amfy

I thought the coach was because everyone needs to arrive together to get wristbanded. The shelter site doesn’t have parking right next door like the Oxfam field so they can’t have loads of volunteers wandering about unwristbanded trying to find the field.

Last year we found that we didn’t have to do 2 to keep priority up because there was a different category of ‘7 in the last 5 years’ or something, so it’s possible that once you are on a long run with Oxfam you don’t have to do 2 EVERY year to maintain priority. We’re not doing Glastonbury any more and without the pressure to maintain priority for that, I haven’t really checked that out, but could be worth a more detailed look. We are going for Boomtown today, and we’re probably going to get tickets for Beautiful Days as it’s just the following week and we find working 2 in a row to be a bit much for us, especially if one of them is Boomtown! I hope everyone gets the festivals they want today! Good Luck Balti-Pie and Pinhead for Bearded! The ‘Glastonbury of Oxfam priority’ - straight in for that one in the first few seconds and then back to pick up Glastonbury - stressful! x

Before we started volunteering which has sorted out the traffic issues, we’d taken to going to the Dorset coast for a couple of days before the festival, (Charmouth, Beer, Lyme Regis) it’s a surprisingly short and straightforward trip in from that direction, as there is a more limited number of people coming directly from the south & you seem to just pop up only about a mile from the festival gates! It’s a nice addition to the festival week too.

If it’s on Wednesday or Thursday, I think it has a pretty good sense of occasion. However, during the festival proper, and once we’re into the knockouts my theory is: * If they win there will be games to watch when I get back * If they lose I don’t want to see it because it’s a total let down that I really don’t need while I’m at Glastonbury. As for 5pm on Sunday - definitely not the way I would want to be spending several of my last few hours there (bearing in mind you could also get extra time and penalties) I’m saying this as a massive football fan, who has actually enjoyed watching football at Glastonbury in the past. I’m not saying people shouldn’t do it, but just advising that it’s really not the best use of your time in my experience.

I definitely like filming little clips, but I keep the phone close to my face so it’s not in everyone else’s way. I am 5’10” - which is tall, but not exceptional. I think most people who hold their phones high are maybe trying to get film of an unobstructed view of the band (although I understand for smaller people that’s not the case - but those aren’t the ones in everyone’s eyeline). When I get a little clip of a gig, I prefer to get the view I’ve got - the crowd moving in front of me and the band - even the bloke in the bucket hat that keeps drifting across my view - that’s the memory I want to capture - where I actually was. Especially at Glastonbury - film of the actual band will be available in much better quality elsewhere. I do like looking back at them, and now facebook do their ‘memories’ thing every day, it is actually nice when they pop up in years to come to look at them and remember. However, I am very much aware that everyone doing a ‘short clip’ here and there can add up to a lot of phones over the course of a gig.

Wednesday.

Definitely this. The places go in moments in the first day of non-priority applications, but people then drop out for a while twangs if reasons from: Getting tickets in the resale, deciding to go with a different company, deciding not to volunteer after all, all sorts of life events, pregnancy, bereavement, Illness & accidents. The places just drip back in as they are returned so it’s worth keep checking back, but the key times to look are just after the resale, just before the deposit return deadline, & actually literally just before the festival because that’s when something unexpected will take a few people out of the frame. Oxfam take 2500 volunteers, that’s a lot of people with a lot of different stuff going on!

Yes I do think it’s the pattern that is always referred to as ‘the dreaded’ D shift. It was made worse for me because I didn’t mean to be a supervisor and had ticked that box accidentally, so Mr Amfy was on the same gate as me, but an hour behind! I lost a bit of the advantage in the finish time because of that. I’d just nodded off when he got in and had to get to sleep all over again!

It was a bit mad. I really wanted to let everyone go because we were literally doing nothing and everyone really wanted to try and see Elton. I’d already had to tell people to take their hi viz off because it looked so bad that we’d just been standing around for half an hour. Then some stewards said that some had gone to the loo and not come back, so I exaggeratedly said something like ‘How terrible! Have people really gone to the loo and not come back? I could never condone that but I’m just going to walk all the way over there’…..& everyone who was left duly took the hint and errrm went to the loo… When the bloke came to stand us down he said he was going to blacklist every single one of us which was a horrible end to it all, and I felt sick, but the Team Leader did manage to smooth it over the next day. Oxfam obviously always want to do a thorough job, but at the end of the day they do also know when the job is done!

Thank you - can you also list the locations? I tried to think but I could only thin’ of the one by the co-op and the one by gate C - even though I know I have actually used about 3 others!

Gate C?

We got away at 9.15 but let the stewards go at about 8.30 as it was Sunday and Security took over the gates at 8pm.We got to the edge of the field for Elton. It was OK. We got into a bit of trouble for letting the stewards slip off early even though all the gate supervisors waited til after our official stand down time for the main man to come & stand us down & there was clearly no purpose left in any of us being there!

Or straight to your shift from ‘out’!

