Inaugural Zoothousand &Eight Festival Round-Up "This crowd is the loudest for a long time… I’m only going to play zoos from now on - tell my tour manager". Mark Ronson - Fri 4th July 08 150 performances, 12,000 people each day, 8 stages, 3 days of revelry, a few hiccups but overall a new festival declared a ‘qualified’ success… The organisers of Zoothousand Festival today stated that the festival was a 'qualified' success, whilst also issuing an official apology to any ticket holders who were inconvenienced as they 'learnt some painful lessons' during their inaugural event. A weekend of contrasts saw Zoothousand provide a glimpse into some of the best and worst features of any large UK festival. Across the first two days, the sun-soaked revellers enjoyed some extraordinary sets in the beautiful rolling Kent countryside. Mark Ronson, The Cribs, Lethal Bizzle, Gallows, Ash, Hadouken, The Teenagers, Kid Harpoon and The Young Knives all gave the crowds seminal performances across the two main stages. The drum & bass arena was packed and were kept partying all weekend by DJs such as Pendulum, Andy C, Freemasons, Bodyrox, Seb Fontaine and many many more. Zoothousand Co-Director Ricardo Monty comments “The sun shone for most of the weekend, people danced and all of the stages were buzzing. The atmosphere was fantastic at all times throughout the main arena with the crowd praised by the emergency services for their largely exemplary behaviour.” The Holloways Zoothousand Revellers Lethal Bizzle More/… Problems However, the inaugural festival - the first event on this scale on the site – also experienced some serious teething problems; including queues upon arrival, complaints over campsite overcrowding, lack of drinkable water, line-up and scheduling changes, and some significant dissent from artists regarding payment. "Our biggest problem was one of miscalculation over cash-flow” accepts Danny Blanche, Zoothousand Festival Co- Director. “This required us to make pragmatic decision to cancel a few acts. Thankfully, with some vital assistance from Port Lympne Wildlife Park, we managed to keep the show on the road, with the vast majority of the popular acts appearing. “We also had to temporarily shut the Big Top tent on Saturday & entirely because of Health & Safety due to problems with one of the poles supporting the structure. The obvious knock-on effect of this was that we had to move the acts into other performance spaces, which did cause some confusion, but there was no choice – safety always has to come first”. Danny continues, “We have had feedback that people were unhappy with the length of time they were waiting to get into the event, and the toilets on the campsite. People turned up much earlier than predicted on Friday causing delays, and the campsites became busier than expected which caused some infrastructure problems. These are all areas that we dealt with as best we could as they arose. “Obviously, none of this was ideal or planned – and not the quality of experience that we had aimed to deliver – and for that we unreservedly apologise to all those affected by the situation. We want to stress that this was our first festival and that we have dealt with all problems directly and will continue to do so in preparation for next year” explains Danny. “We came into this event with good faith and over the next few days will be dealing with any complaints posted on the forum or sent to the office, and will respond to each on a case by case basis". "The three Directors of Wildlife Events would like to officially thank the senior management team at Port Lympne Wildlife Park; the police; St John’s ambulance; security, and health & safety for helping with the event. As well as all the production and back-stage staff that pulled together to make Z008 happen. “Three other festivals went under this very weekend- we’re operating in seriously tough market conditions but we’ll rectify everything from this year and definitely be back for Z009”.

GALLOWS (FRANK CARTER) “We are very, very excited to be there, it’s probably the best line up I have seen for a festival all year. I mean even just on the grime front, Mitchell brothers, Wiley and you’ve got Stanton Warriors and Pendulum, it’s just going to be a really good weekend. So I think we are playing Friday but if there are still weekend tickets available then I think we are gonna snap them off ya. I want to be there for the whole weekend”. HADOUKEN (JAMES) “Zoo8 looks quality and we are looking forward to playing this year, we’re definitely gonna check out acts such as The Cribs, Gallows, Does it Offend You, Yeah and hopefully the Zebra enclosure”. THE HOLLOWAYS “ZOO8. What a pun. If this zoo themed festival turns out to be half as much fun as I’m hoping then it'll be mega. We might have to write a head banging song for the giraffes. There's some top bands I’m looking forward to like Ash, The Young Knives and The Hives. There seems to be a glaring omission in the line up though - no Zootons?”