Forest Live Reviews 

Sting was amazing, but shame on the lack of organisation in helping cars leave the car park, truly shocking and dangerous nearly Two hours of bedlam and road rage

Great location (Delamere), performance and atmosphere however HUGELY let down by very poor management and operations of the event.
It took FOUR team members to check our bags and tickets before we could go in. Once in all okay however, if you're thinking of driving to and from one of these events, you'd be better off planning on walking home.
Yes, you'd expect queues and traffic however the organisers know what time the event finishes. We sat in a non moving queue for almost 2 HOURS trying to exit the car park!!!
Huge lack of operations would put me off recommending or attending again.

Went to see Sting at Westonbirt Arboretum on 18th June. Sting was great but the evening was ruined by the car park management at the end of the evening. We finally got to the exit after sitting stationary hour and a half. We were then met with one attendant looking completely out of his depth trying to control four queues of traffic trying to get out on to one road. Six men from the venue in high viz jackets standing watching doing nothing except laughing at the chaos. Will not return. There are plenty of well run live event venues out there. Avoid, this is not one.

Very sad to return to such changes! The venue appears to have put profit over giving people an open air concert experience. If you're going to charge £10 a car to park, please have good signage to enter and exit the car park, having a good system in place for the exit chaos. Your spectator view for those not worthy of the VIP area ( that cost double) has tree branches spoiling the view of concert area! If you truly want people to use this venue, think about people, safety over profit! It was a real let down! Our car was nearly hit exiting the venue by two cars trying to push onto our right of way!

No seating, Sting spent his whole performance playing to the regular crowd.
The bar was understocked.
Very few of the products advertised where available.
Modovian wine please what an insult!!
Who ever issued the the franchise licence is a clown!!!9

Saw Snow patrol at Westonbirt Arb and the organisation was horrendous! H&S guidelines say for the 8000 crowd there should have been a minimum 107 toilets but they only had 40! Leaving the car park was an absolute shambles taking over an hour and half to leave! The management team of the car park were untrained and ineffective with one girl doing her best but coming close to being hit by cars on several occasions. I’m shocked no one was seriously injured.

Dreadfully organised.

Went to see Beverley Knight / Gary Barlow at Delamere Forest, and there are too many issues encountered to even document. Ruined the evening and we ended up leaving early because we were so unsettled.

Rudeness from start to finish. My visually impaired 72 year old mum was spoken to like garbage.

The acts were brilliant, but couldn’t fully enjoy it!

Absolutely will not be returning.

Avoid VIP Glade. Avoid.
Had an incredible night at Snow Patrol BUT ruined by the scam that is VIP Glade at Delamere.
So it’s sold as a premier experiance but having experienced VIP concert festival experiences many times this was anything but VIP

So here goes

Thousands of people ( how can that be VIP if it’s not limited to a size that you can deliver against?!) in a very small area with limited toilets ( three small blocks and an accessible toilet which of course was used by everyone ) compared to an excess of toilets outside the VIP area.

Then onto the food and drink

One Bar
One slow as F burger van
One Crumble store ( sweet and savoury )
One crepe place

And that was it, for thousands

Outside the VIP glade..

Loads of space
Loads of food options
Loads of bars
Loads of toilets

To top it off was the miserable staff chasing everyone out at the end ( myself as disabled needing more time to get myself pack up being asked 6 times to go now really did get to me )

Snow patrol were amazing but there was nothing about that that was VIP. Avoid and save your money.

We recently bought a National Forestry membership for North Yorkshire. All was well until my husband received two parking fines and today I received a parking fine. We paid good money so that we could take our dog for walks around Allerthorpe woods and do the right thing. We could park in the pull in places or the Verge of the road like most people but wanted to help. What a mistake that was. We will never buy a membership again. It's a complete waste of money. Very poor performance for Forestry England.

As we were holidaying in the area of Thetford Forest, we visited your site today, to see if it was worth a longer visit later in the week.

Upon arrival, without any option of turning around, we were faced with a minimum charge of £3 just to drive through and out again.

