Jump to content

Don't Miss a Beat

Join the UK's most passionate festival community. Keep up with the latest conversations, line-up rumours, and music news.

250,000+ Members

Connect with a massive network of fellow festival-goers.

Lively Discussions

Thousands of active topics on music, campsites, and tips.

Hot Rumours & News

Hear about secret sets and lineup drops before anyone else.

Create Free Account
OR
  • Sign Up!

    Join our friendly community of music lovers and be part of the fun 😎

Proposed Changes to the Licence


Guest Ommadawn

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 317
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

I think opening the Car parks early is a great idea

The entire region was gridlocked for the entire day last year. If you can get 50,000 + cars on site before 8am and avoid a repeat of last year then this will get a huge thumbs up from the locals.

Yes the queue to the gate at 8am will be huge but most people I'm sure will be sensible, and it's a lot better to wait in a queue on foot than it is to spend 12 hours queueing in your car.

I think only the very harcore would get there on the Tuesday with most people arriving on early Wed morning

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1. What would someone turn up before the car parks opened and wait around? What advantage will it give them? Zilch, none. So make sure you turn up AFTER they've opened.

2. it will lessen the disruption hugely, because the 100,000+ people turning up to spend the weekend at one guy's house will turn up over a much bigger timeframe.

3. It's very likely that it won't be permitted to leave the car parks to go down the pub.

4. It's very likely that fires won't be permitted.

Be responsible and help police any rules, for the good of the festival. That way there won't be any issues.

it can't be done on the quiet, because it's a licencing issue and licencing issues are all public domain information.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But I just don't get how they will be able to police this without bringing in and therefore paying for an extra days security/police - unless, they charge a fee to park earlier should people wish - to cover these extra costs.

Also, I don't understand, whereas with good reason you are not allowed to sleep in your car when the festival itself is open, why they would waive this ruling to allow folk to stay in their cars on the Tuesday night. Surely the same H+S reasons apply whether the festival is open or not.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
But I just don't get how they will be able to police this without bringing in and therefore paying for an extra days security/police - unless, they charge a fee to park earlier should people wish - to cover these extra costs.

i doubt it will be possible for the fest to open the car parks without there being stewards & security - but it'll only be an extra 12 hours they'd be needed for.

And I reckon there probably would be a charge for an 'early car park pass', as having passes would enable those stewards/security to control things (such as going to a local pub) to some extent.

Also, I don't understand, whereas with good reason you are not allowed to sleep in your car when the festival itself is open, why they would waive this ruling to allow folk to stay in their cars on the Tuesday night. Surely the same H+S reasons apply whether the festival is open or not.

just about anything is possible with the right controls.

I'd guess that the reason it's not allowed during the fest is that the fest would be required to have stewards and security staffing the car parks thru-out the festival at a major staffing level - something which would be a major and unnecessary expense.

It would be far cheaper to have those staff out there for just 12 hours, plus those staff won't be needed inside at that point because there'd be no one inside.

The festival is trying to open the car parks for the benefit of the locals (to lessen the disruption they suffer, which comes back onto the festival), not for the benefit of festival goers (tho there's a benefit there too). So the festival would see majorly staffing the car parks for that one night as a necessity, whereas majorly staffing the car parks for the whole fest is not necessary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
The bit I've bolded hasn't been touched on so far in this thread.

I suspect that an 'all out by 5 pm Monday' rule for all vehicles, is unrealistic, and if seriously attempted, would increase the jams and delays of exit traffic even further ... presumably this applies only to punter vehicles and not to crew vehicles as well, but even so. And what if the site/carparks are m*ddy? :P

cars can only get out as fast as they can get out .... it's simply not possible to get cars off-site on the Monday any faster than already happens.

If thousands of cars are still on site at 5pm because the roads can't carry them away fast enough then it's not like people will be throwing those cars into the road. :P

The practicalities of meeting that deadline make it something that will be ignored if all cars aren't offsite - it's essentially something that can be ignored (aside from people having got to their cars ready to leave when they can).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
I was queuing for approx 1 hour, i had a friend who arrived in Somerset about 3 hours after me, and he was queuing for 13. I know it was a little naughty of me, and I was part of the problem, but I'm only human, and 12 hours; that's an advantage.

Surely the same problems will just occur earlier, for longer.

yes, but that was last year, when turning up before the car parks opened gave an advantage for getting into the fest (because as soon as you were parked up you could get into the fest).

This year there's no reason whatsoever to arrive before 9pm (when the car parks open - if they do open on the tuesday) because you can't get into the fest until the next morning anyway.

