We want to thank every visitor who joined us at MetalDays 2022. Without you, MetalDays would not exist. During the festival and in these few days after the festival, we followed your posts of criticisms and praises. Most of the comments are positive, but of course, there are also dissatisfied visitors. This statement is addressed to all visitors who feel that this year's organisation was not at the expected level.
Traffic, and box office jam on arrival.
Since we were not allowed to have a longer early arrival, nor to use the entrance next to the cemetery, we wrote to the municipality two months ago and explained in advance our concern and the possibility of traffic jams on the first day of the festival. Regardless of all our attempts, the Municipality persisted in sticking to its decisions. Some visitors who arrived at midnight simply left their cars parked on the road and thus only worsened the situation the next morning. In order to solve the situation in the shortest possible time, we have asked visitors to proceed to the festival camp to park and then come to the box office to get wristbands. Although the system was checked the day before, and all functionality worked without error, at the time of opening the box office system crashed for 20 minutes, which further extended the wait at the box office. Around 11 a.m., the situation calmed down and since then there have been no traffic or box office jams.
Prices of drinks and food.
The inflation that is happening right now has affected everything, and not only the prices of food and drinks. Labor force, transport, the price of goods, everything became more expensive, and that caused sales prices to rise. We would like to point out that MetalDays has no absolute control over the prices of food and drinks. We can suggest prices, but each provider creates their own prices based on the expenses they have.
Not so good service overall.
This year was definitely the most difficult in terms of organisation. Apart from the drastic change in the location itself and the lack of space, the biggest problem was the workers. During the pandemic, the business of entertainment and gastronomy was not operational for two years. This resulted in the fact that the majority of the people who worked with us or for our subcontractors changed professions and were not available for this year's festival. It was very difficult to find a replacement for them. The staff that replaced the "old" team, cannot in any sense be compared in terms of the experience and knowledge of those who worked at the festival for years. Of course, this was felt in all segments. In a way, our situation can be compared to the current situation in air traffic, in which flight cancellations, lost luggage, and flight cancellations occur every day due to the lack of experienced personnel. This happens to giant companies that have incomparably stronger capabilities than us. Until the last day, people with whom we had agreed for certain positions canceled their participation for various reasons, and we can be happy that we found a replacement for them. Our industry is not the only one that feels the consequences of the two-year break, and in addition, Slovenia, with its 2 million inhabitants, does not offer a large selection of labor, or equipment rental companies.
Paycard.
This was the first year that we did not control this service ourselves. We have already stated the reason above, we simply did not have enough staff for it. This year, the Paycard system was in the hands of the company that sells drinks at the festival. If money was taken from your credit card after the festival, (Monday or later), it is because in certain cases it takes a few days for your purchases made at the festival (food and drinks) to be processed. This is especially possible for visitors from countries outside the EU. This is the information we received from the owner of the Paycard system. We must also add that MetalDays does not own your credit card data, nor your bank account data, even if you bought a ticket in our official shop. That information is not available to us. It is available only to the payment processing institutions. If you have any complaints regarding the Paycard business and the return of unused credit, contact directly the owner of the system via the contacts in the footer of this link https://www.barcatering.si
Parking in illegal places in the camp.
Some visitors came to the camp before the official start of the festival and parked in places that were not intended for that. We moved the ones we found next to our vehicles to the parking lot.
On Saturday, when the camp started to fill up with vehicles, it was no longer possible to move all the cars that were parked illegally to the parking lots. We must also add this; there are a lot of young women working in the security team of the MetalDays festival, especially in the coordination of the parking lot and the camp. A lot of visitors who came on Saturday mornings just didn't follow the directions of those girls, and despite directing them to the parking lot, they would just drive right past them and park in the campground, ignoring their instructions. For years, we have built the festival on a relaxed atmosphere, and that is why a large part of the security team is made up of young people. In this case, it turned out to be the wrong decision.
We admit that certain situations could have been handled better on our part. From this perspective, after the festival, some things seem to us that we could have predicted them. We will certainly not repeat those mistakes in the future.
The entire production was planned and done with the best intentions and the best possible way, with the possibilities we had. The process wasn’t different than in previous years. Most of the situations you didn't like were the result of all the changes we've had to deal with this year; from those caused by the pandemic to those created with new local laws. Conditions changed on a daily basis until the very beginning of the festival, and we have never had as much improvisation as this year. Some we just could’t handle better.
We hope you had a good time at the festival no matter what and we invite you to visit us again in 2023.
