Festival Office
Your main source of information, help, sign-ups and tickets! Also, it is likely to be the easiest place to get hold of a committee member. Lost property will be kept here for the duration of the festival. As ever, things will change due to illness, venue constraints, not having decided them yet—any changes to the programme will be listed at the Festival Office. The main IVFDF phone number is 07741 085 209.
Wristbands
Your wristband allows you access to IVFDF events, sleeping accommodation and, vitally, shower facilities. We are sorry if it doesn’t go with the T-shirt colour you chose; all colour schemes were picked to compliment the committee’s eyes. Please wear it visibly for the duration of the festival so that stewards can ensure that only the right people are in the right places at the right times. It is designed to be ceilidh-proof, shower-proof and dance-proof, and is rumoured to protect against a very rare strain of yellow fever. If your wristband suffers a fatal mishap, please take it to the festival office for replacement.
Display ceilidh
Sign-up sheets for display slots and rehearsal times will be available at the Festival Office. Please be punctual for rehearsal slots as these are limited and we don’t want things overrunning. It’s also worth knowing where your dem team is in the run-up to your display slot.
Morris Tour
Sign up for this at the Festival Office too! Departure from the area in front of the Butchart Centre at 10:30am on Saturday – then follow the IVFDF 2012 umbrella! Alternatively meet the tour at The Prince of Wales on St Nicholas Lane (opposite Marks & Spencer) at 10:45-11am. Sleeping As any die-hard IVFDFer will tell you, sleeping is entirely optional, but some provision has been made for those lucky few in possession of weekend tickets with sleeping privileges. The sleeping venues are marked on the map (p. 16) and are all walkable from campus. They will be open between the hours of 11pm and 08:30am both nights. A few things are to be said about indoor camping. All make sense and I doubt you’ll really need telling, but please read nonetheless.
- Please don’t burn. Safety and more safety. At each sleeping venue there will be a large space for you to lay out your sleeping bag. We’ll mark out “corridors” to the fire exits in tape on the floor. It is important that you keep out of these areas. Stewards will come and move you and/or your stuff if you use this space. If there’s a fire, we want to be able to get you all out quickly. If you need to smoke please go outside and away from the building.
- Share. You’ll have access to toilets at sleeping venues (showers available from 7.30 am at the Sport’s Village—see map on p. 16). Some venues have a better toilet:sleeping IVFDFers ratio than others. Be sensible; change in your sleeping bag, brush your teeth with a friend, that sort of thing.
- Let people sleep. If you feel awake, go hang out with the stewards out of the main room, find yourself a wee space in a corridor or something else. We’ll have space in the Butchart centre for sessions until nearly 2am both nights, and then that’s it, we’re afraid. If you want to party on, you should head into town. All of our sleeping venues are in residential areas, and the churches have expressed concern for the beauty sleep of their neighbours. Keep it down, please, especially when arriving at sleeping venues late at night. If a door is shut, knock quietly and as an ultimate solution, call the reception number. We reserve the right to refuse sleeping space to anyone who causes hassle by being too loud/drunk/obnoxious. Sorry ‘bout that. We’re nice really but it’s got to be said. The Dunbar St hall is in an area of sheltered housing for the elderly. Absolute silence, guys. I know it sounds a bit officious and OTT, but we’ll all be old one day, we can but hope.
- Live tidy. You’ll need to pack away your things in the morning and leave them neatly. Please try not to “spread”.
- Enjoy. The shared living is another colourful part of the experience of IVFDF. Find the leprechaun, eat cereal out of a plastic pint glass with a fork for breakfast, look out your best jammies (and a wooly hat). It is what you make it.
First aid
First aiders are on hand all weekend and can be found by contacting a steward, or by going to or calling the Festival Office (07741 085 209).
Banks
From Butchart, your closest ATM is at Tesco Express on King St. Others are around and marked on the map (p. 16).
Stewards
IVFDF stewards are here for your comfort, safety and information. It is easy to identify stewards as they are wearing white T-shirts and look slightly less fraught than committee members. They are kind and wonderful volunteers so please be nice to them and abide by any instructions they give you. This will help them have a nice festival. If you wish to physically express your profound gratitude that they have given up part of their weekend to assist you, please check they are comfortable receiving hugs (or other expressions of appreciation) from relative strangers and consider when you last danced/showered.
No smoking
In accordance with Scottish Law, smoking is not permitted inside any buildings. For the comfort of other IVFDFers, please do not smoke close to entrances/exits/open windows either.
Alcohol and venues
A bar will be open in Elphinstone Hall during the evenings. Unfortunately you may not take alcohol into or out of this venue. Butchart is a ‘bring your own drink’ zone; you can buy alcohol in the nearby shops. Please know your limits! For more info, go to www.drinkaware.co.uk
Parking
Cars may be parked in one of two car parks at the north-east corner of campus. Please log your registration number at the Festival Office. All cars are parked entirely at the owner’s risk and neither IVFDF nor the University of Aberdeen takes any responsibility for vehicles parked on campus. Disabled parking is available in front of the Butchart Centre on University Road.
Baggage
A baggage room will be available in the Butchart building from 17.00 on Friday and from 08.30 on Sunday. While the building is supervised, IVFDFers leave their belongings at their own risk and valuables should not be left here.
Showers
Your weekend ticket entitles you to access the showering facilities at Aberdeen Sports Village, a short walk away from the Butchart building (see map), as many times as you like during the weekend.
Opening hours are:
- Friday: until 22.30
- Saturday: 07.30-19.30
- Sunday: 07.30-21.30
WiFi Internet
- Butchart, King’s College, Elphinstone Hall and the Chaplaincy centre all have wireless internet access available by a number of means: Eduroam allows visitors from participating institutions to gain access to their own home network when visiting Aberdeen by using credentials provided by their home organisation.
- WiFi Zone - The Cloud is a commercial service for members of the public or conference delegates. This is a charged service (although it is bundled with some mobile phone contracts and does allow 15 minutes free usage per day).