Leaving on the sunday after Stevie?

[celticvillan]

Not sure if this has been discussed anywhere else, I am driving down to the festival, for the first time this year, and was thinking about the traffic. Has anybody left after the sunday night headliner, just to bristol or further?? We will be heading back up to Leeds, so my bright idea would be to leave sunday night, then get some sleep in a services somewhere past Bristol.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Lisa

[ampersand]

you're not alone. i'm doing this to, so i can get back to edinburgh in plenty time for a tea time flight.

[celticvillan]

Have you done this before? Just wondering what the traffic is generally like?

[ampersand]

Have you done this before? Just wondering what the traffic is generally like?

[markeee]

I think you;lll be ok for traffic - or at least it will be a lot quieter than the Monday, most will be leaving sometime the monday, a few on Sunday but not massive amounts imo

[bambina]

We did this in 2007 and it was a breeze getting offsite.

In the morning we packed up and took everything back to the car, so nothing to cart out with us in the dark either. Good job we did as it was seriously muddy underfoot.

We met various groups of people at services heading north, we were all very muddy and broken

Going to do the same thing this year and have also booked a room in a Travelodge the northern side of Birmingham for £9 per night when the sale was on.

[Sabcully]

We left last year Sunday around 12am. Drove straight out, no worries at all.

Home in an hour. Will be doing the same this year.

[Runner]

I think it depends which car park you end up in.

In 2008 we left Sunday evening after the headliners. Packed everything up during the day, and took it to the car, then just headed to the cars when we needed to.

Now, I can't remember which (lettered) car parks we were in (sorry!!!), but we sailed straight out (we were right next to the coach stops, which was actually not available in 2009) yet our mates who were in a totally different car park were stuck for over an hour.

Because of this we decided to stay till Monday in 2009, but this turned out to be a nightmare too as we were unfortunately in the car park which was completely STUCK for 6hrs!!!!

Not quite sure what to do this year ...

Peace x

[mashy]

Not sure if this has been discussed anywhere else, I am driving down to the festival, for the first time this year, and was thinking about the traffic. Has anybody left after the sunday night headliner, just to bristol or further?? We will be heading back up to Leeds, so my bright idea would be to leave sunday night, then get some sleep in a services somewhere past Bristol.

Any thoughts?

Thanks

Lisa

[bexj]

I've done this once before, packed up at tea time, then set off about midnight. Straight off the field and was back in Leeds at about 3am, we were both tired so we swapped the driving over lots, but the motorways are bliss at that time of night! Only downside is you can't have a drink on the last night...

[mario man]

I've done this the last 2 years.

2008 - got back to the car at 1am, off site by 1:15, back in London by 3:30

2009 - got back to car at 1am, off site by 3am, back in London by 6am.

The reason it took us so long to get off site last year was down to where we were parked. There were 2 exits from the field we were parked in, however it was the one on the opposite side to where we were that was being used for exit, therefore we were in a long queue & had a long wait. My advice is when you take your stuff back to your car during the day, check where the exit point will be from your field & move your car.

Even though we were sat in queues last year we thanked ourselves lucky as the heavens opened about 1:30am! We saw lots of folk struggling back with all there gear getting absolutely soaked!

[denwyn]

We left last year about 11 o clock,no problem at all, previous year was 12.15 again no problem. This year were not deceided as yet,although none of us will be watching Stevie Wonder,depends what else is on and how we all feel,we definatley pack up the tents ect and get them in the car by 11am,so were ready for the off. Would stay till Monday but its been hard enough getting time off work as it is.

[ghandi]

We had to leave early last year at around 8pm because i had work the next morning. Gutted that i missed Blur, even more so when i watched it back on TV. I wont be doing that this year, i have taken the Monday off. I want to get every last second out of it this year from when the gates open until we leave the site of our own accord on the Monday. I know we'll get traffic but hey ho.

[dibbul]

I've done this the last 2 years.

2008 - got back to the car at 1am, off site by 1:15, back in London by 3:30

2009 - got back to car at 1am, off site by 3am, back in London by 6am.

The reason it took us so long to get off site last year was down to where we were parked. There were 2 exits from the field we were parked in, however it was the one on the opposite side to where we were that was being used for exit, therefore we were in a long queue & had a long wait. My advice is when you take your stuff back to your car during the day, check where the exit point will be from your field & move your car.

Even though we were sat in queues last year we thanked ourselves lucky as the heavens opened about 1:30am! We saw lots of folk struggling back with all there gear getting absolutely soaked!

[20/20]

You will miss half the fun on the Sunday, and the sales on the Monday...i prefer to go Mon afternoon

[Mel & Claire]

We're going to set off around 6am this year, gonna pack everything up on the Sunday and then take the tent down after a couple of hours sleep.

[18Alex18]

We left on sunday last year.

As has been previously mentioned packing up your stuff on Sunday morning is a must. I quite enjoyed it though - we had a little bit of an earlier start got everything sorted and packed up and carried (horribly exhausting) it to the car.

Having everything ready to leave when you want to takes a massive weight off your mind - knowing you're completely packed up means you can just worry about enjoying yourself on sunday (though alcohol free = downside) then as soon as your ready you can just walk straight to the car from wherever you are and leave.

