How can Glasto be improved in 2010?

[Vectrex]

More showers around the site wouldn't go amiss. Including bring back the old UNISEX Greenpeace communal showers. What's with these seperate male and female showers they have there now??!! That's not in the spirit of Glastonbury and Greenpeace! Unisex communal would make the queues shorter too. They worked beautifully before, so why scrap them? Bring them back for goodness sake!

Bring back the Cinema Field too! Not have the one cinema tent stuck in the Accoustic Field!

Move the Lost Horizons Sauna back to The Healing Fields. The thing is where it is positioned in The Tipi Field it doesn't give much privacy(especially to those who wish to relax on the lawn nude), as people walking along the main pathway can easily see in. And there were some people who were stopping to have a gawp at the naked people, including one gentleman who I noticed took a photo. Move it back to The Healing Fields next year please, where sauna users can have some privacy away from prying eyes!

Have at least some food/drink stalls charging more sensible prices for food and drink please. Not all of us are happy to be spending £25 per day on food and drinks!

Have about 30,000 less tickets for sale. It did feel noticably much more crowded this year.

[Peache Calhoon]

A good old funk tent

[Spuddy]

2. Dairy Ground. Well, hello there neighbour!

I never queued for the toilet. There were often queues.. yes... but people have a habit of joining queues without knowing what they are queueing for. I always checked the long drops first to see if there were vacancies. I never had to queue. As for water, just take a decent sized water carrier. I filled mine up on Wednesday and Saturday. Only two short trips to the taps.

3. There were a lot of power failures and problems with equipment this year. There are also other unforseen events like bands turning up late, or being pretentious, and not being able to play at a certain time. Equipment not turning up, weather issues, stage issues, etc

[Ponyegg]

A good old funk tent

[paulo999]

We were also in the Dairy Ground - I heard from others the queues for the toilets could get long, mainly due to unusable ones, but I never had to queue for longer than 10 minutes or so at peak times.

+1 for the suggestion for taking a water carrier. If more people did this there wouldn't be an issue with the number of taps. Personally I couldn't imagine not taking one.

Also, when brushing teeth or washing hair, people can help by moving aside from the tap so that someone else can use it quickly - I've always thought it was acceptable "festival etiquette" to quickly wash your hands while someone else is washing their hair/ brushing teeth etc - (I guess some people may disagree here though).

[scorp]

This I agree with.

...your hippie breeding plan, however, seems to be a little impractical...

[ShadyBlueBell]

Freshly back from Glasto, what do you think they could improve on in 2010?

My thoughts...

- Traffic to/from better managed at key times

- Mobile reception improved for networks other than Orange

- Choke points increased in width around the main stage

- More metal flooring around Choke points/Toilets

- Faster collection of rubbish

- More green police around the areas where people pee and at key times

- Less marketing spin on the 'special guests'

Yours.....

[TimmyP's Mobile Disco]

My friends and I discussed - after a few ciders - the possibility of making most stages specific musical styles. Leave the pyramid as it is with a mixture of main stage stuff but go down the route similar to the Jazzworld where you only have indie on one stage, funk, soul and disco on another, drum and bass on another etc etc. It would eliminate the clashes problems for similar types of music and give people defined stages where they will hear the music they like. For instance it seems odd to have acts like Prodigy after Glasvegas who were after Bon Iver. All very different types of music and a bit of a weird mix.

Also as is traditional in this thread, no chairs, less flags, more toilets/drinking taps

[MadDogMadDog]

Freshly back from Glasto, what do you think they could improve on in 2010?

[benissright]

Give kerrang a tent, that they can film and televise and they can put on good alternative bands. I know this is not feasible, but at least then it could accurately be called the contemporary performance arts festival. Why tony christie and tom jones can both perform but heavier acts cant, bothers me.

Maybe a solar powered flat travelator that cuts through the pyramid. Not only would that be ridiculously cool, but would mean i can get across the pyramid stage to the JP tent much much easier.

[Sam Crawley]

*Bump*

Keep those good suggestions flowing, peeps :angry:

[Hotmustard]

I've skipped a few pages here, but a flag is quite useful as a meeting point after going to the bar/toilet. We don't get too close to the front and have just a little fish on a pole!

But they do spoil the view from the back.

What they need is some sort of a thin cable in the air marking off the front of the field, beyond which no flags (or chairs for that matter) are allowed...

Then a big crane can come from behind and take away the flags in front of the barrier, and anyone claiming the flag back can be beaten with it a few times!!! :angry:

[johnl]

Interesting thread. Really enjoyed it again this year.

