FLB

Same story here, just lead booker

That was great!

This

Yep

Wed: Beans on Toast Thurs: Abandoned the clashfinder entirely and did Brian V -> Sportsbanger Mega Rave -> Showhawk Duo -> Lekiddo - Lord of the Lobsters! -> This Is Now DJs -> West Holts Bar (not sure who was on) -> Mellowmatic -> Sedef Adasi Fri: The Libertines -> Ziggy Marley -> Bad Boy Chiller Crew -> Craig Charles and Friends -> Daddy G B2B Nick Warren -> TLC -> Dance System -> Bonobo -> Jon Hopkins -> Four Tet -> John Digweed Sat: Brass Against -> Skunk Anansie -> Carl Cox & Eric Powell's Mobile Disco Ft Incognito -> Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds -> Paul McCartney -> Roisin Murphy -> Floating Points Sun: Emma-Jean Thackray -> Herbie Hancock -> The Jungle Session: Prophecy, North Base & Mark Xtc -> Diana Ross -> Snarky Puppy -> Jack White (from the top of the hill) -> Mella Dee -> Nooriyah -> Bicep -> Floorplan -> Joy Anonymous -> DJ Tahira Saw a couple of others for <4 songs or whilst sat eating at West Holts but not going to count them. Had a great time and many of those above were completely unplanned!

Funnily enough that's exactly what I expected to see when I opened the thread. It's a real shame because that wasn't the first-time experience I had in 2016. I had a great time but it did feel like people might come away from this year feeling less certain about going back than they were previously.

Re more non electronic music at night - why not make the BBC Introducing stage a night venue instead of daytime?

Yes, but I will be thinking about my shoe choices much more carefully!

The barmaid at Genosys who randomly gave me not one but four free drinks. They went down very nicely during Sedef Adasi!

I witnessed a few of the crushes mentioned and was able to avoid the worst of it by backtracking and taking a longer route around. I had also marked some of the spots I thought would be busier on my clashfinder so I knew to avoid certain areas at various times each day. The same can be said for walking an extra 5 minutes to quieter toilets/food stalls. I had a blast, but the fact that I had to pre-plan avoidance spots isn't a good thing and there always seems to be a few very questionable decisions wrt scheduling, not just this year. Some things I noticed this time: There aren't enough toilets in the main areas in general. The toilets are always located at major junctions/potential pinch points, which makes sense for easy access for cleaning etc but can cause issues when there are people having to queue for them and others are trying to exit the area. My feet are wrecked from the 'woodchip'. Imo they just need to put more plastic mats down in the main areas instead to make the 'paths' wider, since most people seem to feel uncomfortable leaving the mats anyway, especially when it gets muddy. Perhaps the extra queues for food were due to a combination of prices at some of the stalls, more people on site in general and many traders going out of business during the pandemic. I have always found it a bit odd that the most obvious place to put food stalls largely contains clothing etc. Also perhaps if WaterAid stalls did free hot water that might cut down on some of the queueing for tea/coffee? I abandon plans of eating my usual healthy diet at festivals but I still don't want to eat vegan food, and this time I did feel like there was a lot of focus on catering to the small number of strict vegan eaters, especially since we're supporting a dairy farm by being there in the first place! Obviously, Thursday needs a rethink. I never bother with Williams Green but I did try the Glade this time before giving up and heading to Greenpeace/SEC instead, which were great fun and not too busy. Instead of driving the Notting Hill Carnival bus around the site, why not park it in the Pyramid field and let people hang out there for a while? The lockups are great, but they feel a bit too close to the campsites to be useful for storing backpacks of warmer clothing, chairs etc during the day. If they put a couple of lockups closer to the action it might persuade some people to carry fewer things around with them. Scheduling big acts on small stages is stupid, but so is scheduling in acts where it's obvious there will be a big crowd switch (e.g. Sleaford Mods > TLC). Also someone needs to tell Fatboy Slim that he can't just play whenever/wherever he wants any more. As mentioned there were a few spots on the schedule that stood out as being obviously busy, which there is no excuse for and it's only a matter of time before something bad happens. Iicon is a brilliant venue with loads of space, and whilst they had a much better lineup there than in 2019 imo they should still be putting the biggest acts on there at night instead of places like Arcadia, Gas Tower, Glade etc. Arcadia needs a complete revamp, which I think they were trying to do but had to abandon due to issues with planning/budget. The crowd crust was ridiculous and I hope there are more PSAs about how to behave in general, not just wrt 'love the farm', 'don't pee on the land' etc. It's a shame that this feels needed, but clearly it is. On a more positive note, it seemed much easier to get water in the main areas than in 2019 and although the toilets were busy they at least always had hand sanitizer.

