Increase in scum this year

[TFStwo]

This was my fifth year at glasto and although the bands were amazing it was the worst one for people.

What makes Glasto such a fab festival is the people and the atmosphere - it's always great and full of really friendly people. This year was so different.

It was really upsetting to see so many people being so selfish, rude and abusive.

I've never been sworn at before, I've never been deliberately pushed over or hit on the head, I've never had stuff stolen and people have never rudely pushed past or bashed me trying to steam through to the front, I've not seen that many people queue jump, I've never seen toilet doors broken off and I've not seen so many people just dump their litter and be so anti-social or inconsiderate to others.

Maybe my other years were just lucky? I thought I was due some good karma as I found someones phone in the mud by the other stage and then trekked around the site to return it to it's owner - but clearly not!

I love Glasto because it reminds me that not everything/everyone in the world is grim and I can get away from all the day to day crap attitudes and selfishness - but not this year it seems, which is a real shame

Where's the love gone?

Edited June 29, 2009 by TFStwo

[johntrfc]

3/ People pitching tents very badly - i.e. practically on top of others because they have brought a huge tent and turned up later and can't find a spot. We were actually asked to move a friends tent to make space for a bigger one. We did and I didn't see any point in arguing about it as it is nice to get on with neighbours but it was a bit annoying.

Edited June 29, 2009 by johntrfc

[-Will-]

Not sure if this is the right topic to say this but some 40ish year old bald c**t at prodigy head butted me !!! I was going nearer to the front and was walking behind a line of people and there was a bit of bumping into people but most people would expect that if they were near the front at a prodigy gig. Anyway i was walking past this man, who had a green t-shirt on, and he shouts "f**k Off!" and then nuts me just below the eye. I then stop where i am and shout "what the f**k" at him, which he ignors. All the people around him and me looked really shocked at what had happened but did nothing. When the prodigy came on stage a circle opened up beside him and i saw him punch a man in the stomach cos he bumped into him.

Edited June 29, 2009 by -Will-

[MadDogMadDog]

rant mode on.

rant mode off.

[Spindles]

I'm no great veteran, 3rd time and first since 2000 and while it IS a noticably different festival it's not all doom and gloom.

This year I saw not one instance of downright nasty b*stards whose entertainment is others suffering.

Pissing in hedges is like a million times better than it used to be, seriously the benches people sit on blocks off where literally the whole night every night it would be scores of blokes pissing, good design there, not the green police (who only ever tried to sell)

Maybe I'm just a bit class-ish, but the number of posh kids slamming class A's all day around their tent, being totally antisocial and selfish started to get on my tits by sunday. Cheers for kicking all your shit into my tent, thanks for dumping everything including your tents (only a 6 man each, everyone needs a beer room and a wardrobe at a festival right?), oh and cheers for bitching about me loudly all weekend because I had the nerve to turn up before you and you couldn't pitch your tents in the shape you wanted.

I spent most of my time in the green fields, I had a great time, hope you all did too...now, sleep

Edited June 29, 2009 by Spindles

[chuckley]

f**king disgrace.

[greg1999]

first time i've been glasto.

only thing that pissed me off was while watching jamie t, some pissed up fat bastard just barged his way through us. bad enough. even worse when there's my mate's 12 year old little brother standing with us. looked around at us, said nothing, went to barge through some more. told the prick's mate to get him out before somebody drops him.

oh, and the crowd at kasabian.

all in all, quality festival, everyone i got talking to was friendly. think there's some fussy buggers in here though. cheer up.

Edited June 29, 2009 by greg1999

[StevieF]

oh, and the crowd at kasabian.

[LostRiot]

You have a gazebo! of course you don't need to cordon anything.

We had a bit of a cordon this year, first time ever, after someone set up camp in the middle of our circle (literally on top of a fire pit) a couple of years ago decided to to take any chances.

Other than that I agree esp. with litter its basically unacceptable (except the front of the main stages, where its basically unavoidable) and the flags this year just went too far.

[chuckley]

i had a really bad experience at bloc party on the friday night, i was near the front for ting tings and when their set finished the whole crowd just seemed to push forward, which at first i quite liked cos i thought it might help me get nearer to the front. i have been in the front for gigs before so i know to expect a bit of pushing and i can give as good as i get but then this group of about 20 lads who must have been about 18-20 where just pushing and squashing everyone for no reason except to try and crush people and when i started getting crushed from on top i had to move further back. i still had a wicked time cos bloc party were awesome but it was just such a shame to have some people acting like that as this was my first glasto and i had heard loads of stories about how nice and chill glasto is and to have tw*ts like that spoiling it was just really annoying. i still had a good overall time though and would defo go back next year.