On exit, we were trapped into an exit only road, and unaware that we wouldn't be able to leave, without parking at the exit barrier and trekking some distance to the centre of the park, to pay £3 for 0.10 [mins?] stay. Now we know where Mike Seddon ceo gets his £95,000 p.a. from!

By contrast, just 15 minutes down the road, we found another entrance near Brendon, where we were able to drive in and out for free, and for the same ten minutes at the Thetford Forest Lodge, we could park ALL DAY.

Far better value, and a more enjoyable stay, knowing that we were not taken for a ride.

AVOID AND USE B1106 Brandon Park instead!

Live Time 22:36

We were told last bus would leave Delamere at 22:30 …. So we left Bryan Adams concert early !!!

Still several buses waiting for those that waited for the best bit of the concert all the golden oldies!!!!

If we let it , it could put a real dampener on the night

Forest live you so nearly got it right !!!!

Service dog poisoned in woods complaint procedure waste of time,they can't afford to pay us obviously Mike seddon ceo a £95000 waste of a wage,poor dog left permanently sick now shortened life expectancy I suppose £1200 is more then forestry england can afford!also wanted insurance company name to find they re not insured as such due to being govt department !appalled by staff not reading and understanding a vets report brushed off with standard company response don't walk dogs where they are clearing trees,no signage,warning s in place useless and illegal and don't admit to mistakes as I have pointed out with corrections

Needs a lot more refining. I have used the Thetford venue 3 times and will not book again this summer despite there being artists I really like . Parking and walking to the venue is all good , security could be a lot better, the layout is poor , seated people obviously can’t see a thing as they have all the standing crowd in front of them , in terms of standing people can’t see due to obvious reasons of height differences however it’s because the staging is way too low , and as for the sound , absolutely dreadful as someone else said it’s like having a system just turned up a bit nowhere near the sound quality and volume I would expect from a live event and trust me I have a lot of experience!! Just seems a bit amateur, I left early on my last visit last year as it was underwhelming . Shame as it has huge potential to be a lot better.

Absolute disgrace , enept at the job . Cancel events due to winds that happen days before the events ( chopwell woods )

Attended the jack Savoretti concert at Delamare forest. Jack was awesome, the organization of the entire event was absolutely amazing. All of the security and stewards where brilliant. The stewards aiding us in the disabled access area where a credit.well done to all concerned!!?

Went to Cannock Chase for Paul Weller last night! He was brilliant as usual but the sound was dreadful it kept dropping out so at times we couldn’t hear him we were about 10 rows from the back and I’ve been to concerts there before but it has never been that bad! £58 for a ticket and may as well have sat in the local pub and had the same sound!!!! Not impressed!! The ONE screen that was there should have been zoomed in on him and the band all the time but it kept zooming out so you got a tiny image which was the same view I had standing up, poor organisation, you need to sort yourselves out it is not good!!!!!!!!

Please, Please Read.
If you are going to Westonbirt and arrive more than 10-15 minutes late, outside you're pre-booked slot (can't believe I'm really writing this), then you will not be allowed onto site! This 'strict designation' of slot times leads to a lot of stress and unwanted pressure to the day out. It also makes driving to Westonbirt uncomfortably stressful. If you're unfortunate to get covid or a positive test result and are unable to attend then you've lost your money (tough luck!!). Avoid, avoid avoid Westonbirt. Too many rules and regulations. Go for a free walk in your local wood and save any stress and your money.

I will never use this company again, and strongly advise overs to do the same. I tried to book tickets to see the light show at westonbirt arbitration but actually booked for begegebury (over 100 miles away). I had paid the extra charge for the option of a refund (just in case) but when I contacted them I was told that it was against there policy. I’ve lost over £70 with no chance of redeeming it!

Stop letting “trail hunts” onto your land! The same “trail hunt” groups who have actually been convicted of hunting down foxes and other wildlife.

Trail hunting is a lie and a massive cover up for fox And hare hunting. You should be ashamed of yourselves!

Has anyone yet had a refund for the Cannock concerts.
I do agree it is unprecedented times and we should be patient.
However, the money for cancelled tickets would come in quite handy at this moment in time.
To say you should be ashamed for asking for your money back that is owed you really does not make sense.