Only a small proportion of people are likely to turn up early.

As much as I love pubs, this is a very good idea. But can security legally prevent you from leaving? The car parks are huge, you'd need a hell of a lot of police.

while they might not be able to legally prevent you leaving, they can enforce a rule that if you leave you can't get back in. It won't be too hard to do and won't need many staff - all they have to do is watch for people crossing a point (likely to be a whole field) between off-site an the car parks.

Again, my day job as a car owner can only agree with you, but surely enforcement is a different matter. Esp. once everybody is pissed and 'know's better'.

There's only a small amount of arseholes in the world, and self-policing and security will keep those in line without any problems .... unless you think that Glastonbury is full of arseholes?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sure that Eavis or whoever thought up this has considered it, but they're going to need a load of toilets, refreshment stalls and all that, there's a lot more to it than just opening up a few fields. I can see why they're doing it, it's not a bad idea at all, just hope it works OK, given that some of these of ideas are normally less than perfect the forst year they happen (I'm thinking of the combined coach ticket/entrance ticket debacle from the other year)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

while they might not be able to legally prevent you leaving, they can enforce a rule that if you leave you can't get back in. It won't be too hard to do and won't need many staff - all they have to do is watch for people crossing a point (likely to be a whole field) between off-site an the car parks.

There's only a small amount of arseholes in the world, and self-policing and security will keep those in line without any problems .... unless you think that Glastonbury is full of arseholes?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If the main aim of opening the cars parks early is to prevent large traffic queues in the surrounding area, I think it will work. What would be the point of queuing up at 9.00pm to get into the car parks when you can't get into the site itself until the next morning?

Surely people will arrive at their leisure throughout the night knowing that the gates will open at 8.00am in the morning.

Of course the downside to this will be very large queues at the entrance gates as I'm sure that everybody who has made the effort to get there early will be waiting eagerly to get in as soon as possible.

Kev

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i know its an extra cost...but the main reason for the traffic last year was accidents....

this will be unpopular. but. a 30 mph speed restriction on all the backroads leading to the festival, with police staggered out every few miles...

I think it would seriously reduce the amount of accidents and the amount of bottlenecks...

I would be happy at going 30 mph, rather than 0.2 mph

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
Surly anyone wanting to park in the car park will already have/be getting a parking pass, so would already enable stewards/security to control things?

nope, cos that would mean that early arrivals would be able to drive out to a pub and back again. I'm pretty sure the festival will want to have some way of stopping people doing that sort of thing, and it'll need a different pass to do that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Admin
Last year, whichever gate I was using, I think it was C, I had to cross 2 public roads to get from the carpark to the festival fence. I can't see how they can prevent people from getting back into the carpark once the gates are open. Are they really allowed to hold a car to ransom, surely that's tantamount to theft of a motor vehicle.

As I've already said, I doubt they'd be able to 'force' people to stay inside.

But with a 'tuesday parking pass' they can stop people getting back in again if they leave, which by itself will be enough to stop all by the most brain-dead from leaving.

I think Glasto has a cross section of society, and it's arsehole content is most likely in proportion with the rest of the world.

exactly. In which case it won't be an issue for the people in the car parks to be controlled in which ever ways the festival needs to control their behaviour.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Unfortunately, your content contains terms that we do not allow. Please edit your content to remove the highlighted words below.
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

