Lead in…
After a crazy month of festival mayhem in June, The Riot Squad took a well deserved break as we planned for our next summer festival circuit for our Riot Rehab Bus Tour. The bus had seen it all and made haven for thousands of festival goers as we pushed our mission to change the status quo of smoking cessation in our first summer festival circuit, but it just couldn't lay to rest for much longer. So it returns bigger and better than ever before by kicking off phase 2 of the tour at the UK’s biggest dance festival - WE ARE FSTVL 2022! This one was going to be special one, showing people they can party hard and quit smoking easily…
A Sunny Saturday in Upminster
We Are FSTVL brings together some of dance music’s most popular acts, from tech titans, house music heroes and drum ‘n’ bass legends, helming the decks across the weekend. The festival was held over a 2 day period on August 6th - 7th at Damyns Hall Aerodrome in Upminster, a town on the outer edges of east London. The Saturday hosted some huge names such as Patrick Topping, Camelphat, The Martinez Brothers and Andy C! We would have mentioned the legend that is Shy FX as well, but to the 80,000 visitors' disappointment, he never showed. Bummer.
We had a perfect location for our bus right at the entrance of the festival. As 10’s of thousands of ravers started flooding in, we started targeting anybody we could see who was smoking or vaping before they went off to see their favourite acts of the day. We spoke to hundreds and hundreds of people with different smoking journeys and unique triggers to learn all about how we could get them started on their quitting journey with our Riot Bar! We know the power vaping has when it comes to smoking cessation and we were able to showcase that to our visitors over the weekend.
On Saturday we had our special Instagram giveaway winners come and meet us at our bus who we supplied with Riot Bar influencer packs containing all 10 award-winning flavours & a glass of bubbly (or two) before they went on their way to live their best life for the weekend with their free VIP tickets that they won! We do regular giveaways on our social pages so if you don't follow us already - what are you waiting for? Not only that but our very own Jade Laurice who we met at Strawberries & Creems came by to film some content and of course enjoy her weekend as well with the supplied VIP tickets from us. The team were ecstatic to see her again and will be sure to see her again at any future events!
Sunday’s Solid Grooves
The Sunday was set up to be a special one as 28-degree summer heat covered the WE ARE fields with not a single cloud in sight. As we started to see our guests for the weekend ahead, ravers seemed to have forgotten most of their festival fits at home as tanned skin was on show in abundance. The acts for the days ahead included even BIGGER DJs who were bound to shell their set’s inside of the unmissable scenic tents. Michael Bibi, Marco Carola, Carl Cox, Sonny Fodera, PAWSA & Loco Dice were amongst the lethal lineup that took the roof off the two biggest tents on site hosted by the world famous music labels - Circoloco & Solid Grooves. If that wasn’t enough, the Pretty Little Thing stage was taken over by superstars such as Craig David, KSI, Nathan Dawe & Rudimental.
Being THE largest dance festival in the UK, popular faces were seen all over the VIP and XCLSV area where we plastered our mission and purpose across the camp with branded banners & Riot messaging. We were able to meet 2022 Love Islanders Chyna Mills & Lacey Edwards, Sidemen member Tobjizzle and TikToker Josh Ryan who were all blown away by our Riot Bar - not only by the flavours but how environmentally friendly they were compared to other vapes such as the infamous Elf Bar.
Our bus attracted hundreds of people again on day 2 and soon enough packed our luxury seating area out with recovering ravers. History repeated itself as our Riot Bar flavour testimonials came in thick and fast with positive feedback all around. It was the perfect partner for each raver as they went on to dance until the sun went down. We even had a bunch of people who had seen us the previous day to bring back their finished Riot Bars, recycle them in our vape recycle bins and of course restock again. Our videographers ventured backstage to shoot incredible footage of Solid Grooves, Michael Bibi x Loco Dice x Dennis Cruz and others as they closed out the groovy weekend with a hectic 4 HOUR set! It put an amazing end to a weekend we will never forget as our most eventful festival yet started to become just a memory…
Final Words…
Ahh… Where do we begin? WE ARE FSTVL was one for the Riot history books as we met so many new & amazing people who have now joined the ever-growing Riot Community. We were able to SMASH our target of converting our next 1000 smokers to vaping through our Riot Bar after them being able to try our unforgettable flavours. We beat our festival sales record, our data gathered record AND filmed the best content yet with the help of our new videographer who recently joined the Riot team! With moments we won't be forgetting anytime soon and a tan that should last us a week or two, it’s safe to say WE ARE FSTVL got truly Riot’d. Until next time Upminster…
