Proposed Changes to the Licence

[Ommadawn]

According to the local paper, GFL have applied for changes in the festival licence.

Details in brief are as follows -

1. A new peak time access route from the east will be created. It will run from a location 350m south of the Bath & West Showground off the A37 adn is hoped to take up to 800 cars per hour.

2. Early arrivals will be able to park up from 9.00pm on the Tuesday. Campervan and caravan areas would be open from noon on Tuesday. All vehicles must be off the site by 5.00pm on the Monday. Extra car parking for 5,400 cars will be made available.

3. An extra 30 acres of camping space will be made available along with and extra 1000 caravan spaces.

4. The Pyramid, Jazz World and Other stages will be allowed to operate until midnight at up to 65db and the Pyramid stage until 12.30am at 60db (although the intention would be to keep all stages to 60db). Smaller stages will be able to operate until 12.30am as at present. The Park stage will open on Thursday.

5. There will be a festival held in 2011

Edited January 7, 2010 by Ommadawn

[staggerlee]

Interesting. Would like to see more stuff happening on the Wednesday and Thursday, not to bothered about live performances but they should at least open Arcadia, The Park and the likes.

[Okky]

60db??? That's piss poor isnt it?

[staggerlee]

60db??? That's piss poor isnt it?

Edited January 7, 2010 by staggerlee

[Okky]

I googled it.

Here is a comparison table of some common sound levels for comparison.As you can see the db scale is not a linear scale by that 20 db is not twice as loud as 10 db

* 0 dB - the lowest sound level a person with normal hearing can detect

* 20 dB(A) - is a quiet room at night

* 60 dB(A) - is ordinary spoken conversation

* 80 dB(A) - is shouting

* 90 dB(A) - is an underground railway

* 110 dB(A) - is a pneumatic drill nearby

* 130 dB(A) - is an aeroplane taking off 100m away

[fowls]

I assume there's a set distance away from the speakers where it needs to be 60db (If you stand at the very back of a festival, the volume is about speaking volume). Having 60db coming out of the speakers would be way too quiet.

Edited January 7, 2010 by fowls

[Ommadawn]

I assume there's a set distance away from the speakers where it needs to be 60db (If you stand at the very back of a festival, the volume is about speaking volume). Having 60db coming out of the speakers would be way too quiet.

[grumpyhack]

According to the local paper, GFL have applied for the changes in the festival licence.

Details in brief are as follows -

2. Early arrivials will be able to park up from 9.00pm on the Tuesday. Campervan and caravan areas would be open from noon on Tuesday.

[Ommadawn]

I'm confused. I'm taking a campervan so, in theory, I can get on site at Noon on Tuesday. But what about our friends, who will be camping with us who'll be coming by car? What will they have to do between Noon and 9.00pm?

Also, presumably the main site gates still won't open till Wednesday - or will we be allowed onto site on Tuesday, once we've pitched our CV?

[Okky]

So this is proposed? It would be good to see what the current db is... Hopefully like 1

[Ommadawn]

So this is proposed? It would be good to see what the current db is... Hopefully like 1

[lord stradmor]

The noise levels won't really change - essentially its a trade off for the festival - we'll promise not to exceed 65db at the monitoring points in the village until midnight, and we promise to cut the sound a bit for half an hour after midnight after the other/jazzworld stages have closed, and you won't prosecute us.

It also means you'll get finishes that are bit more staggered.

the new camping sites are quite interesting, as some of them will be on the other side of the bowl the site sits in - so it would be downhill to your tent at the end of the night...

Festival site is still locked up till 8am on weds , and the shangri-la crew are going to be camping outside the fence

[musky]

I googled it.

Here is a comparison table of some common sound levels for comparison.As you can see the db scale is not a linear scale by that 20 db is not twice as loud as 10 db

* 0 dB - the lowest sound level a person with normal hearing can detect

* 20 dB(A) - is a quiet room at night

* 60 dB(A) - is ordinary spoken conversation

* 80 dB(A) - is shouting

* 90 dB(A) - is an underground railway

* 110 dB(A) - is a pneumatic drill nearby

* 130 dB(A) - is an aeroplane taking off 100m away

[Okky]

the new camping sites are quite interesting, as some of them will be on the other side of the bowl the site sits in - so it would be downhill to your tent at the end of the night...

[lord stradmor]

As far as I could work out, its on the west side of the site, on the other side of john peel/dance, so you'll have to go up hill, and then down again.

[krisskross]

As far as I could work out, its on the west side of the site, on the other side of john peel/dance, so you'll have to go up hill, and then down again.

[staggerlee]

Where did you find that? 20db is twice as loud as 10 db, and every 10 db after that is a doubling of volume.

Distance is the key as has already been said. A conversation is 60 db at 1 metre, but for something like a festival you'd probably get a 4.5 db reduction for every doubling of distance. Which predictably enough means it'll be plenty loud down the front.

