lessthanwill1

Got really into the idea of doing ultras in lockdown and quickly got a big goal in my head to run Lakeland 100 (and a pipe dream goal of doing the Bob Graham Round). Managed to get a qualifying time for the 2024 edition of LL100 by completing Lakes in a Day 50 a few weeks ago in 13 hours 40 odd minutes. For next year I’m in for Centurion’s South Downs Way 50 and also planning on doing either of the shorter Ultra Trail Snowdonia races. I’ve also entered Trionium’s events in the Surrey hills (Knackercracker, Leith Hill half and the Midsummer Munroe - which all look a lot of fun, allegedly UK’s “hardest” 10k and Half Marathons). Anyone else here into their trail running/ultras?

Osees added to Canela Party, which makes them more likely to be at GM 23

Can’t stop listening to the Jockstrap album. I hope they appear - ideally headlining Walled Garden one evening. I would also very much welcome Alvvays headlining. Probably not quite at that level but certainly up there! 3/3 now with excellent albums!

New Richard Dawson album out in November. Believe it starts with a 40 minute song 😂. Shoe in for GM 2023?

Petrol Girls please

Predictions based on new/upcoming releases: Weyes Blood, Alvvays, Stella Donnelley, Sudan Archives, Julia Jacklin, Jockstrap, Courting, Beth Orton, The Beths, PVA, Mabe Fratti, Skullcrusher, The Big Moon, Say Sue Me, Iceage, No Age, Preoccupations, Rachika Nayar, Courtney Marie Andrews, Bonny Light Horseman, Gilla Band, Indigo Sparke, Bill Callahan, The Soft Pink Truth, Aoiffe Nessa Frances, Nathalie Lafoucarde, Special Interest.

imo King Gizzard is a perfect headliner for this festival, as it was envisaged in its first year. I think electronic acts were always envisaged for Wide Awake but not necessarily as the main headliner (there are already so many electronic focused day festivals in London). You could just have Erol, or someone like Mount Kimbie for example, headlining the dance tent alongside the main headliner (as Daniel Avery did the first year). Wide Awake was an exciting festival as it seemed to be curated to largely celebrate the UK’s underground rock and experimental scene, with a few mid level marquee acts and international acts as a cherry on top. There aren’t too many festivals that do that on that sort of scale (DIY and Visions are pretty good though). I hope they focus on this for next year’s festival. The leaked names (if true) are a good starting point.

They headlined Far Out in 2019. Could definitely see them headlining but it would be a bit of a boring booking imo and I’d also be elsewhere on the day for sure.

Some curious Twitter activity yesterday. Seems to be a DJ set at “Spiritland” by Joe Talbot (IDLES) and Simone Marie (Primal Screem). Spiritland looks to be a restaurant in the Royal Festival Hall in London that often has DJs. Green Man retweeted some announcement about it yesterday. GM and The Green Man bands booker also liked the same announcement.

Arooj Aftab, Gilla Band and Osees is certainly enough to peak my interest! Have seen Arooj and Gilla Band recently though. Another couple of good names and I’m there. Where are those names from?

Edit: Double post

Welcome! GM sold out quicker that ever this year. It usually sells out, just not this quickly! No consensus yet. Just wild speculation at the moment. I’m thinking Sigur Ros and Yeah Yeah Yeahs are quite likely candidates as they will presumably be around in the Summer next year given the new albums and seem to be in GM’s ballpark for headliners.

Why are there so many people fighting over tickets? My guess: Demand for tickets continues to increase because: - attendees love it and want to go back; - the festival gets more well known each year and this increases the number of people who are likely to buy tickets; and - increased demand for domestic holidays more generally because of the climate emergency. At the same time: - the site hasn’t materially increased in size as far as I know nor has the number of attendees, or at least both haven’t increased in line with the demand for tickets; and - they/ticketline don’t appear to have properly upgraded the tech that supports the ticket buying process and therefore it is unable to sufficiently handle the website traffic, leading to poor customer experience. Solutions? As you say, one solution is to increase the site and the number of attendees. This will obviously allow more people to come and reduce the issue of people fighting over tickets. I hope they don’t go down this route. It is arguable whether it would be even possible in its current location. The site and size of attendees is perhaps the most important factor to me in why I choose to go (and I think it is also key for others). Another solution is to improve the ticket buying process. They could sack off ticketline - but is there a better alternative provider? Clearly they need to upgrade whatever software they use so it can handle the amount of traffic they experienced yesterday. I also wonder whether having both early birds and general on sale led to an unnecessarily high volume of website traffic. I would guess that having early birds on one day and general sale on another day would reduce overall volume and make it easier for the website to handle the processing? A loyalty scheme is an interesting idea but it would be controversial, depending on its nature. I don’t necessarily agree that those who have been before should be entitled to tickets. I’ve never got Glastonbury tickets despite five years of trying. I don’t hold this against Glastonbury. Ultimately, this is fantastic news for GM and a reflection of the way they organise and execute the festival. The concern is whether they change the festival to keep up with demand in a way that ruins the festival. I guess this depends on GM’s appetite for profit. One would hope that as an independently owned business without shareholder pressure, they don’t necessarily have that same pressure to continue to grow that other festivals might. I (selfishly?) hope they are happy with the way things are and carry on largely as normal, and perhaps tinker with the ticketing process just to try and make that process a little less stressful.

Car parking is £24 but I take your point. I actually have no idea I’m afraid. I would guess it’s because they have limited space to offer campervans and therefore there is a lot of demand for those tickets, and therefore they can charge a lot of money for it as people will buy them regardless? Alternatively, perhaps there are added infrastructure costs for having campervans on site? 🤷‍♂️

Yeah I just checked and it now doesn’t say sold out. Looks like there are still some available! Very odd though!

Seems like a low ticket warning already on Twitter?? That’s mad

6 mins for me

Yeah it did that for me too but you can choose to untick that box if you don’t want to donate

You can opt out of the donation if you want

I didn’t get a confirmation from ticket line after I put my card details in but the money came out and I got an email about 10 mins later

It’s all the same link I think. greenman.ticketline.co.uk I think you can only select normal tickets now as early bird is sold out https://greenman.ticketline.co.uk

I was paying for the early bird about 15 mins ago but got kicked out and then it said they were sold out. Got a normal ticket instead.

Early birds will go quickly this morning. My sense is that normal tickets will be on for sale for at least a few weeks but who knows now! Maybe the quick sell out last year will spook people!

I arrived around 9-10 am on Thursday and didn’t have to wait for a single car on entry in orange car park and no one was in front of me in the queue for wristbands. Exiting was a tiny bit slower mid morning on Monday but nothing bad.