Proposed Changes to the Licence

[NeilVJ]

Would people be bothered hanging about in the car park having some brekkie and ciders till say 10 and then going in the festival waiting till the initial queue dies down.

It wouldn't bother me that much, get chairs out and chill for a few hours

[ivan]

You've nailed it!!

==========

Aside from that, the festival clearly believes that it can be managed in an orderly manner without putting the festival's future at risk, and which will bring benefits to either locals, festival goers or both. If this wasn't the case, then they wouldn't be trying to do it (and the licence application proves that they're trying to do it).

Which of the people here have more experience of traffic and crowd management than the festival to be giving an informed opinion that it can't be worked well?

[lord stradmor]

Well, there has been an objection to the new licence.

From some aggrieved neighbours perhaps? Or a councillor who Mr Eavis has rubbed up the wrong way?

Nope.

From Devon and Somerset Fire Brigade, who are bleating about service levels and the need for a permanently manned fire station on site, but who actually want the festival to cough for the £100,000 they reckon it costs them to provide the service (which they have to do by law anyway)

Their justification is the floods in 2007, the scrapyard fire in 2008 (which they'd have had to put out anyway) and the crash on the M4 last year (hardly the festivals fault).

Hearing on Feb 15

[Pinhead]

Is the objection in relation to the early arrival car park, or the festival in general (I assume the latter). Funny how we've got away without having one for years with no serious incidents. Most the really need in one engine parked up daily on site. Can't surely justify 100K for that!

[cejx]

Is the objection in relation to the early arrival car park, or the festival in general (I assume the latter). Funny how we've got away without having one for years with no serious incidents. Most the really need in one engine parked up daily on site. Can't surely justify 100K for that!

[grumpyhack]

All good points but remember the Glasto festival population is equivalent to the population of the City of Bath. You wouldn't suggest that Bath doesn't need a fire station.

Quite rightly, the emergency services have got to plan for a worst case scenario.

The vast majority of the city of Bath spend their week reasonably sober, not cooking on camping gaz stoves, living in inflammable tents or lighting fires and flares between them.

One serious disaster and loss of life and Glasto could be done for.

Because we live in a litigious society organisations that could be held responsible have got to cover themselves and show that they took all reasonable precautions and had the necessary support in place.

[eFestivals]

All good points but remember the Glasto festival population is equivalent to the population of the City of Bath. You wouldn't suggest that Bath doesn't need a fire station.

Quite rightly, the emergency services have got to plan for a worst case scenario.

The vast majority of the city of Bath spend their week reasonably sober, not cooking on camping gaz stoves, living in inflammable tents or lighting fires and flares between them.

One serious disaster and loss of life and Glasto could be done for.

Because we live in a litigious society organisations that could be held responsible have got to cover themselves and show that they took all reasonable precautions and had the necessary support in place.

While I agree with all that, the safety at Glastonbury has been proven over the years to be far better than it is on thousands of campsites up and down the country .... yet there's no demand for those to help top of the fire brigade's funds have their own on-site fire stations.

I've had experience of the fire services at Glastonbury - when my campervan caught fire around 10 years ago. They got a report of the fire including exactly where it was, yet drove past the field three times, before finally arriving on the 4th attempt about 30 minutes after the fire had been put out and everything safely dealt with.

While it's great that they're there, they really do need to be more on the ball.

[ukslim]

While I agree with all that, the safety at Glastonbury has been proven over the years to be far better than it is on thousands of campsites up and down the country ....

[eFestivals]

You seem to be contradicting yourself there.

not at all.

There's fewer camping accidents per person per night at Glastonbury than is the norm for general campsites.

That doesn't change the fact that my own experience of the festival's fire service ain't great.

I don't think there's anywhere in the developed world, other than festivals, where tents are put up so haphazardly and close together. Normal "campsites up and down the country" have plenty of space between pitches, so there's very little scope for a tent fire to spread into a multi-tent disaster.

Yet all the same the number of injuries per person per night due to fire is greater on general campsites.

And while there's scope for a tent fire at Glastonbury to spread into a multi-tent disaster, it doesn't happen. If it did tho, any fire service is very likely to arrive too late given how easily tents can go up unless it's right on the spot at the moment it happens.

[plaskins]

Do they have a fire station on site at Leeds/Reading.. they have full scale flame throwing riots!

[lemoncrab]

In the words of Apu: "Isn't there a chance the track could bend?"

[Staberinde]

Crikey! This is a bit of a mega thread, I've never seen so many bulleted points and well put point of views, still, I'm another plus one for Ivan's summery...

To sum up

Every car arriving and parking up between 9.00pm Tuesday and 5.00 am Wednesday

Is one less car on the road when things start to get busy

[eFestivals]

Can anyone clarify; will these changes come into affect this year if the license application is successful?

very probably.

I believe it's the case that with something like this (the Tuesday night parking) that while that aspect might get the OK from licencing, the festival could choose not to do it if they decided not to.

But of course, if they didn't plan to do it, then they probably wouldn't have applied to do it.

And because they've applied to do it, they clearly think that they're perfectly able to properly manage the people who park up early, in contradiction to the many people who've posted in this thread who think it can only be a disaster.

[guypjfreak]

not going to go in to one !!