Chairs: I'm getting on a bit now and almost succumbed to a chair on Sunday as I was knackered. I quite like the idea of an x metre chair exclusion zone from the front of the stage - they are a bit of an elf n safety when you're stumbling by in the dark. Those that wanted to rest their weary legs could do so, just a bit further back.

Wednesday/Thursday music: I know there are license issues but as most of the people arrive on Wednesday these days I think more is needed for Thursday especially. As mentioned sticking Maximo Park on in a tiny tent when there is little else on is a recipe for disaster. Get the Pyramid open on Thursday. It would give smaller bands the opportunity to play on a big stage.

I think overall the toilets at Glasto compare favourably to most festivals.

I like the flags - i know they get in your way a bit but for me it does help create the special "Glasto" atmosphere.

[Bristol Boy]

Acoustic tent is one of my favourites but the audience faces uphill, from outside the tent on Friday all I could see was Ray Davies head!

Could the tent be moved to the bottom edge of the field by the entrance, facing uphill so that the crowd looked down into it. The cinema and the toilets and the bar and the crew areas could all be at the top. Part of me also wishes it could be a stage rather than a tent, not as big as Jazzworld or Park but a little bigger than say Blazing Saddles. The type of bands there are begging for a lying back on the grass with a beer type vibe (weather permitting!!).

Probably good reasons why not but thought it is a topic worth raising!

[MadDogMadDog]

Lots of good ideas on here but the challenge will be how to implement/enforce them.

re chairs - I leave my tent at 0730 each morning and return at midnight ish - I walk at least 20 miles per day and inevitably I do get tired so a portable chair is a good option for me especially when it rains and the ground is not so inviting (or comfortable). Banning chairs is a bit extreme and will be difficult to enforce. When a venue gets so busy, at some point the advantage of having a chair is out-weighed by the fact you can not see the band and get trampled on. At which point most people will get out of their seat anyway. Not quite sure what the gripe is but maybe I am missing the point.

byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[drewsstrat]

Give kerrang a tent, that they can film and televise and they can put on good alternative bands. I know this is not feasible, but at least then it could accurately be called the contemporary performance arts festival. Why tony christie and tom jones can both perform but heavier acts cant, bothers me.

l

[hippy linda]

1) Chairs banned for 50 yards from the front of each of the main stages (Pyramid, Other, Jazz World).

2) Get a path through the crew camping to John Peel from Gate A, and the camping around there. Its a long way round when you can see and hear the stage from your tent and it only looks about 150 metres away.

3) More Sinks around toilets - 4 at each are not enough, especially in a morning and after the popular sets

4) There were busloads of day ticketers came in on Sunday, which made it extremely difficult for us more 'tired' punters to get anywhere near the front of the big 3 stages.

5) Try and link similar styled bands together rather than have them on different stages - it reduces flows of people a bit (especially during the evenings). Classic this year for me was Kasabian, it seemed obvious that a lot of their crowd would try and get to see Pendulum straight after, whilst others were trying to get in to see Bruce - it was a nightmare crush that simply could have been avoided.

6) More shade / shelter from the rain.....more covered areas that aren't stages / tents would be great dotted about where you can just chill / get out of sun for a while and watch the world go by.

7) A bit more seating around the open areas.....essential if its a muddy one....might also encourage less people bring chairs in as well.

More than one way out of Shangri La - I don't know if you were there on Saturday night about 2.30am, but there was a fearful crush along the railway line......good job I was monged

[hippy linda]

move arcadia to the dance village to make traffic on the railway embankment lighter

more green police working harder to ridicule people pissing in the hedges (maybe evict them from site?)

maybe drop the capacity onsite by 10/20k?

reintroduce hippies into the festival somehow, maybe theyll bring the love and harmony back in?

now how can we stop the antisocial behaviour and glass smuggling??

[hippy linda]

Why am I a prick for suggesting that if you want to ban one thing, I can find reasons for banning a whole host of things? Im finding it rather tedious on the boards tonight about people wanting to introduce rules for this, rules for that, rules for a load of stuff that doesn't need rules.

Glastonbury doesn't need a great long list of rules or a host of can and can't dos - it just needs people to be tolerant and friendly and accept they aint going to get everything their own way. Just accept that at times there are going to be 10's of 1000's of people all moving from one place to another at the same time - you aint going anywhere fast. Instead of trying to, chat to that person next to you - cos they aint going anywhere fast either. Ban chairs? It's no harder walking round a chair than it is walking round me if Im sat on the floor. Ban flags? Even without them, I still obscure the view of anyone smaller stood behind me. Sitting down and waving a flag are as important to some people as not sitting down and not waving a flag is to me - and why should I dictate someone else's experience just to make mine better?