[DeanoL]

Interesting stuff really in this thread. Some stuff will never change: people talking during bands, noise at campsites, general loutish behaviour... but other aspects might see changes in the future. If they had to open up the emergency camping fields it's likely there will be a real push to prevent people taking up so much space next year.

Likewise, the flags seemed to cause issues for the BBC, so this might also get looked at. Litter... well... it's not nice but it's mostly harmless paper cups and it's probably easier and cheaper to hire more litter pickers than put in more bins

[Vacant0]

Christ, theres some really f**king miserable people in this thread.

The amount of people sat on chairs in front of the pyramid stage, not even towards the back, was my only irritant over the weekend.

Boo to this thread!

[Jime1977]

It was my fourth Glasto and overall great. Easy journeys in and out (being up at 5am today helped with the latter!) and didn't think there was much more 'un-glasto' behaviour this year than any previous. Sure people are loud in the campsites - but I'm getting older and have a different outlook on what to do at 4am (sleeping mostly!) than I used to. Earplugs worked fine for me.

We had a group of 6 people in 5 tents and a gazebo, but we were careful to allow paths around and through the area and not take up so much space. I've found that this is an effective compromise and allows for much more interaction with fellow campers who can come and sit with us under the gazebo in hot sun or rain.

I would however second the point on chairs, I saw far too many near the front before both Bruce and Blur. It's just dangerous and could cause serious problems. Can't believe people brought them in front of the barrier! The person who proposed a chair exclusion zone is spot on. Fair enough that people have health reasons to sit down, but honestly if you're not mobile enough to reasonably maneouver out of a crush like that which can happen at the bottom of the Pyramid then I'm not sure you should be so close.

As for litter, there did seem to be less collections this year, and obviously seeing a lot of rubbish around encourages people to drop their own. Clearly it's not easy to get trucks to all the bins all the times, maybe bigger/more bins are required? Definately think the cup return scheme sould be implemented at Glasto - it's so far ahead of any other festival I've been to except in this regard.

That said, none of the above had a really negative impact on my experience. Once again The Eavis's and their team pulled off a great festival!

[Jutt69]

Other than that I agree esp. with litter its basically unacceptable (except the front of the main stages, where its basically unavoidable) and the flags this year just went too far.

[chuckley]

Just to add a bit more, some things that annoyed me...

1/ The girl who poured cider on my head. We were queing for a bar and she accidentally poured about a 1/4 of her pint of cider on my head. I screeched in drunken surprise and said to my friend 'Someone's just poured cider on my head'. The other girl turned around and said 'what me?' to which I told her 'yes'. She turned back to the bar looking really angry, picked up her pint and walked off. What is wrong with saying sorry?

[jamestheraver]

The way i see it is that you have to treat the farm as everyones home for a few days, and i never pi$$ in the garden, i do that in some thing called a toilet. when i have finshed with a can of beer i put that in a thing called a Bin. people who disrespect the farm in my eyes disrespect me and what the festival stands for. Go and get drunk, or even do drugs, have fun but please stop acting like animals.

This year has been a very good festival and i have meet some amazing people as always, but there seems to be always a select few.

[Mardy]

had a great festival personally, but some thoughts

1) Flags, bothered me less this year than last, Reckon you've just got to accept it, and not fret, unless you're right up the front, you're probably going to watch things on the screen anyway. If you want that sort of gig, where there are no flags, nobody pushes past and nobody talks, its not the main stage it's a headlining indoor show,

2) chairs, I like the idea of having chair zones, maybe wth markers, but again, it doesn't bother me too much.

3) there seemed to be a lot more teenagers this year. Personally, i think that's great, they seemed cool, enjoyed themselves and were no bother. They were certainly much less annoying than the posh, arrogant 20somethings who are clearly not really into music, sit in front of the pyramid all day and punch the air to Bon jovi records. Give me some mental off their face 17 year olds over those twats any day

[benissright]

Annoyances.

1) The fact you cant buy crates of beer on site. This means that every year we go, we will DEFINITELY take a car. And this is supposed to be an environmentally friendly festival?

2) The distinct lack of water taps.

3) The silent disco. Its shit and pointless. Anyone who thinks they are cool is an idiot. The only good thing about them is turning off the music and listening to said idiots be idiots.

4) Status Quo telling us every 5 minutes "we have a really short set". Deal with it, you only have 4 songs anyway.

5) The price of water/Beer/everything.

6) Ill say it again. The incapability of glastonbury to even try and persuade people to go by a method other than car BAFFLES me. Anyone that gets the train/coach to glasto in the future is either; rich, glasto virgin or hates alcohol.

