Tents left behind...but what about caravans?

[mikeb]

Sorry, don't care.

For a big group like my mates and I a Gazebo is essential and I'd quite happily lug it to and from the festival each year is somebody hadn't destroyed it.

Edited July 6, 2009 by mikeb

[FunkyDenz]

Gazebos might not be essential, however they are useful, especially if you have several small tents with very small / non-existent porches. They do not take up a lot of room if you make sure the tents are part under them, and provide an area for socialising / cooking, additional shade from the sun for at least some of the tents, as well as ensuring a tent isn't put up blocking your tent's door (which happened to my friends last year, causing them great difficulty)

[Zacko]

Jesus why do you think on your wristband it said LEAVE NO TRACE that means you take everything back home with you.

[ktej]

Had no Idea they were not recycling tents home until we got home my brother left his at the donation point. I think the picking and putting them on ebay or such like for charity is a great idea - any idea who need to be approached at the festival to do this would be?

[EasyUserName]

... Gazebos ARE NOT IN ANY WAY an essential item [**] no matter what you and others may think or believe or try to convince everyone else. Your attitude is quite simply, as you say in your very first line, one of "don't care" it's selfish, anti-social and inconsiderate. You sir are a complete c*ck

[**] The only plausible reason I can think of for having one (or something similar) is if you have young kids or disabled peeps in your party, otherwise no amount of BS comes anywhere close to a reasonably justified and plausible excuse for them being on site at all never mind being 'essential'.

[Addicted_Adele]

I've been hearing all about this and many other horror stories surrounding our precious festival. If I find out they're true then my god I'm going to kick up a fuss! I could have had 5 girl guide troups down there packing up tents, they could have swept the site and had them all up on eBay raising money for charity before the sun had set. What an absolute joke, if Glastonbury doesn't do something to sort it out for next year then I'm not going! I only left the site yesterday after speaking to a number of people there and finding out how the site works. Right now I'm very disappointed and I'm going to be speaking to people over the coming week to find out if the stories are true.

The litter pickers are the most amazing people and are doing a brilliant job right now but are currently being treated like absolute garbage.

Grrrrrrrrrr I'm not happy!

I was happy at this moment though, check out the smile on his face! Michael Eavis has got fantastic legs - FACT. And when this spills from your mouth when he turns around he will hug you while you gibber like an idiot. Legend.

[mikeb]

Why not include larger tents too?

In fact, why not have a rule for the amount of square footage per person allowed, and stop anyone bringing in a tent that is over that? Along with chairs, rugs and so on.

Edited July 6, 2009 by mikeb

[pedmills]

I've been hearing all about this and many other horror stories surrounding our precious festival. If I find out they're true then my god I'm going to kick up a fuss! I could have had 5 girl guide troups down there packing up tents, they could have swept the site and had them all up on eBay raising money for charity before the sun had set. What an absolute joke, if Glastonbury doesn't do something to sort it out for next year then I'm not going! I only left the site yesterday after speaking to a number of people there and finding out how the site works. Right now I'm very disappointed and I'm going to be speaking to people over the coming week to find out if the stories are true.

The litter pickers are the most amazing people and are doing a brilliant job right now but are currently being treated like absolute garbage.

Grrrrrrrrrr I'm not happy!

I was happy at this moment though, check out the smile on his face! Michael Eavis has got fantastic legs - FACT. And when this spills from your mouth when he turns around he will hug you while you gibber like an idiot. Legend.

[kyjenni]

This is the downside of Glastonbury...best festival in the world, but the volunteers get treated like shit and in some ways its organised very poorly.

[bombfrog]

Happily eh ? Then why not quite so happily lug your broken gazebo (that you were asked not to bring in the first place) back home with you as well then ? The fact that it was broken doesn't in any way prevent you from taking it unless your arm got broken at the same time of course ! So what's the excuse for not being @rsed ? Rather that someone else cleans up after you and pays to have it removed from the site or what ?