It's a town of 175,000 people - some of them will be tw*ts. Ignore them, spend time with the 99.9% that aren't. Ive had a superb 5 days - my first Glasto in 15 years. It has changed beyond recognition - and all for the good, Glasto could be a scary place in the early 90s. It is, by a country mile, the friendliest festival Ive ever been to. Ive met only really lovely people (maybe I was lucky) of all ages and from across all walks of life and social backgrounds - teenagers, older people (even than me!), posh people, not so posh people, rich people, poor people, families with kids and on and on and on. There is room for all of us at Glastonbury. Instead of this silly talk of banning this and banning that, let's just accept not everyone wants the same as ourselves, that what i find enjoyable, other's find tedious (and vice versa)and tolerate it. Embrace it even and try and understand that it's only inconveniencing if you think what you want is more important than what someone else wants.

Is that ok?

[strummer77]

Maximo Park should've been the only band on the Pyramid on Thursday. Would have:

a) allowed the full crowd to watch

been a good official "opening" to the festival

c) a very valuable sound check considering too many times, as always, the Pyramid's sound was poor

[Sam Crawley]

Maximo Park should've been the only band on the Pyramid on Thursday. Would have:

a) allowed the full crowd to watch

been a good official "opening" to the festival

c) a very valuable sound check considering too many times, as always, the Pyramid's sound was poor

[Okky]

I know they need to test the lights on the other stage and I know they look f**king fantastic but keeping them going all night must take up a shit load of energy...

More sinks.... I couldn't even find them half the time

I think that there should be an option of after the festival, being able to fill out a feedback form on certain stalls and bars you went to. If the feedback was published then hopefully it would make it easier for people to avoid buying one nacho with a bit of salsa on for £1785690809....

Crosby stills and nash before kasabian and nick cave before blur. Don't get me wrong I'm these two groups are very talented but I think they should try and keep some patern going. Because I wanted to be near the front for both kasabian and blur I sat down during CSN and nick cave and I wasn't the only one....

Bottleneck overflow. When masses are flooding away from the pyramid after a headliner I think it would be clever to open up some small overflow paths through the backstage bit... Doesn't matter where they end up, I'm sure anyone with a sanse of adventure wouldnt really care anyway.

Cup recycling scheme? Safe money, waste and would get us all more drunk.

maximo on the queens head was slightly stupid also.

[Spindles]

1. Early bird camping tickets. I'm not talking 2 tier, but I am. This year we all paid £175 regardless. I would happily pay more to camp early to subsidise cheaper tickets for those who come on friday, this will help with congestion, pollution, etc...other festivals have done this in the past and it DOES work.

2. Cup deposit schemes. Works a treat at reading and allows people who's funds are running low to spend some time gathering cups to raise some much needed cash, reduces litterpicking costs, reduces onsite litter, reduces need for bins to be emptied, etc..

3. More taps, more sinks. There were LESS sinks and taps than 10 years ago, but all I hear about is that there is a big new resvoir. There were toilets that had NO water source nearby, only antibac pumps, not acceptable in my mind.

4. Fix capacity at 150,000. This year with 177,000 tickets, 30,000 stewards and onsite staff, hospitality people and so on it was estimated at close to 250,000 on site at peak, which is the same as the 'dangerous numbers' in 2000 that saw the festival take a year out to recover.

5. Don't sell chairs on site, I'm not fussed about flags, they can be a bit of an annoyance blocking the view, but that's a part of what glastonbury is about now, so I live with it. Chairs at stages are a risk (I have a gash on my leg to testify to this) and reducing their number can only be a good thing, making them a cheap, easy impulse buy added to the issue.

6. Move Arcadia/Shangri La over to where JP is currently situated rather than having half the population heading down limited pathways - JP is probably the best location on site for large volumes of people to move to from the main stages and dance village.

7. Give out less hospitality tickets. I swear I saw almost as many hospitality wristbands as regular punters, no wonder it was rammed at pyramid.

[Okky]

GET KOL back there...

http://cecils.spreadshirt.net/en/GB/Shop/' rel="external nofollow">

People need to look at this site for great festival t-shirts, some quality items on there. Quick delivery too!!

[Welly Boot]

All mentioned before but just to add agreement

1. Full line up in the guardian guide round your neck - ie all tents and stages

2. Deposit scheme for cups

3. Separate out the late night entertainment, the crush around Shangri La and Arcadia on Friday was horrific and resulted in a 45min round trip to use a loo

4. More shade/shelter areas.

Amazing festival though as ever - had a brilliant time