I havent been before. I never noticed any scum. Apart from some people i camped with. I did notice a distinct lack of james blunt though, which can surely serve as an improvement.

Glasto was everything i thought it would be and more. But despite this, if i had to blindly choose a festival next year, it would be reading. For all the reasons. I dont care if there are 1000 things to do at glasto, because i can only end up doing about 10-20 of them. And at reading, i can do 10-20 of them with a crowd that is more intense (and more likely to buy my repackaged proplus MDMA), travel easier (and pollute the atmosphere less!) and just generally better organised.

Edited June 29, 2009 by benissright

[chuckley]

Not sure if this is the right topic to say this but some 40ish year old bald c**t at prodigy head butted me !!! I was going nearer to the front and was walking behind a line of people and there was a bit of bumping into people but most people would expect that if they were near the front at a prodigy gig. Anyway i was walking past this man, who had a green t-shirt on, and he shouts "f**k Off!" and then nuts me just below the eye. I then stop where i am and shout "what the f**k" at him, which he ignors. All the people around him and me looked really shocked at what had happened but did nothing. When the prodigy came on stage a circle opened up beside him and i saw him punch a man in the stomach cos he bumped into him.

[DTichborne]

The hospitality camping area was my biggest annoyance from wicket ground we used to have a few routes out cutting across the cinema to jp and the dances tents, or along the path to pyramid, but we had to slap all the way round the massive fence. why couldn't they be put it outside if the celebs want privacy

[DTichborne]

Oh yeah, and I did also want to mention that while I'm not against drugs on legal grounds - I don't see why anyone should be able to dictate what someone does to their own body - mashed people are massively tedious on the whole...

[Hotmustard]

Lack of camping space was a big issue this year. Thanks to the group idiots who pulled out our guy ropes and rammed two 6 man tents ontop of the sides of our tunnel tent on Wednesday night. They then got very aggressive and threatened to pull our tent down in the night.

We ended up moving out to gate D for peace of mind, then had a great time.

[LostRiot]

No it's not!

I didn't drop one piece of litter, although I did have my pockets full of folded up cups and empty (plastic) wine bottles for a lot of the time

[mrfunk]

rant mode on.

I noticed a massive increase in c***s this year at the festival, selfish people who look out for number one, costing the festival it's spirit and risking it's license.

1) Already mentioned elsewhere - a MASSIVE increase in flags this year, not a slight increase but a huge one. Some of us want to watch the performers, and don't care what team you support.

2) Litter. oooooooo the litter. there's always lots, there's bound to be, but like flags this year saw a huuuuuge increase in litter. Walking around the site and seeing it all was a disgrace, much like the t**t I saw who was stood 3 yards from 5 bins and dropped his bottle on the floor. scum

2) Pissing in the streams / against fences / around urinals. Again, there's always some, but I cant remember going into a single urinal without seeing someone doing it, even for the smallest queue. The green police can scream and shout all they like but it didnt stop anyone I saw this year who was doing it.

3) Taped off areas in camp sites. This year I went with just 2 other people, but thanks to our gazebo we ended up as a group of 12. Surely that's half the point of them? The amount of people taping around gazebos and tent spaces was unbelievable I thought. 3 People were camped next to us, made no attempt to socialise, taped off their area and had the cheek to walk through ours to get to theirs, even tho they were camped directly next to a path! Also they had 6 man tents each, at least - they were huge. Selfish brats.

4) Stools, seats and picnic mats. I've never seen so many! Everywhere you went! Now I know people like to sit, and you need a seat for that in muddy conditions, but that's no excuse to sit dirctly infront of the stages, taking up space for 20 standing people. Most didnt even stand up when the bands came on so there's no need to be there. They have to be an elf n safety issue surely? I tripped on loads of stool legs in the dark in the middle of large crowds, had I fallen I could so easily have been trampled. I noticed they were almost all around the pyramid and jazz world - go and see some other parts of the festival for once! and the cheek of people who whinged when you stood on their mats - im sorry but if you think I'm gonna crush myself even further by tiptoeing around your mat, 10 feet from the stage you can feck right off.

Now I know there's people on here who'll just say "lighten up" and think anything negative said against glastonbury and the goers should be instantly dismissed, however these people spoiled the atmosphere I thought, posed risks (4) and risk the festival getting a license in future (2).

Don't get me wrong I had a fantastic time, met loads of people and saw some great stuff, but these things really ticked me off

rant mode off.

[mrfunk]

AGREE WITH ALL OF THIS !

I question that people use the term minority.. as there seems to be a BIG minority of knobs this year,

You could tell when the bands finsished, as whilst we were in Shangri La the atmosphere changed dramitically as the louts took over !