Michael Eavis' Q+A

[ukslim]

It's the fault of forums like this one I'm afraid.

You used to be able to arrive on Friday morning and get a decent pitch. Then people started saying "You have to get there early on Thursday", and of course, as soon as people started acting on that, it became true.

Now people say "get there as early as possible on Wednesday", and of course enough people follow that advice, that sure enough the place is filling up by Wednesday lunchtime.

Opening on Tuesday will just make the same thing happen again - almost forcing people to take days off work they don't want to.

[cejx]

I'm not sure Tuesday opening would solve much. In the short term it may spread the traffic out, but in a few years Tuesday would become the new Wednesday... the amount of people arriving on Wednesday has been steadily increasing for the last few years. I also think an extra day of the festival would bring it's own problems...imagine an extra day of not sleeping, eating, drinking properly, not to mention all the people who indulge in illegal substances...one extra day would be stretching alot of people too far, affect moods, and this could impact on the atmosphere. And if people are currently complaining about litter now, imagine an extra day of it?

The popular figure seems to be about 100,000 people turned up on Wednesday this year. Maybe there was a crash or one or two other problems, but the simple truth is too many vehicles were trying to get into one place. I was stuck on a coach all the way from the motorway to the festival, that wasn't due to random traffic problems, it's because all those miles of road were filled with vehicles trying to get on site. I was watching someone on one of the circus stages who was involved in organising as well as performing, he said 40,000 cars arrived on Wednesday, and the manner it was said appeared serious, informed and non-exagerated. If these figures are true, 40,000 cars were used by 100,000 people, despite the fact many of these 100,000 people took train/shuttle bus or a coach. That's a crazy amount. It would seem that the average occupancy of a car was less than two.

If the problem is more vehicles are trying to get on site than the site can process/park, there's two general solutions- increase the speed which you get people in, which means maybe more entrances to car parks, stewards etc, and I see this as being a very unlikely option, they're probably already doing all they can in this respect. The other solution is reduce the amount of vehicles coming on site on the Wednesday, and I see two basic foolproof ways of achieving this:

Firstly, reduce the amount of car parking passes. This would probably be hugely unpopular, but as long as the coaches and trains were available to accomodate the extra users, I would happily support it, and we know Michael Eavis would happily take a move to improve the green side of the festival and isn't afraid of making decisions that aren't initially popular or follow the common logic.

Secondly, probably more likely to be popular, easily practical and therefore more likely - Split the car parking passes in two groups. Make some available for Wednesday to Monday parking, some for Thursday to Monday parking. If you split them 50:50 you immediately have a huge impact on how many cars turn up on Wednesday. It avoids the complications of early entry passes. It still gives all ticket holders the option to come on Wednesday, because you choose your transport. It will encourage use of public transport and car sharing. And I don't see too many people would miss out on much. The people that know they will go every year and get tickets when they go on sale will likely be able to get the parking ticket they want, those who are new to the festival, wait for the line up to be announced or who delay buying a ticket because it's not the highlight of their year are less likely to feel aggrieved at missing a day of the festival when there is no advertised entertainment.

Sorry it's a bit lengthy, and as a non-driver I'm probably biased, but it seems the problem is so obvious and the solution so simple.

[budvar]

It's the fault of forums like this one I'm afraid.

You used to be able to arrive on Friday morning and get a decent pitch. Then people started saying "You have to get there early on Thursday", and of course, as soon as people started acting on that, it became true.

Now people say "get there as early as possible on Wednesday", and of course enough people follow that advice, that sure enough the place is filling up by Wednesday lunchtime.

Opening on Tuesday will just make the same thing happen again - almost forcing people to take days off work they don't want to.

[Red Day]

i can't bloddy wait for 2010,

but i wish that glastonbury was every few months instead of every year

[budvar]

I heard on the radio that they were offered fifty million pounds for three concerts, and they said no.

It won't happen.

[ukslim]

The vast majority of people who go to Glasto do not use this or TOS forum (though they should...)

[bombfrog]

I can't believe so many people are against the idea of a Tuesday opening.

Will it solve the traffic problems? NO! Will it give us an extra day of the festival? YES!

I'd happily pay a bit more to cover the extra policing etc and I'm sure the traders could be charged more for the pitch too for the extra trade they'd do. One more full day without bands will mean a lot more shopping in the markets.

[TimS]

A quick example of how Wednesday is much busier these days - below is Pennards on Wednesday PM in 2003 and 2009. For intervening years click on an image.

2003

2009

Personally I see no problem with opening on Tuesday and it would hardly be a first - Roskilde Festival in Denmark opens on the previous Sunday with great results... nor do I see a problem with Tuesday becoming the new Wednesday - surely people enjoying Glasto for longer is a good thing, right?

Specific tickets for different days would not be in the spirit of Glasto and generally unworkable if you ask me...

not that you did

Edited July 3, 2009 by TimS

[sifi]

Those figures have got to be made up. There's no way it would be profitable for any promoter at that level. I just don't think they'll do it because Misery isn't up for it.

Edited July 3, 2009 by sifimaster

[Pads]

They need priority routes for buses to encourage more people to use them!

Opening on Tuesday would be a good idea becuase lots of people wont be able to get another day off work so will only arrive on the wednesday still!

Not getting onsite early is only a problem to most of the people on these forums because they love Pennards so much! but then whenever anyone asks where to camp on this forum all you people say Pennards when already too many people want to camp there! I think you guys should start recomending other places to camp so you can camp in Pennards even if your not first there!

[budvar]

It's a direct quote from Johnny Marr. Pop 50 million and The Smiths into Google, hit news - there are loads of articles on there.

