Drumsheds London reviews by real event-goers

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Never do an event in that venue again. I feelt like a pig in farm all the time . To much crowd controll. Go in and out all the time. I had to queue almost 2 hours to get in!!!! Disaster!!!!!

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

TaKes over 1.5hrs in the queue to get in. Have been 3 times now and it seems to be getting worse

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Swapping queues and walking directions several times made it quite difficult to move within the venue. Some signs seemed to be misleading.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

UKF put together an incredible lineup, and all the artists absolutely delivered. It was one of my favourites of the year, and I'll definitely be looking out for any future UKF events.

However it seems that the venue (Drumsheds) really dropped the ball that night. The entrance queue was an hour long for the lucky people, but much longer for most people. Many people missed acts they came especially to see (myself included). The venue also seemingly induced some serious queues inside by closing the entrance to the main room for multiple headline acts, and ushering people around the venue. Even exiting at the end of the night was painful because of this. I probably won't return to Drumsheds because of it (and I'm quite tolerant to a bit of mishap). In spite of this, I had a great night thanks to the music and the crowd.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Probably more to do with the venue than UKF but a lot of things were truly awful. 2 hour queue to enter, with no toilets or stewards en route, just crowds of people packed in. Inside there were just way too many people, queues for toilets were v large and for the bar too. Sound quality was not great in the main room. Room 2 (or room Y as it was called) had better sound near the front and Mefjus/SPY was great (saved the evening for me from being a total write off). However, would not visit that venue again unless they could really accept responsibility and demonstrate they have improved things. Seems unlikely though when they boast of their 20,000 capacity venue, and it was so dysfunctional at 15,000 (apparently this was the count on the night)

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

This event was not only a shambles but it was extremely dangerous. My first and last drumsheds event and I'm requesting a refund and reporting the venue to the council.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Venue organisation and security were an absolute joke. Felt unsafe on multiple occasions. Queues were insane. Felt massively oversold and narrowly avoided people getting hurt at time.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

I've never felt strongly enough to leave a review before but Friday wasn't good.

The tick*t was £55 which for the volume of artists performing was a good price. However... we arrived at the venue at 10pm (with last entry being 10.30pm). I've not been to DS before so potentially underestimated the queue time. However we did not make it into the venue until just before 12am so we had missed Nero and half of caspa & rusko, we were then charged £11 for a locker to put two coats in. Then I thought at least we can get a drink and see Pendulum; the first bar had run out of beer, the next had also run out of beer and when I was being served actually said "sorry now we're closed". The next bar took 30 minutes to serve 4 pints of beer, they spent ages searching for lids for the pints (to stop spiking) and then said there were none left, I then pointed at a whole stack of them sitting on the bar... they handed me 3 for my 4 pints (solid maths).

We made it into the main room at 12.30 as C&R finished their set. A timer appeared on the screens saying 20 minutes so Pendulum came on at 12.50am. They finished at 1.50am, no encore. The sound was also pretty low and carried little atmosphere.

At this point we gave up as we had a long journey home. The venue had put on shuttle busses to Tottenham Hale tube which was great, but we were charged twice after it said my GFs card was declined (we found out the next day).

All of these things in isolation are minor but collectively it made for a really crap night and waste of money. The 2 hour queue is just ridiculous for such a massive venue - everyone goes through a metal detector and is searched, why not just get rid of the metal detectors?! They go off anyway as everyone has belts and jewellery on. The sniffer dogs are further back than the detectors so you have to queue twice, just have the dogs with main security so you can be searched and "sniffed" at the same time!

Thanks for reading my rant - I would roll my eyes if I was reading this and think "oh shut up", but honestly I expected a lot better from such a big event.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Anything good about this event has been totally destroyed by the ridiculous and dangerous queuing system. 2+ hours missing loads of acts, lucky there wasn't a crush or any panic or people would have been killed. Will never visit Drumsheds again

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Security was shocking. Over 2h to get into the venue. Chaos seeing the main band pendulum. Would not reccomend or go back again

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

the organisation was very poor handled. 2 hours in queue make to miss the artist. almost got crushed when X stage doors have been closed!! the security people were very agresive for no reason. It was my first time coming to such a big event, also travelling from abroad just for event, it makes it worse. Please refund the tick*ts!

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

Review of Drumsheds

Second time of visiting Drumsheds (last time was a year ago) & second time of queuing for nearly 2 hours to get in, even though we arrived just before 8:30. The queue is dangerous and I'm surprised there's not been a serious incident. If there was a crowd surge people would die as the sides of the queue are containers & unmovable fences. The toilets are 15 minutes from the main stage area. We popped out to the second room & tried to return about 45mins before the headliner, only to find ourselves back in a dangerous crowd crush as they weren't letting people in, even though once we got in the main room there was definitely plenty of space. We made the decision to leave an hour before the end as last time it took an hour to get out, based on other reviews we made the right decision. We will never be returning. Please think of your safety before going to any event.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

The music event was brilliant, great acts and good atmosphere in the main hall. I would come to a UKF event again, but not at Drumsheds.
The venue could be a great place for a night out but you need to address your security and entry into the venue. I saw many instances of a possible crush situation within the entry queue, due to them only letting 20 persons in at a time to be searched, so people surging forward. Showsec were useless and ineffective, they were taking too long to search people which was futile because drugs were still brought into the venue and were antagonistic. Two Showsec security officer put their hands on my friend unnecessarily - the first time to throw him out of the venue after he'd been to the toilet and asked how to re-enter back into the venue as the one way system was confusing, the second time when we were trying to leave the venue and we went the wrong way, the security officer grabbed my friend and pushed him in the opposite direction and didn't give clear instructions how to safely exit. Whilst we were exiting, the Showsec supervisors (purple jack*ts) were blocking the exit out of the main room with fixed metal barriers. I would deem this to be a health and safety risk in the event of an emergency or a fire.
It's unfortunate as this could be a well managed venue, it's just a shame they choose amateurs to run their security and crowd control.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

The good/awesome bits - music was absolutely top notch, what a lineup. The stage setup, the lighting, the set lists were all next level. Had such a blast.
The warehouse was massive and accommodated a lot of stalls and bathrooms etc.

The not so good bits - the initial wait was a bit excessive. It took some people close to two hours to get in, which meant people missed sets they paid to see. The security felt like airport security, and from what I could see, not a lot of "things" didn't make it inside.
Lack of bins - always results in the dance floor becoming one.

But all in all, the good did significantly outweigh the bad and I'd recommend the event to any and all dnb/dubstep lovers.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE

The event ended up being a bad experience, mainly due to the venue - Drumsheds. Queues to get in were between 1.5-2hrs - for no apparent reason other than security just were on go-slow. The venue itself is a bad layout, the one way system changes through the night so you have no idea how to get anywhere. The only toilets are at the entrance so every time you go you miss about 20mins of music. The sound system in the main room is rubbish and muffled. Really ruined the evening and the event. Will do a UKF event again but will not be going back to Drumsheds.

Review of 15 Years of UKF presents Pendulum LIVE