Boardmasters Festival 2017

The Challenge

First Travel Solutions (FTS) were awarded the contract by Vision Nine to support short haul coach shuttle operations for the 2017 Boardmasters Festival.

The Boardmasters Festival is an annual event held in Cornwall. The event is a combination of live music and surfing/skateboarding competitions in and around the town of Newquay.

Our contract obligations included the shuttle service from the camping and music event into town for the surfboard festival and in addition to this for the various after event parties taking place in the town of Nequay.

The organisers, Vision Nine, advised expected festivalgoers would be approximately 40,000 and because they were keen to grow and expand this annual event, there had to be a commitment to reduce the number of cars actually on the roads in and around Newquay.

FTS were to operate short haul bus journeys from two sites. The blue gate was the main entrance to the music site and the green gate was a direct link to the campers.

The Solution

The team at FTS set about establishing the number of staff they would need to support this high profile musical event as well as the sheer volume of vehicles that would need to be recruited along with drivers.

Liaising closely with Vision Nine, FTS developed a robust timetable based on the approximate travel times given at various points in the day.

FTS then worked closely with our colleagues from Devon & Cornwall who assisted by providing ground staff and approximately 20 vehicles every day, operating for 21 hours per day.

In addition to this FTS also recruited vehicles from 2 quality approved local operators. A2B Newquay and Roselyn Travel. They added a further 12 vehicles between them to operate on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

There were 2 locations in Newquay that also needed our support. These were the bus station and the local train station where ground staff co-ordinators were needed.

The Result

Thanks to a consolidated team effort by FTS the transport and travel arrangements for this music/surfing/skateboarding event worked extremely well.

Over the duration of the event FTS moved almost 50,000 festivalgoers in 135 vehicles with a total of 1,000 journeys made.

In addition to this FTS recruited additional staff from Devon & Cornwall to manage the crowds and to assist with selling relevant event tickets.

Working with Devon & Cornwall and the 2 other local operators meant local knowledge of the route to and from the event was outstanding with the only real challenge being ensuring buses passed each other safely on the narrow roads in and around Newquay.