Transport provided for 12,000 festival goers...
...FTS's parent company FirstGroup, who provided buses and drivers.
The challenge
The Slam Dunk North Festival is a one-day music event featuring some of the biggest names in modern Pop-punk, metal and alternative sound.
The annual event takes place in May and is hosted at the magnificent Temple Newsam Park in Leeds.
First Travel Solutions (FTS) were appointed in 2019 to provide shuttle bus services between the city centre and the countryside venue. An all-day operation with enough capacity to transport thousands of punkers and rockers was requested by the event organisers.
The solution
Temple Newsam is around half an hour from Leeds Railway station and FTS planned the operation of hundreds of bus journeys to and from the venue.
Shuttle services ran from 0830 in the morning to 1500 in the early afternoon. Due to the nature of a one-day event, increased capacity was needed at key points in the day when crowd numbers were expected to peak in line with the most popular bands taking to the various stages.
This meant working extremely closely with event organisers to understand how many thousands of fans were expected on site at various points after the first bands started performing at 1130.
Return shuttles began operating at 2030.
The bus operation was supported by FTS’s parent company First Group, who provided over 40 double decker buses and drivers from their West and South Yorkshire depots. FTS contracted additional buses from 3rd parties and installed and managed a pop-up ticket buying facility in the city centre and at site.
A video detailing where and how to board the bus shuttles was also produced and hosted on the festival website providing step by step guidance for attendees.
Ground support staff were also deployed to help manage queuing and sell tickets for travel.
The result
Throughout the day FTS provided transport for 12,000 spectators providing nearly 150 bus journeys between the venue and the city centre.
Exceeding client expectations the festival site was fully cleared by 2330, only an hour and half after headliners All Time Low, NOFX and Bullet for My Valentine had completed their sets.