DeanoL

I mean that's interesting, as it suggests they could certainly run Woodsies (if Silver Hayes is effectively 0 after midnight, with the volume that runs at (audible from over in Rivermead/Pylon) then they should be fine to run stuff in that part of the site. But the point is this stuff can be renegotiated. If this hasn't changed over the past ten years then I suspect they got around it by paying to ensure that the residential areas near Silver Hayes were no longer "free fields" for their definition. This isn't the early 2000s where the council were looking for any reason to shut the festival down. The relationship is a lot better and more constructive now. The license you link above was not handed down to Glastonbury Festival by the council - it was discussed and agreed and can be discussed and changed again. Indeed, it should be. Not just because we want the festival to change, but because the needs and concerns of residents will change a lot over the years, and that needs to be accounted for.

Indeed. Most local residents would be far more bothered by noise going on an extra two hours when they're in bed than they would be by a couple of extra hours of noise during the day. It'd likely be much easier. (My understanding the primary objective of not having stuff running on Thursday is to spread out the arrivals across Wed-Fri thus reducing traffic issues. I think it's fair to say at this point, that has failed!)

There absolutely is space for renegotiating around curfew times and what runs when. At some point Silver Hayes went from running until 1am to 3am. And Arcadia used to be *in* the SE corner before it got moved out by The Park. This notion that the festival has zero leeway in noise issues can't be true because they've absolutely changed it over the years.

I was responding specifically to "people having a night in the SE corner" - not just generally engaging with dance music. It's the SE corner this site has blinders on for. It's very popular. It's not *that* popular.

It's like the Taylor Swift threads last year...

I'm the same - I don't like dance music, happy to ignore that part of the festival. I've written at length elsewhere about how the investment in that over the theatre/circus/comedy areas is a big part of why I'm giving it up, but I don't resent it for that. I certainly wouldn't get rid of it entirely. I was just drawing a comparison that getting rid of "dance" from the music programme is akin to getting rid of "meat" from the food stalls. It's just cutting a big swathe of what some people enjoy for no good reason. What is even "meat" anyway? 😄

Like I said. I don't think it actually makes a difference. It just pushes the problem elsewhere. The meat traders that would have been at Shambala this year just did different festivals instead. And Towersey Festival ended up with fewer veggie options because they were at Shambala. So while Shambala can say "we've reduced our carbon footprint", it doesn't actually have an impact. Now to be fair, as a statement it works, and if enough other festivals got on board it could eventually create change. It's not pointless. But I can promise that in isolation, Glasto or Shambala going meat-free would make absolutely zero impact on the UK's carbon emissions that weekend. (And if Glasto really wanted to make a difference, the owner could stop running a dairy farm.... there's a hell of a difference between Shambala being on a farm and Glasto being run by someone *who also runs a farm*)

I lump them together cause I don't like any of them. It's probably "electronic" music if you want me to be specific. My other comment was more the other way. You may not need to be taking drugs to enjoy dance music but there's not many activities other than clubbing that go well with certain substances. And *that* I can see the appeal of!

Arcadia hopped in bed with the Saudis for the World Cup which was responsible for the deaths of 6500 people. Now I'm happy to go along with "lets not make this political" - but if we're going to say the festival should go meatless as a "political statement" then maybe there's another good one they could make.

Not what I said. I said I find it strange. I find it strange anyone likes dance music. Honestly don't see the appeal. (Well, outside of certain things that go hand in hand with dance music... but that's not the music itself). Doesn't mean those people are wrong but I think your 60-70% figure is way high. There's 200,000 people on site, we established the SE corner has a capacity of 40,000 which is 20%, and may of those will be going every night. I'd imagine it's closer to 30-40% - huge swathes of people just go back to the tent after the headliners. Doesn't mean we should ditch it but this forum massively over-judges its popularity.

It reduces *their* carbon emissions. But ultimately every street food vendor worth their salt is trading every weekend of the summer. Presumably these festivals didn't reduce the number of food stalls? So across the entire country, the same number of spots were available. It just means Shambala and such end up getting more of the veggie/vegan vendors and the other vendors end up going to different festivals (and the tiny festivals that only have room for 3-4 food stalls and are running that weekend go "sorry, we couldn't source a vegan option"). I assure you that the burger place that Shambala didn't book because they were going meatless just traded somewhere else that weekend and generated the same amount of carbon. If the festivals have to do that to reach some arbitrary target then, fine, do what you gotta do, but it's not actually making a difference overall. I'm not sure why there is any need for violence here?

It's more than 25% of the music but not of the festival. You have to account for the fact that, for example, T&C is a good 15%, Greenfields 10%, etc.

You list three things there. Two are about making, better more contemporary entertainment. And the other is a political statement. How about instead of going meatless they massively improve the food offering by working with street food partners to actually become a leader in that space again? And then fire the Arcadia team as a political statement if they need make one.

Oh I totally agree with that bit. The only point I was making was how popular the festival is. So someone going "if the festival went meatless, it's not like it wouldn't sell out" - well yeah, because it's so oversubscribed, you could get rid a massive chunk of it and still sell-out. It's a good 25% of the festival, but that's the point, you could cut out 25% of the festival and unless it includes the Pyramid, it'd still sell out.

