ORGANISERS of a festival billed as 'Glastonbury for kids' have apologised after an angry backlash from parents who branded their Harewood show "the worst event ever".

Up to 30,000 people were expected to Sunday and Monday's festivities, which boasted hundreds of activities, as well as performances by stars from children's TV.

But fed-up festivalgoers took to social media to lambast the extravaganza, branding it a "shambles" and "pathetic" for its huge queues and poor planning.

Families attending on the first day of the two day-event described an hour-long wait for the car park followed by massive queues for entry and food. Some even gave up and left before even managing to get in, despite having already paid for tickets.

Once inside, visitors complained of poor organisation at the event, which was branded "lack-lustre and small-scale".

Tickets were priced between £18.50 and £25 per person, and families were promised a circus, theatre groups, bands, jousting, a funfair, motorcycle displays and sheep-shearing.

But many of those attending were left seriously underwhelmed and calling for their money back.

One said: "I have never been to such a large-scale event that has been so poorly organised."

Another said: "If you want to spend the day queueing with your kids then #geronimofest is spot on. Otherwise, very poorly organised event."

One man posted a picture of enormous food queues at the festival and asked: "Did you not know people were coming?"

After the barrage of criticism, organisers said: "Geronimo Festival is sorry some visitors did not have a good experience on Sunday.

"We acknowledge there were delays accessing the festival site. We opened the car park earlier at 8.30am to help ease congestion. We appreciate this was frustrating, especially when travelling with young children. We changed the start times of the live stage shows and we extended the open hours, closing later at 6.30pm.

"As a father of seven, the festival director understands that a positive family day out is of the utmost importance.

"All feedback from Sunday’s event has been taken seriously and the team worked hard to rectify these issues, where possible. We will also be responding to people individually.

"Access and queue times for Monday's event were significantly reduced. On speaking to festivalgoers yesterday [Monday], there were many excited faces enjoying the huge array of fantastic activities available."

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