Hi team, Des here. As I said over in the introduction page, I’m coming over for Hellfest from New Zealand, travelling solo. It’s my first European trip and first European festival so I have a few questions I hope you guys can help me with. Though, having read through this thread I’ve already had a few answered- it’s great to have this kind of forum.
One of the things I’m worried about is the possibility of train strikes, having seen some posts about this in other years. I’m flying into Paris on the Wednesday before Hellfest and taking a train to Nantes the same day. Are any of you able to tell me what the situation is like at the moment- are strikes likely? If so, what kind of delay would I be likely to get? I have accommodation booked for the Wednesday night, don’t care if I don’t make that but would hate to miss the concert.
Easycamp- I know it won’t go on sale for a while yet, but I’m wondering how many tickets roughly there will be, and how fast they will sell out? I’m assuming pretty quickly.
Changes to the running order- how well advertised are they? What’s the best way to find out/ where should I keep an eye on? After coming literally halfway round the world for this there’s some bands I definitely don’t want to miss!!
SIM cards- I won’t be using my New Zealand SIM card as the roaming charges are stupidly high. Can anyone recommend to me a company to use? I’m not worried about texts or calls as I’ll be using Facebook/ Viber and so forth, I’ll just want mobile data really. I’m also travelling through France/Amsterdam/Italy/UK after Hellfest so a sim that would work in those places would be good.
Hello
You have 4 phone companies in France : Bouygues Télécom, Orange, SFR and free. Free has the worst network coverage but good prices and you can travel easily with their sim as they offer 50 go for internet data. http://mobile.free.fr/
Take a look on the different companies websites
Er, I don’t know if this is true, but more than 10 years ago, I bought a French SIM, and the seller asked for my FRENCH address (which I obviously don’t have. Thank goodness my brother-in-law lived in Boiffle (78), so we could use his address), but how hard/easy is it to get a new one WITHOUT a French address?
I don’t know but it seems obvious that the seller needs to send you the sim card. And sending it abroad has a cost so I guess you still need a french address.
KiwiDes has to try and tell us ^^
I went to a shop, at this time. I got it immediately after having given the address. And 5 minutes later, it was activated. But like I said, it was more than 10 years ago.
In fact I think it is not the most simple to buy a foreign sim card. If I were KiwiDes I would look for international option with my actual telephone subscription.
Hi Des,
As for RO changes, you can check the information point in Hell Square, the giant screen on Hell Square, there will be a new application on mobile phone, which inform of changes.
Er, foreign roaming costs, especially from an other continent run in NZ$ per minute/MB! IT’s not that there are special packs as we do here within the EU! (and still)
If I’m correct, for me (Proximus Belgique), it’s like €14.25/MB in Australia/New Zealand! You’d get scared to see those prices! (yet, within the EU it’s like €2 a day for 30min. calling to/from Belgium, and 100MB.)
If I were him/her, I’d inform myself at the airport! And if he has a hotel booked for one night, to use that particular address. (otherwise the address of the NZ embassy)
Excellent, thanks for that! Will download the app.
Yep, spot on, my roaming costs with my current company were $10NZ(about 6 euro) per MB. None of the other companies here are any better. Using the hotel or embassy is a good idea, I may end up doing that. I do have some family coming to nz from the UK soon so I’ll see if they can get a UK sim and bring that over for me, might be the easiest way.
Hellfest open on Thursday afternoon and you can change your pass at the entrance.
But you will not avoid big lines. It depends a lot on when you will arrive on Thursday.
A lot of people arrive on Thursday, and everyone has to change its pass for a bracelet to enter so you have to wait (I waited 2 hours last year but I arrived at the time they open). In the evening there are less people
Apologies if this was answered before; I didn’t find an exact answer in forum search and don’t know enough French to know if my question was answered on one of the French speaking forums.
I bought two 3 day passes via zepass.com. Then I got an email from the ticket seller with a pdf of his tickets that appears to just be from his original purchase. Ideally, I’d like to get the name on the tickets changed, but many here say they don’t check ids, so that’s no biggie. More important is knowing the barcode will be valid when they scan it. Since it just came from the original buyer of the ticket, I’m assuming it has the same barcode as when he bought it, and purchasing through zepass doesn’t reissue the ticket with a new barcode. Is this correct? If so, how do I know it will be valid? Or that he didn’t resell it through other outlets and someone arrives at the festival before me and gets it scanned?
I assume the tickets are valid, but if they’re not reissued, is there anyway to know if they’re unique? Aside from zepass probably testing to make sure the same tickets aren’t sold multiple times on their own site. But that doesn’t cover any other outlet. So I am a bit worried
Where abouts in New Zealand? I am dual nationality (British/New Zealand) and spent some time when I was much younger growing up in Glenfield, Auckland. Dad is from Howick but has spent most of his life over here.
I can’t give any advice on trains or easy camp. However, as far as I am aware the only advertisement of changes to the running order is at the hellfest info stand in hell square. Last year I almost missed Lamb of God because they were swapped with Five Finger Death Punch and I only went to see FFDP because someone else in my group wanted to go. Quite lucky really, and I don’t remember seeing it advertised anywhere until afterwards!
As for mobile sim cards, in the UK we have a company called Three. I am with them, but on a pay monthly contract rather than pay as you go, so I am not sure on if the rules are any different. They have this service called Feel at Home. Basically you can use your phone in certain countries for no extra charge. So when I go to Hellfest it costs me no extra than what I pay if I remained in England. I have just had a quick look, the countries they have listed on their website include France and Italy (of course the UK) but it doesn’t seem to cover Amsterdam. Might be something you want to look in to maybe?
If you will be entering for the first time with this person then I can’t see the same name on both tickets being a problem as you will be there to confirm you got tickets for yourself and the other person. I am not going to bother changing the name on one of my tickets. Not that I have been asked for ID before!
