T In The Park have announced via their website that the 2016 event will return to Strathallan Castle from 8th – 10th July.

A statement has been released here from Geoff Ellis, CEO, DF Concerts & Events

We’ve been asked a lot lately about dates for T in the Park 2016 and we wanted to let you know that the festival will return to Strathallan Castle from 8th – 10th July 2016 (subject to licence, as always.) We’ll announce further details soon, but first we also wanted to highlight the changes we’re working on for next year’s festival with your feedback at the heart of them.

When DF Concerts and Tennent’s Lager launched T in the Park in 1994, the idea was to create an outdoor music festival that the people of Scotland could be proud of. Many people said it couldn’t be done but we knew that if we put on a quality event with a brilliant line-up, Scottish music lovers would come with their friends and they’d have one of the best weekends of their lives right here in Scotland. 22 years later and nothing has changed – the goal is still to deliver a fun, world-class weekend for music fans in Scotland that benefits the people of Scotland.

This year’s event was the first at our new site and it brought us challenges that we know impacted upon the weekend for some of our loyal fans. Over the last few months, we’ve undertaken an intensive debrief of this year’s festival to fully understand your experience. We’ve analysed the TITP survey results and looked at the direct feedback received from many of our fans alongside comments from social media.

We all love and care about T in the Park and we’re genuinely sorry that the first year at our new site didn’t go as well as we hoped for some of you. We always strive to create a fun-filled, enjoyable, safe weekend for everyone and my whole team is focused on making the changes needed to fix the issues and to ensure that T in the Park is a festival that we can all be proud of once again in 2016 and beyond.

We will be releasing a lot of detailed, important information around our main festival launch in February 2016 but in the meantime we wanted to share details of some of the areas we’re already working on:

Traffic

Although there were no delays on the main trunk roads network across the weekend, the traffic didn’t work well on or around the site itself, causing some significant but localised traffic issues. We apologise for the long delays that many people experienced entering and exiting the site and we’re working on fixing this for 2016 through a combination of solutions, some of which are outlined below:

1) We’re talking to additional transport consultants along with all partner agencies involved to ensure that access in and out is improved, with particular emphasis on a new plan for the official shuttle buses.

2) Official shuttle buses will have an enhanced Hub facility to allow closer access to the event as well as improved facilities, management and significantly shorter queuing times.

3) Improvements will be made to the management and structure of the car parks to ease the flow of cars in and out.

4) The "Pick Up and Drop Off" points into the site did not work. The volume of people using them was much higher than we had at Balado and we now need to separate them completely from buses and coaches. This might involve using a more remote location with enhanced facilities and a shuttle service to take fans the short distance to and from the site.

5) Several people have suggested a Park and Ride facility. We’ve always preferred to encourage people to forget the parking element altogether and just ride on the official shuttle buses. But we’ve listened and we’re seriously looking at the viability of having an element of Park & Ride facility to reduce the number of vehicles accessing the site. If this is agreed upon as a workable solution then it is likely that it would be for day and non-camping ticket holders.

6) Our main aim is to ensure that there are no long delays getting away from the event at the end of each night and on Monday morning, but we’ll also improve the welfare facilities at the bus terminal, coach parks, Pick Up & Drop Offs and car parks as well as the information flow to fans - which was simply not good enough this year.

7) We’re discussing the feasibility of improved services to Gleneagles rail station, supplemented by dedicated shuttle buses, plus there will also be improved shuttle bus services from Crieff, Muthill and Auchterarder.

8) We need better communication and stricter guidelines with the operators of private coaches (non-official T in the Park buses). We will have discussions with them in advance and have a more suitable, dedicated Private Coach park.

General Information

1) It is clear from your comments that many staff at the event were not as well briefed as they should have been. We will fix that. It was a new site for everyone and we need to improve their briefings and orientation to ensure they have the information they need to assist you better. We also aim to work with more local people (with local knowledge) within the customer facing teams on-site.

2) We will be introducing volunteer Help Teams back into the campsite, arena and the areas surrounding the site. They will support our stewards and welfare teams at key times throughout the weekend and provide you with information and assistance when you need it.

3) We’ll extend our welfare services to provide support and assistance to customers at key locations surrounding the event externally too.

4) We’ll be adapting and improving our on-site signage to help you get around more easily. Now that we have seen the site in action it will be easier to choose the best signage points more effectively. If we continue to have an East and a West Pick Up point then we will also arrange access within the site between them in case you end up in the wrong one. We failed to do that this year and we know that it had an impact on some of you.

5) We’re looking at other ways we can monitor the audience experience as well as the performance of our staff throughout the course of the weekend.

6) We are developing a new, more customer friendly website which will be mobile responsive. This will be launched before Christmas.

7) We will be arranging a series of focus groups across the forthcoming months to listen to your views on what further improvements we could make to the plans for 2016 and beyond.

Arena

1) We will make changes to the site layout now that we have seen it in operation. In hindsight, there were some things that we could and should have planned better in the design and you have pointed this out to us very clearly in your feedback! This is being taken on board to ensure the site is more customer friendly with increased arena space and alterations to the placement of various structures.

2) The "Heathy T" zone will be re-positioned and given a better layout to allow it to be the popular destination that it was in previous years - an oasis of calm with delicious food and drink with plenty of areas to sit down and relax.

3) We will provide more seating options throughout the site at a variety of locations.

4) We will improve access for day ticket holders by reducing queuing at the peak times and improving the layout at the East Entrance in particular. We know at one point on Saturday the entry was too slow at the East entrance and this caused other issues and general dissatisfaction. As with all major events, fans should obviously expect some queues at peak times but we will ensure queuing times are managed and monitored more effectively and any delays dealt with swiftly before they become an issue.

Campsite

1) Taking on board your feedback, we realise that we need to do more to direct people to the less busy areas of the campsite. Whilst the landscape of the new site is one of its assets, it also means that it isn't as easy to see which fields have more space in them. Our teams on the ground will play a more proactive role in helping you find a space to camp as well as finding your way around.

2) We will step up the visibility and the proactivity of the stewarding in the campsite in general throughout the weekend.

3) We will re-introduce the Citizen T campsite - it was a mistake not to do so this year and we know you missed it.

4) We will improve the variety of the food offer in the campsite.

Local Community

1) We sincerely apologise to any members of the surrounding local community that were adversely affected by the traffic and pedestrian issues at this year’s festival. We will be working hard to make sure that we keep our promises to you for next year and indeed, the long term. We will build upon the work we did last year with Community Councils and develop further local engagement through our TLocal site.

2) We will also be bringing more local people on board to work with us throughout the weekend as part of our customer facing teams on-site.

Environment

1) We’re delighted that T in the Park was able to co-exist in harmony with the now world-famous Osprey at Strathallan. The protected birds successfully raised two chicks with no disturbance from the event whatsoever. We will continue to work closely with the relevant environmental organisations in our planning for 2016.

We are confident that T in the Park will work well at Strathallan Castle for many years to come but the lessons we’ve learned during this difficult transitional year alongside your valued and constructive feedback will make sure that we do much better in 2016. We’re committed to making sure your festival is the best it can be, we’ll continue to listen and act on your feedback and we’ll always strive to keep improving and developing T in the Park.

We’re also busy working on the line up and look forward to revealing more about that over the next few months as we bring some of the world’s best music to the world’s best fans.

Thank you and we look forward to seeing you back at Strathallan Castle and hope that you like the various improvements that will have been delivered.

Geoff Ellis