Obviously, you could pack up and leave your stuff where you were camping (especially if you're with friends who aren't leaving) which would save you making an extra trip to and from the car park on sunday morning (because trust me, if you have a lot of stuff a walk to the car park is not to be taken lightly), but I wouldn't recommend this as for one thing it will delay you leaving by a substantial amount of time and also, after a day of walking/standing/dancing you're not likely to look forward to carrying all your stuff to the car - especially in the dark.

It's probably best to leave some spare clothes in your car - I left mine under the drivers seat so that as soon as I got back to the car I could change the clothes that I didn't want to be sitting in for a further 5 or so hours.

As regards to actually leaving quickly we agreed to meet up during the Blur encore. We were bound to get split up, so we basically said as soon as they leave for the encore break start heading out of the crowd and we agreed a place on the periphery of the crowd to meet to watch the encore. Once Damon said something about it being their last song we started heading off - though we could, I'm sure, have stayed and not lost too much time - but we heard the whole of the Universal anyway as we walked away (you could hear it for miles) and we charged (with quite a lot of other people) towards the car park.

It probably took us about 30/45 minutes to get out once we were in the car. By 'out' I mean, that's the amount of time it took us to get out of our particularly car park, off site, queue in the local roads and eventually hit the congestion-less roads. We stopped at some services on the M6 after about an hour/90 minutes probably - everyone in there had been to glastonbury so there was a strange atmosphere of people who share similar emotions but a too tired/exhausted/depressed to fully discuss them. We had brief chats with a few people but that was all - before I downed a double expresso - to prepare myself for the rest of the journey.

We eventually arrived home (to Leicestershire) about 5am, where upon arrival I jumped straight into the shower and then got into a proper bed with the surreal feeling that 6 hours ago I'd been watching Blur at Glastonbury and now I was in bed at home.

I think I will definitely do this again next year cause I can imagine the traffic on Monday would put a downer on the end of the experience.

The only warning I will give is that you have to remember two things; the driver has to basically go sunday without drinking (especially when you consider the 2nd point) that the driver is likely to have been awake for say (9am-11:30am) ...so 14 and a half hours... and must then embark on a drive home which for me took another 5 or so hours, so towards the end of the drive I'd been awake for around 18 hours and was driving in the darkness at 4am, having probably not slept too well over the previous two days either. I would recommend that if your journey is anything over about 4 hours to try and have two drivers - so that one can try and get some sleep, to later take over from the first driver.

[TazOnSpeed]

I generally leave Monday, and I am usually stuck in the car park,

My friends generally leave early on Monday and they dont usually have a problem.

In '07 when it was quite muddy it took me 8hrs from getting to me car to leaving the carpark, tho it was about noon on Monday.

My friends all got up at sunsrise, packed up the tent(had packed the main contents into the car Sunday)

and they where complaining of it taking 2hrs to leave. Thats the only time in the last 5Glastos they have had to queue, and that was because of the weather and car breakdowns which blocked the exits. They always get up early on Monday to beat rush.

If you can bare to leave Glasto on Sunday night, you will have much less traffic problems than Monday.

[Toilet Duck]

We did this in 2007 and it was a breeze getting offsite.

In the morning we packed up and took everything back to the car, so nothing to cart out with us in the dark either. Good job we did as it was seriously muddy underfoot.

We met various groups of people at services heading north, we were all very muddy and broken

Going to do the same thing this year and have also booked a room in a Travelodge the northern side of Birmingham for £9 per night when the sale was on.

[septemberwillow]

I think it depends which car park you end up in.

In 2008 we left Sunday evening after the headliners. Packed everything up during the day, and took it to the car, then just headed to the cars when we needed to.

Now, I can't remember which (lettered) car parks we were in (sorry!!!), but we sailed straight out (we were right next to the coach stops, which was actually not available in 2009) yet our mates who were in a totally different car park were stuck for over an hour.

Because of this we decided to stay till Monday in 2009, but this turned out to be a nightmare too as we were unfortunately in the car park which was completely STUCK for 6hrs!!!!

[Guest musiclove123]

The festival is pretty much over by the Sunday night. Monday is just a trying to leave day. I plan to leave Sunday night

[Guest musiclove123]

I think it depends which car park you end up in.

In 2008 we left Sunday evening after the headliners. Packed everything up during the day, and took it to the car, then just headed to the cars when we needed to.

Now, I can't remember which (lettered) car parks we were in (sorry!!!), but we sailed straight out (we were right next to the coach stops, which was actually not available in 2009) yet our mates who were in a totally different car park were stuck for over an hour.

Because of this we decided to stay till Monday in 2009, but this turned out to be a nightmare too as we were unfortunately in the car park which was completely STUCK for 6hrs!!!!

Not quite sure what to do this year ...

Peace x

[TheBoyInTheBubble]

The festival is pretty much over by the Sunday night. Monday is just a trying to leave day. I plan to leave Sunday night

[Paul ™]

The festival is pretty much over by the Sunday night. Monday is just a trying to leave day. I plan to leave Sunday night

[Richk109]

We're booked into a hotel in Glastonbury on the Monday night so we'll be there to the end !

Cant wait !