[bulb]

First, remember that the decibel (dB) is a logarithmic unit,

meaning that you cannot add and subtract dB like ordinary numbers. For

example, an increase of 3 dB is a doubling of the "strength" of the sound,

and an increase of 10 dB means that the

sound is 10 times as loud; i.e., 70 dB is 10 times as loud as 60 dB."

[musky]

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99325.htm

That answers that!

[mikeb]

dB is in principle just the log of a ratio of two power values so there are more 'flavours' of dB than there are different beverages available on site ! It depends on what the reference level is as well as distance from the source and any filtering that is being employed when taking measurements - all of which really need to be known to make any real sense of a quoted dB figure. dB(a) is weighted (filtered) to approximately represent the response of the human ear. There are several other weighting curves, non of which are particularly relevant here unless there is a perceived big problem with massive amounts of very low frequency disturbance. Yes Mr.Dance-Area, I'm looking at you In terms of power, +3dB is a an increase in level by a factor of 2. Sound pressure level also reduces on a square law (or thereabouts) with respect to distance [at least I think it does from memory anyway ] so double the distance and you'll get around a quarter of the ooomph - but weather, location, terrain and a 1001 other things can seriously affect just how far any given amount of ooomph will effectively travel and it's very frequency dependent anyway of course. Low frequencies effectively travel much further and all that, measurements down-wind from a source will always be loads higher than similar measurements up-wind plus sound can be channelled, reflected, concentrated or even blocked by terrain or buildings etc.

My guess would be it probably just means 60dB (typ conversation level) at the monitoring points in the village is the desired level but the upper limit is to be made 65dB (loud conversation level, around 3x typ conversation level but not as loud as shouting !). The volume on site will, as always, be a function of the weather and the distance/terrain between the stage(s) and the monitoring point(s) and it will have to be adjusted to get the 'right' maximum level(s) at the various monitoring points rather than to what the audience wants to hear. All much the same as usual I would think just a slight moving of the monitoring goalposts to avoid the usual slightly embarrassing discussions after the event and the potential for legal action being considered necessary due primarily to measurement, weather and other difficulties rather than because it was intentionally and/or unreasonably 'too loud'.

Edited January 7, 2010 by mikeb

[llcoolphil]

dB is in principle just the log of a ratio of two power values so there are more 'flavours' of dB than there are different beverages available on site ! It depends on what the reference level is as well as distance from the source and any filtering that is being employed when taking measurements - all of which really need to be known to make any real sense of a quoted dB figure. dB(a) is weighted (filtered) to approximately represent the response of the human ear. There are several other weighting curves, non of which are particularly relevant here unless there is a perceived big problem with massive amounts of very low frequency disturbance. In terms of power, +3dB is a an increase in level by a factor of 2. Sound pressure level also reduces on a square law (or thereabouts) with respect to distance [i think it does from memory anyway ] so double the distance and you'll get around a quarter of the ooomph - but weather, location, terrain and a 1001 other things can seriously affect just how far any given amount of ooomph will effectively travel and it's very frequency dependent anyway of course. Low frequencies effectively travel much further and all that, measurements down-wind from a source will always be loads higher than similar measurements up-wind plus sound can be channelled, reflected, concentrated or even blocked by terrain or buildings etc.

My guess would be it probably just means 60dB (typ conversation level) at the monitoring points in the village is the desired level but the upper limit is to be made 65dB (loud conversation level, around 3x typ conversation level but not as loud as shouting !). The volume on site will, as always, be a function of the weather and the distance/terrain between the stage(s) and the monitoring point(s) and it will have to be adjusted to get the 'right' level(s) at the various monitoring points rather than what the audience wants to hear. All much the same as usual I would think just a slight moving of the monitoring goalposts to avoid the usual slightly embarrassing discussions and the potential for legal action being considered necessary due to measurement, weather and other difficulties rather than because it's intentionally 'too loud'.

[mikeb]

Quite probably true and the bottom line I think is that it's probably all going to be "much the same as usual" in any case so it's all pretty d@mn irrelevant anyway !

Hows about just saying: It'll still be loud at the front as usual, loud(ish) in the middle but it will vary depending on exactly where abouts in the middle you are of course, and relatively quiet at the back. It will (should !) be pretty d@mn quiet at the monitoring points so peeps there can still hold a normal conversation without any difficulty whatsoever. If it's windy then it'll sound pretty cr@p unless you're right down the front but if you stand directly in front of the stacks then it will be very bl**dy loud and you totally deserve not to hear anything except buzzing and ringing in your ears for hours/days/weeks afterwards however you will ultimately regret it bigtime in a few years time

Anyways, enough of sound, I think it's a bit kinda sad that more carpark space is apparently considered necessary but more camping space is a good thing

Edited January 7, 2010 by mikeb

[Glastoboy]

Campervan and caravan areas would be open from noon on Tuesday.

Early arrivals will be able to park up from 9.00pm on the Tuesday.

[spikytom]

...so double the distance and you'll get around a quarter of the ooomph...

[whisty]

As for opening the car parks from 9pm on Tuesday - I see trouble ahead with this idea and hope they don't get this approved.