2 things here - One is that the shift pattern affects everyone the same & you can’t let everyone go! the other is that I was the supervisor! 🤣

I don’t sleep that well after an overnighter either way tbh & I’m pretty wiped out the day after that no matter what. The Glastonbury shift pattern potentially takes out 2 headliners (whichever stage that is!) as you miss out on the festival on both your afternoon/evening shift & your overnighter. The 8am shift pattern only takes out the headliner on your afternoon/evening shift - although you do of course have to stay sober (ish!) ahead of your overnighter. On both the Glastonburies that I have worked during the festival I’ve had a shift pattern where I missed 2 headliners . You think because it’s 3 shifts over 5 days instead of the usual 4 you’ll get more festival, but for me, the change in timings is the thing that messes that up a bit. I can see why they do it. They want the gate teams to be well organised ahead of the gates opening at 8am on the Wednesday.

The early shift starting at 5.45 for most stewards and 4.45 for supervisors at Glastonbury is a bit of a killer - especially if you have a shift that is an hour or more from the campsite! Most other festivals have a 7.45/6.45 early shift which isn’t as painful. The Glastonbury shift pattern for Oxfam also has your overnighter starting at 9.45/8.45pm, taking out an extra headliner, as most festivals start the overnight shift at 11.45/10.45 & you could still catch the main act before going on duty (although the overnight is always a killer after a full day out!)

I’d say there are specific times that there’s a queue for the lock ups like just after the headliners but mostly there’s never much of a wait. They are dotted about the site - there’s maybe about 5 altogether? you can store literally anything - anything from your passport/purse to crates of beers to bicycles. A donation is entirely voluntary (just a collection jar on the counter & genuinely no one seems to notice whether you donate or not) but I tend to just put a quid in each time I use them.

I’ve done the gates for Oxfam and of course it is somewhat dependent on how closely you resemble the photo and how closely that particular steward is looking, but we are mystery shopped by licensing, so we do have to be ‘on it’ or we risk the festival licence and the charity contract. I take no pleasure in stopping anyone who wants to be there enough to take a gamble, but the system does exist to protect the future of the festival, and to protect the public from touting so it has to be done. Anyone who is camping outside the fence in glamping or campervan fields is really unlikely to get away with it for the whole 5 days, even if they get wristbanded first time through. You have your ticket checked on every entry. I did deal with several people who had already been wristbanded and got in an out several times before the lack of resemblance was picked up - so take that as you will. What I’d say is that of course it’s ‘possible’ to get in on someone else’s ticket, but there’s a massive risk you won’t.

Anyone worried about returning during the day for extra layers or extra beer supplies - just use the lock ups on site. Yes you have to be organised and make sure you have everything when you leave in the morning, but if you use the lock ups, you don’t have to go back for anything until you head back for bed.

Which in a nutshell is why you can’t keep increasing capacity just by expanding the site.

I have said this for years but I am not so sure it holds as true now. Size and range wise it’s incomparable, but there is still only so much one person can do in the time they are there. If my & the OH wanted to get tickets this year that’s £720 for tickets and £200 for the caravan - £920. Throw in the petrol to get the caravan down there & you can round that up to £1000. Lots of people are are glamping, or going for £300 pitches for bigger cara/campervans & it comes out higher. Obviously lots are camping, but I’m comparing like for like below and you can knock live in vehicle/acccommodation costs off any of them if you are still a camper and come to the same conclusions. Obviously Beautiful Days & Beat Herder, (2 other festivals we are considering next year) are a lot smaller, but either will come in at less than half of that. The price gap didn’t used to be that big. Also - check out Sziget - a 10 day festival with 6 full days of music for £279 a ticket. You can stay in an nice apartment in the city for 10 days for another £200-250 & flights from Manchester to Budapest currently start at £189/person total for the 2 of us - Total - £1140 - not much more than Glastonbury for another festival which also has a huge variety of big name and offbeat acts, quirky areas to explore, twice as many days, in a beautiful city where good weather is almost guaranteed. A brilliant festival AND a proper holiday. Glastonbury compares well to other ‘BiG’ festivals in the UK for value, but medium sized festivals are half the price, and abroad festivals can be about the same price. I’ve been to Primavera and Mad Cool and I don’t think they bear any comparison to Glastonbury, but Sziget, whilst not the same, actually does stand up to comparison on alot of levels. I’m not sure the ‘it’s still the best value’ argument stands up as well as it used to anymore.

I liked that at Beautiful Days there were times that there was nothing on I particularly wanted to see. It meant that I’d try something I hadn’t heard before, or just have a bit of a break with a beer and a chat ….…… ……like I used to do at Glastonbury before it started filling every waking moment with sh*t I needed to be at!

It’s actually loads more dusty than I expected!

It’s important that people also understand the flip side of the coin. We worked Thursday morning so one was out of the way, but our 2nd was a Friday overnighter, which wiped out Friday headliners and meant we couldn’t really go mad much before that either, & we were late starting/knackered on Saturday having not got to bed til nearly 7am after our shift. Then we worked Sunday afternoon which meant we potentially missed pretty much everything on Sunday (although Tbf in the end we did get away just in time to get to the edges of the field for most of Elton’s set) We did still see a fair few bands though. It’s just that the idea of 3 shifts over 5 days can sound better in theory than reality. I think it’s harder in some ways at Glastonbury than other festivals because there is ALWAYS something going on, and you are pretty much always going to have to walk miles to get to it! Not meant as a whinge, just making sure people know what they’re signing up for. It can be easy to oversell it!

Working on Gate C we did feel that the horror backlogs we expected never quite materialised. It was really busy at times , but never felt out of control.