Preston woman hits out at organisation of wash out Look-A-Like Festival in Victoria Park, Southport

A Preston woman has hit out at organisers of a “shockingly organised” music festival after it descended into chaos due to flooding.

The woman, who asked not to be named, told the Post she had paid £20 for a ticket to attend the Look-A-Like tribute act music festival at Victoria Park in Southport on Sunday with her family only to be met with queues of rain-soaked people waiting to get in to the event and others smoking weed.

She said: “It was an absolute farce. Gates were delayed until 1.30pm forcing some to miss the tribute acts they came to see and hardly any acts were coming on because the stage was wet.

"I get it, but what about the public soaked to the bone?

"Listening to the radio DJ for two hours - I could've done that at home. The festival was supposed to start at 12pm but it was delayed by 1.5 hours, leaving lots in the rain.

"The festival started when the gates were not even open meaning we missed the Adele tribute, something that I was wanting to watch.

"The Pink tribute and Spice Girls tribute were on for about 20 minutes and there was nothing on the main stage after Phil Collins’ tribute for two hours.

"The Elton John tribute did not appear with no explanation why. The Beatles, Abba and Queen tributes were also cancelled."

She added: “The fields were like a swimming pool and you couldn’t get anywhere near to the main stage because of flooding. "Outside the toilets were ankle deep in water and the smaller stage was packed out to dangerous levels. People were smoking weed in the queues and people were cleaning up litter from the night before. I feel the organisers thought of the money before the public and delivering what they paid for.”

"You needed a canoe for most of the field”

Taking to the festival’s Facebook page, other disgruntled festival-goers called for a refund, with one saying it was a “total washout and it should have been cancelled”.

They said: "We stood for nearly two hours waiting for Fleetwood Mac to start as the stage was dangerously wet. You needed a canoe for most of the field.”

Another said: "People should be offered a refund. How can you expect the less abled and families to cope with that.”

Another jested that they (the organisers) “needed lifeguards!”

Responding to the backlash, a spokesman for the Look-A-Like Festival said they did what they could when faced with adverse weather conditions.

He said: "As outdoor music festival organisers there is nothing more we wish for than warm summer days to enhance the festival experience. However, the UK weather is not always the brightest.

"We are pleased to see people embracing the weather and making the best of the weekend, we’ve ran amazing events at Victoria Park for multiple years. Thank you to everyone who attended over the weekend.

“On Sunday we faced adverse weather conditions. Our operations team alongside our health and safety personnel deemed the event safe to take place with certain areas restricted and against all odds we kept it rocking until 10pm.

"We would like to thank our operations team who worked endlessly to make sure we could open the site safely and we did.

“We continued combating the weather throughout the day. Unfortunately despite all our efforts we had to close one of our stages yesterday evening during the event. The rest of the festival remained open. We would also like to thank every single person who attended and danced with us in the rain! Despite the weather."