  • Latest Activity

    • Very nice to read your review.  Here's mine.  I enjoyed it all so much that I bought a pre-sale ticket for 2027!   ____   WOMAD FESTIVAL 23-26 July 2026  Neston Park, Corsham, Wiltshere   Womad is back! The festival took a year off last year to recalibrate. They were moving to a new location, and no doubt the fact that so many festivals have ceased to exist as a result of financial problems in the current climate made it important for Womad to get things right going forward. And did they! The festival was a resounding success. Sold out, with brilliant music and smiling faces all around.    From 2007 until 2024 the festival was held at Charlton Park in Wiltshere. I went there six times.  Sometimes the festival clashed wth Cambridge Folk Festival, but since the pandemic I have found myself preferring Womad. It offers greater diversity. There are acts from all over the world and I feel I can trust the organisers to come up with stuff I will enjoy.    The new site is a beauty. Neston Park is an estate near Corsham.  Melksham is the nearest train station; Bath the nearest bigger town. The Real World studios are nearby in the village of Box. The weather was again very warm and the site thankfully has many shaded areas with trees. The camping fields offer enough space that people do not need to camp on top of each other. There are four main stages and best of all, programming is such that there was never any sound overspill. Toilets were mostly of the compost variety. The food I sampled was delicious, albeit expensive, and they had very nice Clear Head alcohol-free beer on tap, which predictably ran out on Saturday.    I went as an Oxfam volunteer, which benefits a good cause and was enjoyable as ever, but I have to admit that it was killing me how much I was missing that I wanted to be at, due to having to work. I was not able to participate in the many interesting workshops and presentations on offer. I am planning to go as a punter next year, and volunteer elsewhere where the lineup is less crucial. My shifts were in the camping fields. This was relatively easy due to the Womad festival goers being very well behaved (“You can’t go that way“; “Oh, I see”). I enjoyed spending time up on the fire tower, from where the view was great.   Peter Gabriel made an appearance at the World of Words stage. Lopa Kothari was on compere duty on the World Stage (the main stage), and for me a most welcome addition was Justin Adams compering the second stage - the Big Top. Justin is a fantastic guitarist who has collaborated with and produced many world music greats (Robert Plant, Tinariwen, Souad Massi, Sharon Shannon). Justin is so knowledgeable and enthusiastic, it was a real joy to have him in the Big Top all weekend, and I liked his unshouty style of presenting.   These were my musical highlights:   1. GANAVYA (India) - Big Top   Singer Ganavya is from New York, of Indian heritage, and she spent many years living in Tamil Nadu. The first striking thing when she walks onstage is how pregnant she is. She explains she is eight months. At times it looked like there might be a Womad baby. Ganavya is accompanied by a harpist and a cellist. Stunning music and great storytelling too. She is a graduate from Berklee College of Music and has worked as a teacher as well, which is evident from her engaging talk. She reminded me of Arooj Aftab, mostly because of her dry and self-deprecating sense of humour. Her show ended with a wonderful singalong traditional, the high point of the entire festival for me. I will certainly seek her music out further.   2. SEPPUKU PISTOLS (Japan) - World Stage   The Seppuku Pistols are an anarchist punk group with traditional instruments. There’s thirteen of them, different ages. They started in the middle of the crowd and then made their way over to the stage. Many of the members play percussion. The leader is an older guy, who spoke at length and with great conviction in Japanese, before yelling “translate!” to a band member. There was so much going on, sometimes you didn’t know where to look. I was near the front, but band members frequently went with instruments and all into the moshpit. At the same time someone could come crowdsurfing overhead. Apparently one of them broke his ankle, didn’t realise and finished the gig. “I think you all need to go and decompress”, Lopa Kothari said to the audience once it was over. Everybody left the main stage with big smiles, shaking their heads.   3. GANNA (Ukraine) - Sunflower Tent   Ganna is a Ukrainian singer, based in Berlin. She performs solo, standing behind a table with equipment. This is never my favourite set-up, however her voice, songs, stage presence and stories were so remarkable that I can get over the lack of a proper band. My shift partner saw her at the ‘Taste the World’ stage and told me she is equally good without the box of tricks. Her singing is not unlike Sámi joiking. Ganna’s singing was so impressive that everyone (finally!) stopped talking. Her music is an intriguing mix of traditional songs over very contemporary electronics. She spoke about the situation in Ukraine, including some very personal stories. I would have loved for this show to have been longer.   4. OUMOU SANGARÉ (Mali) - World Stage   The only artist on the lineup that I had seen before. The “Songbird of Wassoulou” has continued to release quality albums and I knew this was guaranteed to be good. Oumou was the final act on the main stage on Sunday; a fitting end to the festival. Her band are a mix of Mali-based and French musicians; the keyboardist stood out in particular. Oumou looks positively regal to begin with, but loosens up once she takes off her high heels. She addresses the crowd mostly in French. Sound was exceptionally good for this gig, though it has to be said it was good on the whole, with the exception of the Sunflower stage, which was a bit muddled at times.   