31 replies to this topic

[Cooter]

agree totally with the OP, yes that one way system is a hideous nightmare and all seems quite pointless.

[DeanoL]

I would guess the cordon was placed above Avalon for the same reason the major complaints are coming up: toilets. They wanted those toilets to be accessible to people in the late night areas for capacity reasons, and so they couldn't also be used for those in the Avalon field.

It was far from a perfect system, but the conditions this year were really bad. As bad as it might have got, I can't imagine what it'd be like with last years system in this year's conditions.

[Glasto fan]

504329lt, on 28 June 2011 - 02:50 PM, said:

I actually think that getting rid of the one way system is the best solution.  It has not made things safer, and in places it has made things much worse.  Additionally the whole idea of electronic boards with waiting times on is just not right for this festival.

The best thing to do is split up the 'late night areas' so they are not all in one corner of the site.  In truth I think the whole Block 9, Shrangrila think has become contrived and needs a complete overhaul.

I totally agree with you. The problem is that there are five late night fields all in one area. If they split them up around the site it would prevent the massive crush as everyone wouldn't be going the same way. I'm not really sure how they could do this though without moving other fields/areas and I think the reason the late-night areas are located in certain places to do with how the noise carries.

Also the boards with the waiting times on were a complete waste of time from what I could gather, as the times were usually wrong anyway. One night it said 120 minutes and people were actually getting in after 20 minutes. That is a bit of a difference!

[verrymerry]

On sunday night we went upto the Stone Circle via Avalon, it looked like they were stopping people going onto the railway because the steward was saying "you can come this way if you have the right wristband" but he let us all through saying "yeah you're bands are fine" when we just had the normal punters ones - basically turning a blind eye so that was lucky!

I didn't get stuck in the one way when it was busy though, we only used it once while U2 was on & it just seemed to take a while, thursday we went in via the railway.  I didn't see any major gridlocks though like last year when the railway became a standstill.

[LusciousLucy]

Never had a problem but this is probably down to having the sense to get there just before the headliners finished and taking routes to PGC that didnt involve crowds. 5 mins before the Chems ended our group got together on the Railway Track, we dropped down past Spirit of 71 then right down Holts, left at West Holts, right down the road past Fairy Love, left past the Astrolabe et voila, joined the entry queue. Even with 7 people in tow, that just took 9 minutes!!!

The system flowed nicely into the base of the East End, only snag we had was trying to get through the wall of Human Sheep™ on the left side of the Arcadia Field, not helped by the fact people were stood over the guy ropes to the cafe at the base.

Once in Arcadia there was feck loads of space on The Common side but I dont expect security even knew or had checked. I dont think there was ever more than 15000 people there all evening and it emptied too while we were there.

There does need to be some sort of way of telling people where to go in the field instead of all being forced into one squishy area. The following night, same time there were even fewer people in Arcadia and even more space and yet friends told me they had been told it was full with a 2 hours queueing system in place.

[mcshed]

Managed to walk straight through the new system on Friday and Sunday nights without any queuing, was after the rush on Friday as I had seen Asian Dub Foundation and then had f**ked about a bit and before it on Sunday as went there as quickly as possible after QOTSA as we could see that Beyonce was still at it.  Didn't bother trying on Saturday as heard rumours of 2 hour wait and was flagging a bit, but the system seemed fine just the unavoidable problem that when the Pyramid headliner finishes a ton of people want to go to the late-night area.  Having said all this, I had no trouble with the system last year again by staying out of the way of the crowd coming from the Pyramid. At the busiest times the queues will be bad same with getting on site Wednesday morning, nothing can stop that.

[ukslim]

Cooter, on 28 June 2011 - 03:05 PM, said:

agree totally with the OP, yes that one way system is a hideous nightmare and all seems quite pointless.

Did you experience the crowds on the railway line last year? How is it pointless to try to prevent that?

[sisterofmercy]

eFestivals, on 28 June 2011 - 03:03 PM, said:

I don't think that's an option.

It's where it is because that's the one part of the site where noise thru the night is not as much of an issue, because Michael has made some agreements with the small number of people who live on that side.

Ah I was wondering why they were all in the same general area, that makes more sense now. It's a shame really that they can't spread them out, was madness there at some points, and not the good kind.

I was a little annoyed that they blocked Strummerville off as well, seeing as it's not strictly the same kind of area that Shangri La, etc are. We spoke to one of the security guys and he said it was a bit ridiculous to make everyone go all the way around the one way system, but there wasn't much to be done about it. At least they have plenty of time to improve on the system should they want to.

[evergreenh]

The issue of the one way system was brought up with Michael Eavis in the Q&A in the speakers tent on Sunday.

Apparently he had taken the advice of the professional crowd management company with regards to overcrowding in the late night area.  It was their recommendation that a one way system be implemented and they designed it.

Had this advice been ignored and an accident happened due to overcrowding then with the evidence of professional advice being given and ignored Michael Eavis would be sued probably to the point of bankruptcy, Glastonbury would never get a license, and you would be waving goodbye to the festival forever.

So like it or not, I think that the one way system is here to stay as long as the late night area is so popular.

[ianianian]

Totally agree on the point about not being able to get from Avalon to Croissant Neuf. Was ridiculously annoying.

[geebus]

evergreenh, on 28 June 2011 - 09:32 PM, said:

Apparently he had taken the advice of the professional crowd management company with regards to overcrowding in the late night area.  It was their recommendation that a one way system be implemented and they designed it.

Had this advice been ignored and an accident happened due to overcrowding then with the evidence of professional advice being given and ignored Michael Eavis would be sued probably to the point of bankruptcy, Glastonbury would never get a license, and you would be waving goodbye to the festival forever.

That's more concerning and smacks of a typical sales line "oh look, you've got this terrible problem, however, just luckiy we can help for a very reasonable fee..."


I thought it was interesting to see the timing marks along the path - obviously that had INTENDED for it be packed and to do the crowd control at the other end, but chose not to for one reason or another.

[jris]

i went in the SE corner on friday there was no queue, there was a bigger queue to get out of pgc so my brother an i went in. it was quiet. tryed on sat the queue was big so went off and had a look to the rabbit hole it to was packed. came back to find the queue was still massive. as we got there the sign said the place was closed, then a women came over a speaker saying it was shut and there was nothing else going on and told everyone they had to go back to there tents?. it was not the place was still rockin.
one of the main problems was that once people were in the SE corner, the last thing they want to so is leave?. as they all know if you do it's a long walk to get back in.
lets hope that the two years they have till the next festival things will change.