Edited July 6, 2009 by bombfrog

[DaveMac]

Well they have trouble now I'm back on form and armed with FAR too much info, only nice trouble mind! I might start a mini love riot but either way I want more rights for the workers, less money grabbing soul-less bosses and a bit more compassion and respect for everyone! It's really not hard and I want to try and make people see that, I love a challenge

[fluffypinkdaisy]

*rant on*

I personally have been part of the litter picking team that started work last Tuesday morning. About 1000 people turned up in my understanding, we got paid £6.34 an hour and I personally agree with kyjenni when she(?) the litter pickers are being treated like a absolute garbage. I have never felt so abused whilst working.

Breakfast was from 7 -8 am with work starting at 8am, you turn up at 7am and start qeueing for breakfast, you get breakfast when you reach the front of the queue at about 7:45, bang on 8:00 your told to "get out and work or your fired". You then work until 13:00 with a 20 min water break, the at 13:00 you queue again to sign out and recive your food vouchers, this takes till around 13:20 then walk back Goose hall (13:30) then queue again to get lunch (13:45) and then again bang on 14:00 your told "get out or your fired" then work from 14:00 to 17:00 before going through the queuing business again so I don't get tea until 18:00 (regardless of tea being quoted as 17:00 - 18:00) admittedly we the did the rest of the night off.

I find it disgusting the way we were treated whilst working, the first day in we queued just to get a job from 6:00 in the morning then just managed to get our breakfast in time before kicked to the threats of being fired to go to the campsites around the prymaid stage and clear up, then following that on our hands and knees across the prymaid stage to shouts of "Your not working f**king hard enough" during the midday sun on what I am lead to believe was one of the hottest days of the year. This then carried on after lunch.On the contract I signed it said that during extreme heat we would be provided with extra water and suncream, we didn't get a single drop. Madness, 5 hours solid hard work with a 20 min break in very high tempratures.

It obviously didn't click until the second day where people were vomiting and fainting from the heat that actually they should fulfill their end of contract and at least give us some suncream. What annoys me more is the constant abuse of being told to "f**king work harder or your fired" whilst people are collapsing from heat around them because they are working so hard. Talk about being made to feel like s**t.

However I think the icing on the cake was the comment from on of the supervisors at around 16:50 when everyone started to look hopefully towards the land rovers where we queued to sign off was "you signed a f**king contract saying to you'll work to f**king Five and thats what you'll f**king do" I would like to point out I signed a contract saying I would receive three meals a day (I only had two breakfasts out of four days because 7-8 wasn't long enough), extra water during extreme heat(there wasn't any of that), suncream during extreme heat(there was some after Tuesday but by then the damage had been done), gloves to stop your hands becoming cut (since when have latex medical gloves been able to stop cuts, mine are covered in cuts).

Also I would like some consistency over rules, for example the first day of litter picking several had dogs with them which was completely acceptable however the second day as we were starting work sudden;y I heard the shouts of "No f**king dogs, take the f**king dog back or your f**king fired" so consequently the poor dogs were left tied up by a fence all day long.

This is my personal view of the way I was treated as a litter picker after the festival, I'm sure someone might disagree with, and I can also see sort of why we were treated this way however the way we were treated has really p***ed me off and spoilt what was a lovely fest. It was very much like slave labour

*rant off*

In regards to tent being recycled, a load of c**p, we were instructed to take the tents down and leave them for the dustbin lorries to take care of them. On the Tuesday eve me and my GF went "tatting" to collect tents and was amazed by the tents left behind we even found one of these http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/review/review.../rgn/11/sp//v/1 which was impressive (most were crap or had been trashed). It disgusted me how many tents were left behind however I suppose on reflection comments like Zacko if people thought the tents were going to be recycled it makes some sense leaving them behind however it isn't the case.

Also as conciendences would have it I live locally and am a active member of the scouting assocation and its my understanding even though I don't know the full story behind it or the reasons so don't want to be quoted on this its just what I've been lead to believe is that the scouts from Taunton Deane district were invited up to take tents down on the tues eve before being told that glasto had changed there mind and couldn't do it before the scouts being contacted again to say they could go and take down tents at which point the scouts turned around and said they couldn't do it because they didn't have enough time to organize enough people. However I don't know how true this is due to the amount of politics contained within scouting!!! Even if the scouts had gone up I believe it would've been a waste as some considerate t**t, I don't know if during or after the fest had gone around and slashed through every tent they could find so every decent tents the scouts could've used was useless.

