168 replies to this topic

[Grimmy]

Last year when we finally got in after all the traffic at 2am the only space we could find was taken up by a couple of chairs and a fishing umbrella. Security told us to put them to one side and pitch up. Later two girls came out and started going mad about it. Normally we would probably go and find somewhere else to save hassle but the field was really packed and we were tired from travelling so we stayed. My Dad was apologetic but I didn't like the way they talked back to him so I just told them it's hard lines. I think there's enough room for everyone's need but not everyone's greed. What are your views on this?

[worthyraver]

If you are saving space for someone the only acceptable way is to take their tent and pitch it for them.  If this is really not possible you must at the very least stay in the "reserved" area and politely ask people if they would mind to camp elsewhere.

You totally did the right thing

[glastofever]

Thats a hard one to call. I think you were right to move there stuff cos it is really annoying if you see spaces reserved. Just my oppinion though

[stuartbert two hats]

It's nice to have space for your chairs and stuff.  Camp in a busy field, it's not a right.  I got told by a girl last year "I can't let you camp there" because she was saving that particular spot for her mates.  That was in Pennards!

Camp Triangle actually.  Not going back next year.

Edited by stuartbert two hats, 18 May 2010 - 06:55 PM.

[ukslim]

Tricky one.

For decades, a big part of the festival for many people, is the after hours socialising back at the camp at the end of the night and in the morning. If you've got used to that, it's a crushing disappointment to come back to your campsite and find that someone's plonked a tent right where you wanted your campfire. And I see these people's chairs as being equivalent to that.

I think the stewards should have been able to tell you where there was a real space -- there *were* real spaces, somewhere in the site. You couldn't have found them without help from stewards, and the stewards' job is to know.

[mikeb]

Putting on the old devils hat for a mo

Why is it acceptable to "reserve" space period ?  Everyone (in general) has exactly the same opportunity to get a ticket on a first come first served basis in exchange the relevant amount of do$h. Everyone pays exactly the same amount for a ticket inclusive of camping space. Everyone has the same options for choosing when to arrive on site to find their camping space which should also be available very much on a first come first served basis I would suggest.  Why should some peeps feel that it's perfectly acceptable to turn up 'late' or at their relative leisure for whatever reason they may have and find a personal space "reserved" for them ?  How would everyone who thinks that it's OK to "reserve" space feel if the entire Pennards area was roped off at 0800 on Wednesday morning for instance to reserve the space for me from Wednesday sometime and for all my 1000's of mates who will be arriving on Friday morning ?

Yeah, I know it's very nice to all camp together when there's a group of you. Yeah I know that not everyone can arrive how or when they really want to for loadsa good reasons. Yeah, it may even be a good thing to have a campfire and sit around in the campsite for hours - although god knows why when there's a massive festival to enjoy mind you. And yeah I've (probably) heard just about all the reasons why it's allegedly perfectly OK to apparently be selfish ... but the simple fact always remains in my mind that it just doesn't seem in any way right that those who turn up earlier should have to accommodate or make sacrifices for those who to all intents and purposes have already staked their claim by proxy to ensure that their personal space is all ready and waiting for them when they eventually arrive !

What happened to first come first served and equal opportunities for all ? When it comes to finding camping space, any space not physically occupied by a tent really ought to be fair game for anyone who happens to want it I would suggest.

[quickly exchanges devil's hat for a super-extra-heavy duty tin hat and retreats to a *very* safe distance ]

Edited by mikeb, 18 May 2010 - 07:29 PM.

[Boris]

ukslim, on May 18 2010, 08:56 PM, said:

Tricky one.

For decades, a big part of the festival for many people, is the after hours socialising back at the camp at the end of the night and in the morning. If you've got used to that, it's a crushing disappointment to come back to your campsite and find that someone's plonked a tent right where you wanted your campfire. And I see these people's chairs as being equivalent to that.

I think the stewards should have been able to tell you where there was a real space -- there *were* real spaces, somewhere in the site. You couldn't have found them without help from stewards, and the stewards' job is to know.

I think that's reasonable. There's actually a lot more space recently overall... I absolutely love the sitting round the fire talking bollocks part of the festival: it makes me very happy. So yes it is important to me to have space enough to sit with friends and light a fire safely. It's not selfish if you don't take the p with the space and ultimately needen't cause any problems as the stewards direct later people to where to most space is.

