Events | One reason for the traffic jams at the Flow festival was revealed: Thousands of defective wristbands had to be attached to wrists with pliers

On the weekend The sold-out Flow festival organized in Helsinki’s Suvilahti suffered from bad congestion in some places. They have also been wondered about on social media.

Especially the wristband exchange was significantly congested, which was due to a mistake made by the wristband supplier, says Flow festival’s artistic director Tuomas Kallio. In the three-day bracelets, the plastic sleeve did not move at all. The sleeve is meant to tighten the bracelet around the wrist.

“This mistake was noticed two days before the festival. In that time, around 18,000 bracelets will no longer be made anywhere,” says Kallio.

After noticing the mistake, the organizers started a “terrible innovation process” on how the wristbands could be used, according to him. In the end, they ended up with the so-called pincer solution, where the wristband was forcibly pulled through the sleeve with pliers.

According to Kallio, this delayed the wristband exchange considerably, when it could take up to half a minute to fasten one wristband instead of five seconds. Also, it was not possible to get additional manpower for the points on a fast schedule.

“It was really unfortunate that the festival started with such a stupid mistake. On the other hand, this well describes the fact that we, as organizers, are in a constant balance of terror among different subcontractors,” he says.

Within the precincts of visited during the three days, a total of approximately 90,000 visitors, approximately 30,000 visitors per day. The area was also larger this year than before.

According to Kallio, with the exception of the wristband exchange, Flow was mostly comfortable and the capacity was sufficient for the number of visitors.

Despite this, there was also a queue for the toilets at times, even though most of the toilets were empty. According to Kallio, the directions to the toilets could have been clearer.

“We had hundreds of toilets, three quarters of which were empty, but there was still a toilet queue on Friday. I guess a person just stays in line sensitively if others are also in line,” he says.

There were also queues at Flow’s food and drink side, but according to Kallio, they were mainly due to the fact that some sellers sold a lot and others less.

FLOW FESTIVAL has been organized in Helsinki’s Suvilahti industrial area since 2007. With these prospects, the festivals will have to be evacuated from the area from the fall of next year due to the construction work of the new event center.

“The area is wonderful and has a lot of potential, but it’s difficult when the city doesn’t have a clear vision for it yet,” says Kallio.

According to him, there are many question marks regarding the future location of the festival. However, he highlights, for example, the Hanasaari power plant, which will stop operating next spring.

“It’s a much bigger area than Suvilahti, and we would be happy to use it, for example, in new additional areas.”