And my final comment which doesn't apply to everyone but come on people, lets have some common sense, the number of tents I took down during litter picking and then finding out someone had s**t under their tent before pitching it on top, what the hell were you thinking!!! Was completely unbelievable. However special mention does have to go to the guys how bought a tent with them, then cut a hole out in the middle of a the tent sunk a bucket into the ground before placing a excellent home-made bog seat on top of it to finish it(lovely woodmanship) 10 out of 10 for forward planning but you could've buried your s**t in the hole afterwards not leave it in a bucket so when we took the tent down it went everywhere. So many other little things to, I reckon someone is missing all their socks because I found a tent with at least 12 pairs in!! Also one of the litter picking guys says thanks for the fifty quid in notes he found!!!

So thats that I've had my rant, I'm sorry its so self indulgent, sorry for hijacking the OPs thread didn't mean to, however everything in this post is how i see it and my personal opinion which may be backed up by many others

BTW i took home five nice tents, cheers. Esp to the guy who put his address on his tent and then left it behind, I've sent you a postcard!!!

[fluffypinkdaisy]

Bloody hell that was a long post, sorry guys

[Alcatraz]

not any more

[mungo57]

My tent died during putting it up and needed to be botched so I had a choice, throw it myself or leave it there and it would get thrown anyway.

I left it there. As I was too pissed to put it down when we left Sunday night.

[Alcatraz]

*rant on*

I personally have been part of the litter picking team that started work last Tuesday morning. About 1000 people turned up in my understanding, we got paid £6.34 an hour and I personally agree with kyjenni when she(?) the litter pickers are being treated like a absolute garbage. I have never felt so abused whilst working.

Breakfast was from 7 -8 am with work starting at 8am, you turn up at 7am and start qeueing for breakfast, you get breakfast when you reach the front of the queue at about 7:45, bang on 8:00 your told to "get out and work or your fired". You then work until 13:00 with a 20 min water break, the at 13:00 you queue again to sign out and recive your food vouchers, this takes till around 13:20 then walk back Goose hall (13:30) then queue again to get lunch (13:45) and then again bang on 14:00 your told "get out or your fired" then work from 14:00 to 17:00 before going through the queuing business again so I don't get tea until 18:00 (regardless of tea being quoted as 17:00 - 18:00) admittedly we the did the rest of the night off.

I find it disgusting the way we were treated whilst working, the first day in we queued just to get a job from 6:00 in the morning then just managed to get our breakfast in time before kicked to the threats of being fired to go to the campsites around the prymaid stage and clear up, then following that on our hands and knees across the prymaid stage to shouts of "Your not working f**king hard enough" during the midday sun on what I am lead to believe was one of the hottest days of the year. This then carried on after lunch.On the contract I signed it said that during extreme heat we would be provided with extra water and suncream, we didn't get a single drop. Madness, 5 hours solid hard work with a 20 min break in very high tempratures.

It obviously didn't click until the second day where people were vomiting and fainting from the heat that actually they should fulfill their end of contract and at least give us some suncream. What annoys me more is the constant abuse of being told to "f**king work harder or your fired" whilst people are collapsing from heat around them because they are working so hard. Talk about being made to feel like s**t.

However I think the icing on the cake was the comment from on of the supervisors at around 16:50 when everyone started to look hopefully towards the land rovers where we queued to sign off was "you signed a f**king contract saying to you'll work to f**king Five and thats what you'll f**king do" I would like to point out I signed a contract saying I would receive three meals a day (I only had two breakfasts out of four days because 7-8 wasn't long enough), extra water during extreme heat(there wasn't any of that), suncream during extreme heat(there was some after Tuesday but by then the damage had been done), gloves to stop your hands becoming cut (since when have latex medical gloves been able to stop cuts, mine are covered in cuts).

Also I would like some consistency over rules, for example the first day of litter picking several had dogs with them which was completely acceptable however the second day as we were starting work sudden;y I heard the shouts of "No f**king dogs, take the f**king dog back or your f**king fired" so consequently the poor dogs were left tied up by a fence all day long.

