Listen! Festival 2022
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My first trip to Brussels as an adult was in April 2019, when I flew from Lisbon to London for a company meeting followed by another flight to see Gwenan play the Basic Moves showcase at Listen! Festival, sandwiched on the lineup between Islas and Andrew Weatherall, and playing in a funny tunnel space upstairs from C12. That statement alone provokes a sort of vertigo: Weatherall’s death; a global pandemic; a letter of resignation. In three short years my life, and the world, have changed immeasurably, yet some things will never change. One of them being the exorbitant price of drinks at C12.
Moaning
So I will get my main moan about Listen Festival 2022 out of the way here first and try and keep it brief, so that it doesn’t overshadow the rest of this review. While I can accept a token system for buying drinks, and even a deposit system for cups and bottles, what I find hard to accept is a token and deposit system that seems designed to confuse you about the price of what you’re buying - 10€ = 6 tokens = 1.67€ per token? Except 1 token is for the deposit, meaning…er, where were we?
And on top of this, what I simply couldn’t accept during the festival - and have still found no justification for since - was the need to buy tokens simply to be able to use the toilets at every venue. I struggle to think of any other music event I’ve ever been to where the toilets were not free to use, let alone involved buying a minimum of 6 tokens for 10€ only to exchange one of those tokens for a toilet wristband, then leaving you with insufficient tokens to buy a gin and tonic (5 tokens + 1 token deposit for the cup = one more token than I have left after the toilet = having to buy 6 more tokens). Whoever dreamt up this system needs to take a long hard look at themselves.
(Aaaand breathe.)