Upton on our mobility trikes glad you all had a great time.

Wild campers?

 

[Campervanannie]

Wild campers?

Yes

 

[Dorwyn]

This was the best meet so far for me (I enjoy der blues, Carol not so keen), and our first MF meet (not counting 2 Twin Lakes). Didn't hear a lot of blues though, but didn't discover the acoustic stage till too late. Thanks so much Allen and Karen, great job, see you soon at Lymington. It was good to meet some new peeps too.

 

[Chocy boy]

View attachment 244604

Surely those three vans are to close.

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[Campervanannie]

We were told on arrival that we must give a reasonable distance between the vans but the thing they insisted on was that motorhome had to be parked nose into the roadways/through route for ease of getting out in an emergency which did seem to work well for the MH parked next to the one on fire he just drove forward to clear the vehicle, there is no legislation on distance between vans it’s only what the big clubs advise and down to common sense.

 

[Wombles]

Surely those three vans are to close.

We were told on arrival that we must give a reasonable distance between the vans but the thing they insisted on was that motorhome had to be parked nose into the roadways/through route for ease of getting out in an emergency which did seem to work well for the MH parked next to the one on fire he just drove forward to clear the vehicle, there is no legislation on distance between vans it’s only what the big clubs advise and down to common sense.

To reply to the above comments & additional info. for anyone else reading this - when booking Upton Blues tickets there are Terms & Conditions which you have to agree to before buying the tickets:
"Pitches will be set out in such a way that no tent or caravan is closer than 2 metres to any other caravan or tent on an adjacent pitch nor closer than 2 metres to any boundary fence or hedge. Cars may be parked between caravans or tents provided they are not parked closer than 1 metre to a caravan or tent in the same occupancy and at least 2 metres from caravans or tents of other occupancies. A carriageway of at least four metres will be maintained between rows."
Although 2 metres is not ideal & we prefer 6m spacing this is normal or even generous for Festivals! When we have looked at being volunteer Camping Stewards at other large festivals & events often less distance is specified It's a case of adhere to their rules or not camp there.
Upton Blues do park everyone facing ready to drive out with big fire lanes & they are inspected & have excellent back up from the local fire services as was tested this time. It is a well organised Festival which goes through a lot of official checks & they try year on year to improve what they do - we know this as we worked as volunteers as part of the team of 8 Stewards parking up 1800 people one day then 1500 the next at Upton Blues Festival last year.
Due to the demand from Funsters last year & into this year we had a lot of discussion (see early pages of this thread) with the Festival Chairman & eventually it was agreed for Fun & RVOC to be the only group/club to have first dibs on an area which is our favourite spot with a view of the Malvern Hills As everyone was booking direct with the Festival it is classed as a meet not a rally & the rules of the Festival apply. Alan & I with the kind assistance of Pete & Shirley @petenshirley got all the Fun & RVOC members in & manned the Festival Exit (which led to our camping area) making sure that all were happy with how & where they were pitched. Alan used his discretion allowing 3m spacing rather than 2m minimum & more for the RVs as they need room to manoeuvre - anymore would have been unfair to the Festival & would have been infilled by a tent when general campers joined the field the next day. The photo mentioned was taken from our area & makes the motorhomes in the photo look closer than they were as all had 3m spacing with no facing awnings. We had large fire lanes (5m minimum) between each row with no back to back pitching.
We had a lot of very happy Fun & RVOC members as the feedback on this & the RVOC threads show

 

[Wombles]

The RVOC area at Upton Blues this year - thank you to WESTIES ON TOUR for the great photo

 

[bellabee]

Just want to add our thanks to @Wombles . It was a fantastic weekend, in a great location, with some very good company.