QUOTE (ivan @ Jan 15 2010, 03:08 PM)

To sum up

Every car arriving and parking up between 9.00pm Tuesday and 5.00 am Wednesday

Is one less car on the road when things start to get busy

which ever way you look at it this is right

[norainplease]

I have to agree with Ivan that the less cars on the road the better once the roads start to get busy.

Last year was the first year we drove having used public transport in the past and having the benefit of the coach only routes in those years. I have to admit that we left Glastonbury town at 07.00 and were aprked up by 08.15 and found the stewarts very helpful! Not so much on the Mon when we spent 16 hours going 6 miles (I kid you not!!).

Anyhoo...my question is, was last year manic traffic "the norm" or were the accident on the motorways etc all just contributing factors to the traffic jam madness?

As much as I would like to think that I love Glasto enough to go there on the Tues and sleep in my car....I have laready booked my B&B in Glasto for the Mon and Tues nights and the call of a comfy bed and a warm shower will be too much to resist. Not to mention the cider at the Riflemans!!

[eFestivals]

Anyhoo...my question is, was last year manic traffic "the norm" or were the accident on the motorways etc all just contributing factors to the traffic jam madness?

last year's traffic wasn't the norm - there was far more traffic at a much earlier hour than they'd been previously.

I don't believe that an accident on any motorway made any difference at all - I suspect that Glastonbury have made mention of that as a way to try to absolve themselves from the traffic chaos that there was. After all, the nearest motorway is 15+ miles away, and the road from Pilton to the motorway was pretty much jammed up all day from what I've heard, and it certainly was long before there was any accident to blame.

I'm pretty sure that the reason for far more traffic earlier last year was merely down to the fact that the festival had advertised itself as starting on the Wednesday for the first time - leading people to feel they might be missing something if they weren't there.

[shortleg]

last year's traffic wasn't the norm - there was far more traffic at a much earlier hour than they'd been previously.

I don't believe that an accident on any motorway made any difference at all - I suspect that Glastonbury have made mention of that as a way to try to absolve themselves from the traffic chaos that there was. After all, the nearest motorway is 15+ miles away, and the road from Pilton to the motorway was pretty much jammed up all day from what I've heard, and it certainly was long before there was any accident to blame.

I'm pretty sure that the reason for far more traffic earlier last year was merely down to the fact that the festival had advertised itself as starting on the Wednesday for the first time - leading people to feel they might be missing something if they weren't there.

[fowls]

With some justification. Wednesday is a brilliant chill-out feel-your-way-in day. I'm certain that a big arrival on Wednesday will be the norm from now on.

[eFestivals]

With some justification. Wednesday is a brilliant chill-out feel-your-way-in day. I'm certain that a big arrival on Wednesday will be the norm from now on.

oh definitely - while many have been going on the Wednesday for years anyway, and that number has been increasing steadily, the influx last year was a big jump.

The genie is out of the bottle, there ain't no putting it back.

Definitely. With so many other festivals arriving on Wednesday is normal, so the trend will make its way to Glasto for sure.

it's Glastonbury that's been leading this trend, it's the others that are the followers.

[paulo999]

From the Police' section of last year's debrief:

- The good weather encouraged a significant number of the Festival crowd to arrive early, roads were heavily congested by 10.30 hours and by the end of the day some 45,000 vehicles were in the car parks and in excess of 90,000 individuals had arrived on site - unprecedented numbers. In comparison the same number of vehicles had only arrived by Midnight on the Friday of 2008.

- A number of separate incidents on the roads contributed to the congestion, including the closure of the M4 near Bristol and accidents on the M5 and A39.

- 4 of the 24 double-decker buses dedicated to the free shuttle between Castle Cary, the drop off point at the Bath and West Showground and the Festival site also became stuck in the traffic on the A37 between Bristol and Shepton Mallet.

- An increase of campervans on the roads added to the congestion issues as their movement was slow and restricted in the narrow lanes.

Edited February 2, 2010 by paulo999

[eFestivals]

From the Police' section of last year's debrief:

I cannot see how a closure on a motorway 25 miles or more away, or an accident on a motorway 15+miles away "added to the congestion".

Can anyone give a reason why they might have done?

Edited February 2, 2010 by eFestivals

[bubbsio]

I cannot see how a closure on a motorway 25 miles or more away, or an accident on a motorway 15+miles away "added to the congestion".

Can anyone give a reason why they might have done?

[lord stradmor]

Can anyone give a reason why they might have done?

[JodiB]

I cannot see how a closure on a motorway 25 miles or more away, or an accident on a motorway 15+miles away "added to the congestion".

Can anyone give a reason why they might have done?

[eFestivals]

Can only guess at this but would think that traffic that would have come down the M5 at a steady rate was backed until you had thousands of cars backed up trying to filter off the motorway in one go rather than perhaps a more spread out manner before the accident.

except once they got off the motorway they joined an already existing queue of traffic on the smaller roads towards Pilton.

So it didn't delay those people or make the queues any bigger than they would have been without an accident to cause a 2nd queue on the motorway for a while.

As far as I can see an accident would have only changed things if once the accident was cleared there was a no-jam drive straight to the Glasto car parks for the first car in the queue caused by an accident.

As there were already queues for miles around the festie site, an accident would have lessened those queues for a while and made things less congested and not more congested.