90s music festival 'shambles' due to long queues

A music festival has been described as a "shambles" due to lengthy queues for the bar and toilets and issues with overcrowding.

90s Fest took place at the Don Valley Bowl in Sheffield last weekend, with UB40, 5ive and Vengaboys part of the retro line-up.

A spokesperson for Sheffield City Council said: "Organisers have welcomed constructive feedback to help support the continued development and improvement of future events."

The organisers of 90s Fest have been contacted for comment.

Michael Osbourne, 40, from Gilberdyke in East Yorkshire, attended the annual event for the fifth time with his wife Yvette, 37, and friends.

"Nineties is the kind of the music that we all grew up with. The music's normally always good," he said.

"We always look forward to it, and we always tend to book it straight after the last festival."

Both couples in their group paid £115 for VIP tickets to the three-day event, but Osbourne claims that people without VIP passes were able to access all areas of the site, causing overcrowding.

"I think everybody that I saw in the festival had the Super VIP ticket that we'd paid the extra money for," he said.

Osbourne said the couple "literally couldn't get into" the toilets in their Super VIP area due to hundreds of people "crammed in", and there were six queues for the bar, each with around 50 people waiting in them.

He said Saturday saw the most problems, but that the situation improved on Sunday after organisers made changes.

However, he said his party would not return in 2027 because "it was a shambles on Saturday".

Amy Atherton, 39, from Rotherham, attended the event for the first time with her friend Mary Rawlinson, 42.

They also had VIP passes and said as wheelchair users the pair were confined to a spot for six hours because there was no disabled platform and they feared losing their place if they went to the toilet or bar.

"It was shocking, it kind of ruined the day," Atherton said.

She added she would "definitely not" attend again.

Savannah Wright, 28, from Sheffield, said she was "so excited" to attend the event with her brother.

She said on Saturday she had "never ever experienced anything like it" with "long queues" and "overcrowding".

"Some people were waiting about an hour and a half just to go to the toilet.

"We waited in an extremely crowded bar area in the VIP area for about 60 minutes just to get a drink when we first got there."

Councillor Mark Rusling, chair of the environmental services and regulation policy committee at Sheffield City Council, said: "We would like to assure attendees that all future events in the city will continue to be monitored to make sure standards are high.

"The council met with the festival organisers and at no stage was the event considered to present a risk to public safety."

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