Yep agreed, wish I was able to catch the Albert Hall gig instead! Yep exactly. Skin mentioned it, got it the wrong way around to what she meant to say and still got a cheer!

I was a bit disappointed by Bonobo - still enjoyed myself but the new slower stuff felt a bit out of place/quiet and everyone seemed to be talking the entire set. New Glade was worse than the old one imo. Also, anyone who forgot where they were and decided to do a speech about Roe vs Wade.

Don't take up more space than you need to. That means bag on the floor in between your legs; yes it will get a bit dirty and you will have to keep an eye on it during the set - if that's an issue then don't bring it out with you. If there isn't space to sit, don't sit. If there is space to sit, there probably still isn't space to sit on a blanket! If you have a cart/pushchair etc, make peace with the fact that you won't be able to watch everything from the middle of the crowd like you used to. Try to avoid smoking, substance use and excessive talking in a crowd. This is especially important at Glastonbury imo since there are lots of kids about. To be fair they didn't cause me any issues, but it was still a bit weird to see people doing coke at 2pm on a Sunday afternoon at Herbie Hancock... If you're moving through a crowd carrying food/pints, some of it is probably going to spill on someone. There's no reason to eat in a busy crowd at any point imo. Obviously leave the crowd if you need the toilet! Thankfully I haven't experienced anything anywhere near as bad as T in the park, where pints of piss were constantly being thrown into the air all weekend... Pick an appropriate spot in the crowd. If you like to dance around a lot that's fine, but not if you're going to be constantly bashing into people. If you really have to sit down before a set, do it at the back of the crowd rather than at the sides where you will stop people from getting further in. If you know you are going to leave halfway through, don't try and watch the first half of the set from a place where you can't easily get out, and try to avoid 'just popping along for 5 minutes at the start to say that I've seen them' unless you can do it in a way that won't make a busy crowd even worse. Don't stop people from moving through the crowd if they want to. If I am making my way through a crowd it's because there's enough space to do so, and usually I can see a gap further in (I'm quite tall). If you stop me from getting there you'll just make things worse for the unlucky people around you that I'm now blocking. It's especially bad when people make it hard for others to exit a crowd, since more often than not there's a good reason people need to get out quickly. People won't mind your flag as much if the pole is tall enough and you make it funny! If you're going on someone's shoulders, don't do it for more than one song.

Yes, but they will only let you walk down there Wednesday morning from about 7AM, so you can't queue overnight unlike the other gates. You should be able to get over to gate B anyway if you end up in east car parking this evening.

Ah, must be then!

Checking it out for 2023?

Someone in one of the secret sets threads said it was Eats Everything B2B Fatboy Slim. Not sure where they got the info/how accurate it is, but Eats Everything = Fonda Pudding makes sense regardless.

Current situation at work:

In my experience the crowds are always busier around the edge, with people stopping for a look on their way back to camp etc, and the sound quality isn't as good there. I found that if you work your way through those initial crowds there is usually a bit more space weirdly and the sound quality is better.

Anderson Paak - Would make sense for him to be on the 'first reserve' list for West Holts in case of last minute dropouts etc. Jack White looks likely for park at this point, but imo this is the least nailed on out of the big TBAs. Arcade Fire - Makes no sense for them to tease George Ezra and then have it be Arcade Fire, would just annoy everyone. Very likely that it's Ezra at this point, but if it isn't I think we will get some extra leaked info prior to Sunday. Harry Styles playing with Billie Eilish - Seems like a decent chance of this Dua Lipa playing with Megan Thee Stallion - Could definitely see this happening + an appearance with Calvin at Arcadia before another all nighter at the Downlow 😀 Chemical Brothers - Yep Green Day playing somewhere small - Longshot chance of Strummerville