[4AssedMonkey]

"What happened to first come first served and equal opportunities for all ? When it comes to finding camping space, any space not physically occupied by a tent really ought to be fair game for anyone who happens to want it I would suggest."

My sentiments exactly.  No one has a right to a certain camping spot at a sold out festival and certainly not a staked out area for friends/relatives/chairs/sunbathing/whatever.  The site has plenty of places to hang out and socialise.  If you want to make a fire and sit round it, go to Kings Meadow.  If you want to sit on the grass and chat there are hundreds of places.  At the very least either organise yourselves to meet up on the road and "wagon train" in or pitch up somewhere you know isn't going to be immediately rammed (like Dairy Ground/South Park for instance).

[halvin]

On the one hand, you don't have any right to reserve any space.  On the other hand, the people next to us a few years ago lost their sitting space when someone plonked a tent in the middle of it.  They were right to be a little miffed (but didn't say anything to the newbies) because there were plenty of tent-sized gaps around us.  They ended up joining us in our space and turned out to be lovely people utter cock-knockers, but hilariously funny cock-knockers and we've camped with them ever since.  

On a similar note, I was asked if I'd take down my shelter (like a gazebo but not a gazebo) by security last year so I pointed out all the space around us but said that if someone came over with a tent that wouldn't fit anywhere else, I'd take it down.  They shrugged their shoulders and seemed to accept my point.

Edited by halvin, 18 May 2010 - 07:41 PM.

[farewellandgoodnight]

To be fair how big was this "reserved space"? If it's big enough for a couple of tents to fit in then it's too big for a couple of chairs. In that case you did exactly the right thing. It's just selfish to expect to reserve space too. As mentioned before the only way to reserve space is to bring and pitch your mate's tents or at least their groundsheet.

If you want a gathering area there're a couple of options. Don't pick a really busy area to camp and put up a modestly sized Gazebo. I know a lot of people don't like these but I think they make things more sociable by providing a gathering point for not only yourselves but often others camped in the area to socialise.

If you don't have a Gazebo then put your tents in a circle with the entrances facing each other and get a campfire going in the middle asap. Can't see anybody wanting to camp on top of that. That said i'll be camping in Big Ground this year where there's enough space to be able to do that without pissing anybody off.

At the end of the day I think if somebody turns up and clearly can't camp anywhere else but in your Gazebo space you're being selfish not to give up the space for them. If on the other hand there's loads of room then tell them to camp elsewhere.

Edited by farewellandgoodnight, 18 May 2010 - 07:53 PM.

[puppetmode]

yeah. I think having enough space to brew up and sit outside your tent is part of your ticket price. Thats what you'd expect when paying at a campsite. There is more room than ever last year and this.
And I think that if someone is coming on a Thursday and youre getting there Wednesday then youre entiltled to save there space...within reason. dont take the piss.
People do have the right to camp if theres a space. But at the same time people are able to be pissed off if someone parks there tent right infront of yer flaps. Thats more disrespectful than saving spaces.

[manudave]

Just pitch tent A and tent B in such a way that you can shove a seat or two in between that no one could ever look at and think, i'm pitching me tent there.

There is etiquette:
Don't maul someone else's property
Don't hog space unless you really need it
Don't pitch your tent over the entrance of another tent
Don't piss/spit toothpaste near someone else's tent
Don't build a wall that makes anyone need to treck/go across a river/climb a gazebo to get round it
Don't be a nob

Edited by manudave, 18 May 2010 - 07:59 PM.

[farewellandgoodnight]

puppetmode, on May 18 2010, 08:52 PM, said:

And I think that if someone is coming on a Thursday and youre getting there Wednesday then youre entiltled to save there space...within reason. dont take the piss.

It's easy to pitch their tent for them if they need space saving to be fair. I don't have a problem with people saving the odd space for friends in a quiet field really even if they've not pitched a tent.
The issue arises when you get large groups in places like Pennards fencing off areas for three or four other tents of people who wont be there until Friday.
When i've just walked a mile or more with heavy gear and there's no room anywhere but for large areas fenced off for people who couldn't make the effort to get there earlier that's when it's out of order.

Edited by farewellandgoodnight, 18 May 2010 - 08:00 PM.

[mikeb]

puppetmode, on May 18 2010, 08:52 PM, said:

But at the same time people are able to be pissed off if someone parks there tent right infront of yer flaps. Thats more disrespectful than saving spaces.