Though I will say with respect to food, much like I've touched on before with other non-music areas like T&C, the festival *is* starting to fall behind a little bit on the street food element. It's another area where the festival was a market leader in the early/mid 2000s, but didn't move with the times and is starting to be left behind a bit. (And that's why I'd object to any silly marketing like going meatless - I'd rather they put the effort into becoming a leader in the space again - maybe let a group that run street food events curate a market area or something if they no longer have the expertise in-house)

Probably the same issue we have with DJs, but worse as the full line up is never actually announced anywhere. Some stalls are national award-winning street food vendors. Others are... not. And there's no easy way to tell the difference.

Ahh I was wrong on capacity then (maybe I was thinking pre-ICONN) - but the point is you can cut festival demand by half and still sell out, and ditching dance music wouldn't cut demand by half. I find it strange the dance music has any bearing at all on people's interest in the festival but apparently it does. Different stuff for different people. But to be clear, the festival doesn't just go for the cheapest/most profitable options, but try and match the quality of street food offerings at various dining clubs and festivals around the country. These are events that people pay an entry price for and attend just for the food traders. (Indeed, Glasto was doing this well before the UK street food market exploded - have to admit I care less these days when I can get the same experience at Digbeth Dining Club or such than I did when the fest was one of the few places that offered it)

The festival has, at the most conservative numbers, twice as many people trying to get tickets for it as there are tickets available. Some claim it's as high as 5x the amount. So to stop the festival selling out, you'd have to reduce demand by at least half. So yeah, obvious no meat wouldn't put half the attendees. But frankly neither would no dance music (the SE corner capacity is about 10% of the total number on site). If that's the bar they could do a lot.

I think that's the thing - a lot of the places you mentioned do have acts on, but also have a lot of DJs, and it's pretty hard to navigate. I'm sure some of that is necessary (for live acts you need switchover time) but it does mean there's no obvious place for people to go - especially when from the programme you often can't tell what's a DJ and what's an act, and what's a DJ that is actually doing a full set versus what's a DJ playing tunes between acts, and what sort of tunes they'll be playing. (I do think a lot of venues, including Strummerville, have gone more dance over the past years though, so there is presumably a demand for it? Strummerville used to be acoustic campfire acts until dawn back in the day...)

I'd also assume the reason it's dance music and then louder/heavier bands after midnight is that they're only allowed amplified music in certain areas - the SE corner being one of them. As much as I could say "can't we just have one venue out of the 20 in the SE corner that's just folk bands all night?" - well no, you can't because you wouldn't be able to hear them because of noise bleed. They're not loud enough. (Hence Strummerville moved) (Though I do think it was a shame that when they did whatever licensing magic they did at some point in the past ten years to allow Silver Hayes to run until 3am, that they didn't repurpose that part of the site to have bands on after midnight instead - but could also see the need to spread the crowd out from the SE corner and yeah, it's the chicken and egg thing - is the SE corner popular because of the dance music or because it's the "late night" area - certainly it got *loads* more popular the year they declared it the naughty corner and instituted the one-way system)

Rabbit Hole, Rum Shack and Strummerville are all DJs after midnight these days. No idea what sort of music they play and if it counts as "dance" though - but then that itself is part of the problem. Like most I see a DJ and assume it's dancy stuff. I've no easy way of knowing if DJ Neptizzle actually plays mostly 90s indie.

Part of that is certain vegans/vegetarians won't eat anything produced on the same grill because of contamination. So it has to all be prepped and served separately. The food is part of the appeal of the festival, and the festival acknowledge this with the past few festivals actually publishing a food stalls "line-up" - street food is a huge industry these days, including having festivals dedicated solely to it, and dining clubs that many people attend on a regular basis. It absolutely is a selling point, and some people wouldn't go if that changed. Not enough that it wouldn't sell out, but then that goes for many parts of the festival. Same for veggies isn't it - maybe they need to try some more obscure meats? 😄 I just used dance music as it was the best comparison I could think of to the meat/veggie thing. It's not like getting rid of "Italian" food - it's dropping a huge swathe of things at once.

That's a definite step forward. I do worry about how weird people will start to get about obviously previous used plastic glass though. "Why does my glass have bite marks?" 😄

If those options were as good or better than the meat options they'd be doing them to start with.

Just because other places do it doesn't mean it's worth doing for anything beyond the "look at us, we're so green" thing. The "bring your own container, we'll provide you the facilities to wash it yourself" solution *is* sustainable, scalable, and can work. (Issues with bar capacity/throughput with the big 20-pint pourers aside). But the "pay a deposit, get a hard plastic glass, we swap it out every time, you take the last one home with you as a souvenir" option is not. Because if everywhere starts doing that, you just fill up people's homes with hard plastic glasses which then end up in landfill as we all start getting ten or twenty of them a year. It's the scale and long term environmental impact. You make quarter of a million hard plastic Glasto branded cups that get used and swapped out during the festival (if you can sort the washing thing) and then taken home by punters... you're still created quarter of a million hard plastic cups. The vast majority of people are not going to hang onto them their entire lives. They'll eventually get chucked. Yeah, it's no longer the problem of the festival at that point, so it looks good on the festival's green books, but it just kicks the problem down the road. Ultimately, recycling a few million single use cups might be more green than quarter of a million hard plastic ones. I honestly don't know. But it's not as obvious a win as it first looks. (It's like when phone companies stopped including chargers with their phones for "eco" reasons - while it has made Apple and Samsung's books look far greener, there's mounting evidence that the increased sales in third party chargers and the associated extra environmental costs there have eaten up most real gains)