Gates

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

Right, previous years due to school/work i've had to arrive on the thursday but this year im getting the whole 5 days in. Mainly I want to know what peoples experiences were like at each gate when entering on the wednesday.

I plan to arrive 6/7ish in the morn and i'm definitley going to west car parks. Few queries:

- Is it easy to walk in between gates if one gate has a massive queue? E.g. Gate D to E (im guessing no with all your gear!)

- Pennard hill gate - can you get a wristband on this gate? Also is the walk okay to get to the west car parks, doesnt seem to be much of a route to here?

- Is it worth trying gate A before all the public transport gets there?

Cheers for any heads up

Map

Edited April 23, 2011 by JC-Mo'Fucka

[Bisque]

Walked straight in through Gate A on the Wednesday about two hours before the football match started after taking the Routemaster from Castle Cary. Just about got the tent up on Kidney Mead & found my friends to watch the start of the game.

Would imagine without the football it will be even quicker to get in most gates this year as imo it will be more 'spread out' amongst the day (except first thing!).

[strolling wanderer]

The main pedestrian access gates will be A - E. Pennards Hill Gate is a dedicated gate for those who are camping off site, it's not a full on public access gate.

If your parking up in the West car parks then your choice of access gates will be either D or A because the walk through to E, which is from the West campervan area, will be a bit of a route march around the trackways due to fence lines and hedges, plus the security staff may direct foot traffic from the car parks to only access the site via A and D.

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

Ah cool, think a queue at gate A or D is gonna be unavoidable first thing weds morn, cant be wasting any of them precious glasto hours though so getting in early is a must

[Aragorn]

Gate D was horrendous last year we werte queing for around 3 hours from about 8:30am. For some silly reason they were letting a load of other people from a different set of carparks through on mass and only letting a few of the other huge queue in every 20 minutes or so. To be honest it was so bad and so hot that I am surprised there was not a riot and a full on punch up with the stewards/security. We could all see what was happening once we got to the top of the hill we were queing at, it was extremely frustrating and bang out of order.

In fact it was so bad I am cosidering rolling in through Gate A or C even though I intemd to camp around Pennards area coz I aint getting stuck in a queue like that again this year. I am not convinced either that just because the football is not on this year it will any better, people will have enjoyed the full 5 days and will no doubt want to try and go for it again

Either way unless you arrive in the carparks overnight expect a 2-3 hour wait to get in.

Walking wise you can walk from Gate D to A releatively easily. You can also do Gate B to C - never tried any other combo.

[DeejayDawn]

Similar q, but for the east side – we’re hoping to arrive by 6am at the latest on the Weds morning & parking up wherever we get the pick of the draw. We preferably want access from gate B on to site, should this be a big issue or we more than likely to get directed towards gate C?

[strolling wanderer]

Shouldn't be a problem but the walking route between Gates C and B is officially through the car park fields and not down the road due to "Elf and Safety".

[old fence jumper]

Similar q, but for the east side – we’re hoping to arrive by 6am at the latest on the Weds morning & parking up wherever we get the pick of the draw. We preferably want access from gate B on to site, should this be a big issue or we more than likely to get directed towards gate C?

[1000yardstare]

Gate D was horrendous last year we werte queing for around 3 hours from about 8:30am. For some silly reason they were letting a load of other people from a different set of carparks through on mass and only letting a few of the other huge queue in every 20 minutes or so. To be honest it was so bad and so hot that I am surprised there was not a riot and a full on punch up with the stewards/security. We could all see what was happening once we got to the top of the hill we were queing at, it was extremely frustrating and bang out of order.

In fact it was so bad I am cosidering rolling in through Gate A or C even though I intemd to camp around Pennards area coz I aint getting stuck in a queue like that again this year. I am not convinced either that just because the football is not on this year it will any better, people will have enjoyed the full 5 days and will no doubt want to try and go for it again

Either way unless you arrive in the carparks overnight expect a 2-3 hour wait to get in.

Walking wise you can walk from Gate D to A releatively easily. You can also do Gate B to C - never tried any other combo.

[JC-Mo'Fucka]

Had the problem with Gate D last year. Stood in queue for well over an hour until I wondered why lots of people were bypassing the queue on the path alongside. Turned out that the entire queue was for Gate D and the people walking past were going to Gate A. I went in through A and got to my camp within 40 mins. Stupid thing is, no steward had explained that to anyone queuing

[timespeedsup]

Similar questions as arriving around 8am and fully expecting to queue, but fully working on minimising it.

Latest Map

Now we were in W53, top left corner of the map last year. Trundled along to gate D early Wednesday afternoon and wasn't too bad queue-wise. Will be different at 8-9am of course.

So how easy is it to get to gate A from W53? Do you have to go down to the end of W54 (as if walking to gate D) and then cut back up - which is about as far as going to gate D overall? Or is there a way of cutting across W50 and then W52? ie direct-ish route to gate A? If the latter works, then that's the way in.

Trying to get to Pennards FTR. Gate A means a bit more of a walk, but if it beats the queues.....

Extra question. What's the earliest public transport arrival times Wednesday?

[ark]

I arrived thursday afternoon last year an was parked in W47. As far as I could see there was only 1 route across the road and then you HAD to walk down the "orange route" to the end of W34 and then weave your way back up to Gate A. My tent was already pitched near-ish gate A so I had to do that.

It certainly felt that I had walked most of the way to gate D!!!

[timespeedsup]

Cheers Ark.

Anyone else find a different way to gate A from across the road parking?