You see, that's pretty much what I tend to get almost every year these days TBH - it's the downside of camping alone and never being at the tent apart from for just a few hours after very stupid o'clock !  No matter how much space is around Ye Olde Tent when I wander off after bunging it up, by the time I eventually get back there's generally practically zero space. Certainly no space for a chair if I happened to have one and more than once in fact, not really even enough space to actually get into the tent with any degree of ease.  Absolutely no gap for peeps to walk past either of course meaning a very well trampled flysheet by the end of the fest with everyone looking for ways around the often roped off areas.  I've even had peeps who've apparently tried to move it in order to make a bigger space for themselves despite the fact that it's not a dome/tunnel job but an old skool ridge jobbie that you can't simply unpeg and shift so they made a right old b*gger of things of course   The only apparent reason in most cases was purely to give themselves a much larger sitty down area in front of their tents or to make room for a stupid bl**dy gazebo or suchlike    And BTW, I'm not talking about camping in so-called busy or popular areas either, this was the NW corner and it's been much the same kinda deal for most recent years, certainly post 2004 anyway. Never used to be like that. A campsite is primarily supposed to be a campsite after all - there's 100's if not 1000's of venues and other places lovingly provided for your entertainment all over more than 1000 acres of festival whereas a campsite is for, ehrm, putting up a tent for storage purposes and sleeping in and all that isn't it.

Edited by mikeb, 18 May 2010 - 08:19 PM.

[karlpowell]

Simple answer  , if you want space for your friends , the first to arrive on site should set up ALL the tents .


job done


karl

[Familiar2billions]

we got in late on Wednesday last year because of the traffic and after an hour and a half of looking finally found what seemed a decent size space for the 3 tents we had in the park grounds.
Two girls fresh out of Topshop came out of there tents and started saying that the big bit of space was reserved for mates coming down and there was no way we could camp there.
Usually id say fairs fair as i know what it's like wanting to have all your mates camped with you but this was at the point where the site was crammed, not when theres still massive patches of space!
Luckily there was another group of people next to them from Mancs who saw sense and told us to just chuck our stuff down and if this other group kicked off they'd take our side as they had been troubled to find a spot too.


Luckily they didnt kick off and we even invited them over to our fire that night to indulge in a smoke and all introduce ourselves and exchange pleasentrys which seemed to go fine... until a couple of hours later when my mate could over hear them slagging us off and character assasinating every single one of us.
We didnt let it bother us though because we knew A. Sound people dont act that way, B. This is Glastonbury not Brick lane no matter how much they think otherwise (no offence to anyone that goes drinking that way, sure you'll know you get some right 'up there own' types there among the decent unfotanetly), And finally C. We were camped all nice and snug on there mates supposed space!  

Edited by Familiar2billions, 18 May 2010 - 08:18 PM.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

stuartbert two hats, on May 18 2010, 07:54 PM, said:

It's nice to have space for your chairs and stuff.  Camp in a busy field, it's not a right.  I got told by a girl last year "I can't let you camp there" because she was saving that particular spot for her mates.  That was in Pennards!

Camp Triangle actually.  Not going back next year.

Don't worry I have been reliably informed that there will be no bossy people at CT this year

[4AssedMonkey]

The Thursday morning last year we woke up to find so many 1 & 2 man tents squashed in around us that I nearly fell over one walking out of our tent is was that close.  The people we introduced ourselves to as neighbours the day before were now 2 tents away!  We were in Dairy Ground (which I'm told wasn't that busy compared to others).  So at an event that busy, is it really fair to reserve a pitch just so you can sit at your tent?  I don't think so and anyone who gets narky about someone pitching a tent where they had put chairs/umbrellas/red & white tape should take their Daily Mail subscription and f**k off out of it.

Edited by 4AssedMonkey, 18 May 2010 - 08:19 PM.

[mashy]

[quote name='karlpowell' date='May 18 2010, 08:10 PM' post='3277146']
Simple answer  , if you want space for your friends , the first to arrive on site should set up ALL the tents .

This is exactly what I am doing this year.

My friends cannot make it until later on Weds afternoon so I am taking both there tents to pitch it for them.

I would never consider saving or taping off areas. Its just wrong.

[scaryclaireyfairy]

there are 8 of us this year spread over 4 tents and 3 cars.  we've never managed to camp all together before so we're making a concerted effort this year.  all the tents are going in the first car down.