This is my personal view of the way I was treated as a litter picker after the festival, I'm sure someone might disagree with, and I can also see sort of why we were treated this way however the way we were treated has really p***ed me off and spoilt what was a lovely fest. It was very much like slave labour

*rant off*

In regards to tent being recycled, a load of c**p, we were instructed to take the tents down and leave them for the dustbin lorries to take care of them. On the Tuesday eve me and my GF went "tatting" to collect tents and was amazed by the tents left behind we even found one of these http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/review/review.../rgn/11/sp//v/1 which was impressive (most were crap or had been trashed). It disgusted me how many tents were left behind however I suppose on reflection comments like Zacko if people thought the tents were going to be recycled it makes some sense leaving them behind however it isn't the case.

Also as conciendences would have it I live locally and am a active member of the scouting assocation and its my understanding even though I don't know the full story behind it or the reasons so don't want to be quoted on this its just what I've been lead to believe is that the scouts from Taunton Deane district were invited up to take tents down on the tues eve before being told that glasto had changed there mind and couldn't do it before the scouts being contacted again to say they could go and take down tents at which point the scouts turned around and said they couldn't do it because they didn't have enough time to organize enough people. However I don't know how true this is due to the amount of politics contained within scouting!!! Even if the scouts had gone up I believe it would've been a waste as some considerate t**t, I don't know if during or after the fest had gone around and slashed through every tent they could find so every decent tents the scouts could've used was useless.

And my final comment which doesn't apply to everyone but come on people, lets have some common sense, the number of tents I took down during litter picking and then finding out someone had s**t under their tent before pitching it on top, what the hell were you thinking!!! Was completely unbelievable. However special mention does have to go to the guys how bought a tent with them, then cut a hole out in the middle of a the tent sunk a bucket into the ground before placing a excellent home-made bog seat on top of it to finish it(lovely woodmanship) 10 out of 10 for forward planning but you could've buried your s**t in the hole afterwards not leave it in a bucket so when we took the tent down it went everywhere. So many other little things to, I reckon someone is missing all their socks because I found a tent with at least 12 pairs in!! Also one of the litter picking guys says thanks for the fifty quid in notes he found!!!

So thats that I've had my rant, I'm sorry its so self indulgent, sorry for hijacking the OPs thread didn't mean to, however everything in this post is how i see it and my personal opinion which may be backed up by many others

[bombfrog]

"Your not working f**king hard enough"

"f**king work harder or your fired"

"you signed a f**king contract saying to you'll work to f**king Five and thats what you'll f**king do"

[kyjenni]

Bloody hell that was a long post, sorry guys

[Rufus Gwertigan]

Wow, the litter pickers at Glastonbury are obviously a lot more patient than me. If anybody spoke to me like that I'd flatten them.

Whilst you've obviously been treated terribly, I would question why anybody had taken their dogs with them?

Edited July 6, 2009 by Rufus Gwertigan

[Zacko]

Litter picking story sounds pretty brutal. Is the clean up organised by an external company or something? Because they sound like total pricks..

kyjenni's photo of Eavis is the complete contrast - gave me a big ol' grin, that man is impossible to dislike.

[kyjenni]

Litter picking story sounds pretty brutal. Is the clean up organised by an external company or something? Because they sound like total pricks..

kyjenni's photo of Eavis is the complete contrast - gave me a big ol' grin, that man is impossible to dislike.

[Mardy]

f**king hell, that's shocking

I worked as part of the clean up crew many years ago, and it was hard work, but you were treated fairly. I'm disappointed to hear things have gone downhill that badly. Even back then, there were a couple of power mad bosses who enjoyed a bit of a shout, but nothing like this.

[FunkyDenz]

That strikes me as a ridiculous way to treat the litter pickers. I am surprised that no-one thought to organise a strike.

I know that if they'd treated me like that I wouldn't have lasted until 5pm on the first day before walking.

[ukslim]

I think fluffypinkdaisy should write to Micheal/Emily with this story, and encourage any other litter pickers to do the same.

I'm pretty sure something would be done. The festival needs litter pickers, and if this goes on, they'll stop applying for the job.

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I think fluffypinkdaisy should write to Micheal/Emily with this story, and encourage any other litter pickers to do the same.

I'm pretty sure something would be done. The festival needs litter pickers, and if this goes on, they'll stop applying for the job.