In fact - linky

edit : My mistake, by the way. It was dollars, not pounds.

[TimS]

Other things from the Q&A were...

ME had a funny story about Neil Young being grumpy on arrival on-site..

A complaint about the flags was made - ME only seemed vaguely interested after someone mentioned that they were getting in the TV cameras / screens. The Q&A audience (like on this forum) were split on this issue. I wouldn't expect a ban of them anytime soon - unless the BBC get involved!

US record labels were better to deal with than UK ones

The charity donation will be doubled this year after festival lost £150k last year and (presumably) didn't make large charity donations. Finances better this year because of lower fuel costs...

The 2012 fallow year (as mentioned above) was also mentioned in the Q&A last year and discussed heavily in the forums - see Next fallow year, any ideas? but appeared to be dismissed by many at the time...

One audience member got a good slap down from ME after complaining about the rubbish on the stages - "you can take things a bit to seriously... can't you"

Edited July 3, 2009 by TimS

[budvar]

Other things from the Q&A were...

ME had a funny story about Neil Young being grumpy on arrival on-site..

A complaint about the flags was made - ME only seemed vaguely interested after someone mentioned that they were getting in the TV cameras / screens. The Q&A audience (like on this forum) were split on this issue. I wouldn't expect a ban of them anytime soon - unless the BBC get involved!

US record labels were better to deal with than UK ones

The charity donation will be doubled this year after festival lost £150k last year and (presumably) didn't make large charity donations. Finances better this year because of lower fuel costs...

The 2012 fallow year (as mentioned above) was also mentioned in the Q&A last year and discussed heavily in the forums - see Next fallow year, any ideas? but appeared to be dismissed by many at the time...

One audience member got a good slap down from ME after complaining about the rubbish on the stages - "you can take things a bit to seriously... can't you"

[paulo999]

I suspect it won't happen because it'll need quite a few major organisations (Oxfam, Police, WBC to a lesser extent) to reorganise their staffing / site build.

But it would be great though. Public transport only would be a good way of forcing a staggered arrival, and those people who inherently bring smaller camp kit get rewarded with first choice of spots... And if a chunk of people are incentivised to bring smaller stuff, everyone else would benefit from the extra space gained.

Still, I think it's unlikely due to cost, even with the extra revenue from traders.

[queenelly]

I went along to hear Michael speak in the Speakers' Forum on Sunday. Great to see him but he was as nervous as ever (not helped by a stinker of a first question from someone who seemed to think it was an episode of question time)

Anyway here are the key points I took:

* Over 100,000 people were there by Wednesday evening, as such they're thinking about opening the site on Tuesday in future. We'll see.

* The next fallow year will be 2012, not 2011. Michael mentioned the Olympics and that he plans to go on a massive holiday around the country.

* He has no plans to retire and says the Guardian made that story up. "I'm going on until 2021" was his exact words

* Headliners for next year. He said he was working on The Smiths (JM seems up for it, Mozza the Misery less so) and Led Zep (he hopes the anniversary will persuade them) but don't hold your breath as he tries these every year. More importantly he mentioned having already lined up two acts who haven't played before. Let the U2, RHCP and Stones rumours start now.

I've probably forgotten something but those were the bits that most caught my attention. Well worth an hour of anyone's festival.

[podge52]

I think a Tuesday start would be great, but ME should bring the start of the music forward to Thursday. Opening the main stages Thursday,Friday and Saturday would be cool leaving Sunday as a wind down day and giving everyone 2 days to go home without missing any bands at all. As for staggering arrival times they do that at Reading and i got in Reading on the Wednesday with a Thursday ticket, but having only been to Reading once i'm not sure if the staggering of arrivals really does work. The simple fact is alot of cars trying to get in a place like Glasto will cause congestion no matter when it starts or finishes.

The public Transport in the Uk is crap and until that gets sorted by the government the majority of people will continue to use cars.

[pman]

I think the reason so many people arrived on Wednesday is because it was billed as a 5 day festival this year starting on Wednesday. In previous years it has been billed as a 3 day festival with gates open on Wednesday. This may also have been the reason so many left on Sunday causing big queues the.

[TokiDoki]

To the person asking about Metallica:

Micheal Eavis was asked by someone in the Q&A session whether he would consider any heavy/metal/thrash music to be represpented at the festival. Eavis said "err... I don't think so... lol" and said something about Slipknot being very scary

[verrymerry]

I remember someone complaining about the chairs and Eavis saying something like "I've certainly never seen any at the stages" - how I laughed! Mate you might have to walk down in the crowd rather than watch from the Pyramid stage to see that

[Zacko]

To the person asking about Metallica:

Micheal Eavis was asked by someone in the Q&A session whether he would consider any heavy/metal/thrash music to be represpented at the festival. Eavis said "err... I don't think so... lol" and said something about Slipknot being very scary :angry:

[commandlinegamer]

Thought Status Quo were heavy metal.

In any case, NiN have played Glasto.

[budvar]

I remember someone complaining about the chairs and Eavis saying something like "I've certainly never seen any at the stages" - how I laughed! Mate you might have to walk down in the crowd rather than watch from the Pyramid stage to see that

[jameshunt]

Thought Status Quo were heavy metal.

...

[pedmills]

To the person asking about Metallica:

Micheal Eavis was asked by someone in the Q&A session whether he would consider any heavy/metal/thrash music to be represpented at the festival. Eavis said "err... I don't think so... lol" and said something about Slipknot being very scary

[Crouchie]

how do I write to Glastonbury? I have a good idea for a new area