 

[jockaneezer]

[QUOTE="
Hope @jockaneezer had better luck going home than when they came down.
[/QUOTE]

Firstly I must congratulate Toyo tyres on their consistency, as the other rear tyre exploded 60 miles further up the road from Upton ! "Luckily", we had just entered another section of roadworks, so qualified for free recovery (we have ADAC cover anyway) and after an amount of faffing about (the recovery driver wouldn't let me help and didn't have a jack or wheelbrace with him ) he took us into Stafford where I'd phoned ahead and bought a replacement tyre.
I need to go through my records and check the mileage and ages of the tyres to help work out what the issue may have been. We've done over 30k miles in the van and have bought 6 tyres for it in the time that we've owned it. I hope it's not something I've done wrong or neglected, but we're not in love with Busty at this moment.
Our whippet, Sky has had a real shock with the banging and vibration associated with the delaminations. We bought some doggie Valerian sedative in Stafford for him, once it kicked in, he was zoned out for about an hour, but as it wore off, he became agitated, wouldn't use his bed and was constantly panting. Getting him back in the van is going to be a real problem I suspect.
On top of everything else, they closed the M6 for a while on our way home too ! All in all, including the two hours it took to get the tyre sorted and two more short services breaks to try and calm Sky, it took us 11 hours to travel 239 miles. So although we enjoyed the festival, we certainly experienced "the Blues" on our way too and from the meet.
On a positive note, Allan and Karen made us very welcome and I must offer grateful thanks to Alb @Oscar who removed a mud flap from his own van which, with a tube of mastic from the hardware shop in town, allowed me to temporarily repair the damaged inner wheel arch and waterproof the van for our journey home.
I didn't much feel like joining in this thread when we got back, mostly upset at the distress it's caused Sky and it's knocked both Val and my confidence, and as an engineer, wondering how much responsibility I own myself for the breakdowns ?
We have Lymington in a couple of weeks, but don't have the heart for it today.
In the best tradition of locking the stable door after the horse has bolted, I will be getting a Tyrepal monitoring system before we take the van out again, hindsight is a great thing eh ?

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[Wendo55]

Can't believe what bad luck you've had .
Don't feel down, it's done now and things can be fixed. Hope Sky feels better soon and the best thing you can do is get back in the motorhome for another great meet with the funsters. @Oscar is my hero for coming to my assistance recently too!

 

[Oscar]

@jockaneezer - so very sorry to hear what a sh**ty journey you had home - it beggars belief. Hope Sky and you 2 are both ok - hope it doesn't put you off motorhoming - we are going to Lymington - hope we can get together for a drink and hopefully celebrate an uneventful journey down

All the best

 

[Chocy boy]

Surely those three vans are to close.

I was not being critical I just assumed that it was the 6 metres that the big clubs state.

 

[Wombles]

I was not being critical I just assumed that it was the 6 metres that the big clubs state.

Knowing you we didn't think that you were but felt we had to clarify so no misunderstandings for anyone else.

 

[Wombles]

@jockaneezer so sorry to hear this - what rotten luck but glad you are both ok & hope that Sky recovers soon. If there's anything we can do to make things better for you or Sky at Lymington then please let us know.

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[RobGriff]

Had a great time with friends old and new roll on next year

 

[Wombles]

Know many really enjoy Upton, the Blues Festival & being pitched with fellow Funsters but us Wombles have family commitments so we can't do this meet again in 2019 Sure many of you will still go together but if anyone does want to organise & run this meet then please let us know & we can pass on all the info. & contacts to help you to do this. Dates for 2019 are 18-21 July https://www.uptonbluesfestival.com/ .

 

[DrivingMissDaisy]

Hi can anyone help please . I’m trying to book my tickets for this on my phone but can only get to see 2018 not 2019? What am I doing wrong. Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you

 

[Wombles]

Hi can anyone help please . I’m trying to book my tickets for this on my phone but can only get to see 2018 not 2019? What am I doing wrong. Look forward to hearing from you. Thank you

Website says camping tickets are on sale on 5 November so you are just a bit early.

 

[DrivingMissDaisy]

Bless you xx

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