After attending Osheaga in 2013 I assumed that if Virgin was putting on the festival then paying more for VIP tickets would be a no-brainer. Boy was I wrong! If I was willing to overlook the fact that they only bothered to get one set of bathrooms for each stage (they were lined up so badly that out of desperation many women just overtook the men’s washroom), the lineup for the bar was a good 30-45 minutes long and at the main stage you were so far away that you could only see the artists on the big screens - I still can’t get over the fact that I paid $800 for a concert ticket and I DIDN’T HAVE A SEAT.
Granted, it was nice to have a tent so you could get out of the sun, if you are charging an extra $400++ per person for VIP I would expect that part of that money would go towards renting something for me to sit on!
We tried talking to a number of staff to see if anything could be done but the response was always “that is not my responsibility”.
I was also shocked to see what a poor job the organizers did in keeping all areas clean, it was fantastic to be in this beautiful mountain setting, and appalling that they did not seem to have anyone tasked with keeping it beautiful!
All and all – while the performers put on an amazing show the organizers did a terrible job in planning and the there was nothing "upscale" about the VIP area.