5. FRESHLYGROUND (South Africa) - Village Stage   Freshlyground are an Afropop band from Capetown, who have been around since 2002. After seeing several performers with laptops on stage, it was a relief to see such a seasoned band with real instruments (I love the flute). The band’s long-time singer went solo in 2019, and they are now fronted by 20-year-old Mali Makhoba, an very charismatic singer who describes herself as “just a girl from the township”. This is a very uplifting gig that draws a huge crowd to the relatively small Village Stage. They finish with their hit ‘Waka Waka (This Time For Africa)’, which they recorded with Shakira on vocals for the World Cup in 2010.   6. MÁDÉ KUTI (Nigeria) - Big Top   Son of Femi Kuti, grandson of Fela Kuti. 30-year-old Mádé Kuti is a multi-instrumentalist, singer and bandleader. He has a stellar band with him, including two energetic dancers, and together they put on a fabulous show. I saw Femi Kuti on the Womad main stage a few years ago, but I have to admit I enjoyed Mádé more. He pays tribute to his father and grandfather (he covers ‘Trouble Sleep Yanga Wake Am’), takes his place amongst the brass section so that other band members can solo, and brings his reluctant wife on stage for a dance (“She hates it when I do that!”).   7. SABINE MCCALLA (USA) - Village Stage   Sabine McCalla is from New Orleans, of Haitian descent, and the sister of Leyla McCalla, who played a great set at Womad 2024. Sabine is accompanied by a guitar player and her laid-back songs are perfect for an early afternoon set in near tropical weather. “Aligators are circling round Lake Pontchartrain”… I love that line from her song ‘Baby please don’t go’.   8. ANNIE AND THE CALDWELLS (USA) - World Stage   More music from the South, this time from Mississippi. Annie Caldwell played Womad a few years ago with the Staples Junior Singers. This time she has brought her family band, with three of her daughters singing. It is a slightly slicker affair and I have to admit I thought the gospel from the older group was even better.   9. MOHAMMED REZA MORTAZAVI (Iran) - Big Top   Mohammed is a percussionist extraordinaire. He plays an entire one hour set on a Persian drum that looks not unlike a bodhrán. It is incredible how many different sounds he gets out of this single instrument, just by using his two hands. His was a late show and by that time I had been up since 5 a.m. so I was struggling against sleep a little.   10. RUST (Lebanon / Syria ) - Sunflower Tent   Rust are Petra from Lebanon and Hany from Syria. They are based in Prague and they call their music electro tarab. I like Petra’s vocals very much, but would have loved to know a bit more about the songs. Hany stands behind a deck with equipment. Many of the songs build and build and end in banging techno, which goes down well at the midnight slot they occupy. Do check out their EP ‘Masaf’.   Disappointment:   Tian Qiyi (UK).  A band of two brothers, sons of Jah Wobble. Their mother is Chinese and there is a strong Chinese influence in their music. I had listened to their album ‘Red Mist’ and had high expectations, but found them disappointing live. The guys were playing and singing live, but everything else was recorded.    Would liked to have seen: Yegor Zabelov, accordion (Belarus) Bitoi, Scandi-folk with electronica (Sweden) Lemoncello (Ireland) Stafford Campbell (UK) Yasmine Hamdan (singer from Soapkills, Lebanon)   Heard good reports from fellow volunteers about: Barrington Levy (reggae/dancehall veteran, Jamaica) Wild Wild Women (hip hop girls from Mumbai, India) Ta Dhom Project (hip hop with percussion, India)   Womad 2027 will be from 23-26 July. www.womad.co.uk for tickets.   Helen.
    • Yeah I've seen the news he's off to Arsenal and do have a lot of musings. As said, it really feels like if tapping up was something people cared about that this could have potential to be seen as such at least, but I also agree that this summer, the board have been too feeble in resisting interest in our best players and need someone better able to tell the big fish to do one like others have. It's particularly galling as it feels that Arsenal showed a lot of disrespect with the use of intermediaries to do dirty work and the first offer that was pretty much what we paid to sign Bruno from Lyon 4 1/2 years ago.   It's definitely grating as well that Bruno seemed to go all in on making out he wanted to be a hero then pretty much used some of Isak's tactics to force an exit. Which means he's probably earned boos when Arsenal come to Tyneside in November. I'm not saying that for grandstanding - players come and go and I have no doubt Arsenal are offering more money and more chances of trophies in the next 2/3 years. But the player hasn't helped himself imo.    But it is what it is. This is a pretty extreme reset and means that every decision as far as incomings goes has to be flawless. Whether I'm expecting it to be so after last year's debacle is of course another matter. At the very least the belated new manager will have a lot to do. In a way I think it's a good thing it won't be Howe trying to replace Bruno though given our record without him was so bad and the tactical choices feel like they may end up leaning into a style that worked with him had Howe stuck around. 
    • Weezer just announced a May tour so that's them ruled out.
    • Blimey, I thought it wasn’t going as well due to the pricing and as it didn’t fly out ticket sale day.    Incredible that people are paying it, not had a good album in about 20 years now. Quite disappointing at those prices as it’ll keep climbing if people keep paying unfortunately. 
  • Featured Products

  • Hot Topics

  • Latest Tourdates

×
×
  • Create New...