Hows busy does it get?

[chopper4001]

Morning all. Long time reader, first time poster. Glasto virgin too (although a Reading veteran).

Can anyone tell me how busy the site/gates get by early afternoon on the Wednesday?

If it were up to me we'd be in the car park Tuesday night, but the drivers of our little convoy don't want to leave London until late in the morning on Wednesday. Means we're going to be arriving about 1, maybe 2pm.

I imagine that the gates will be virtually queue-less at this sort of time (??), but what about the campsites? Ideally, we want to camp in the southern campsites (Park Home Ground, Pennards Hill, Diary Ground...), but by the time we get there hundreds of thousands of peeps will have passed through already.

Are we destined to camp in some remote "family" camping site, with an hour long trek to anything?

Sorry if something similar has been posted elsewhere.

[jeffie]

Morning all. Long time reader, first time poster. Glasto virgin too (although a Reading veteran).

Can anyone tell me how busy the site/gates get by early afternoon on the Wednesday?

If it were up to me we'd be in the car park Tuesday night, but the drivers of our little convoy don't want to leave London until late in the morning on Wednesday. Means we're going to be arriving about 1, maybe 2pm.

I imagine that the gates will be virtually queue-less at this sort of time (??), but what about the campsites? Ideally, we want to camp in the southern campsites (Park Home Ground, Pennards Hill, Diary Ground...), but by the time we get there hundreds of thousands of peeps will have passed through already.

Are we destined to camp in some remote "family" camping site, with an hour long trek to anything?

Sorry if something similar has been posted elsewhere.

Edited May 11, 2011 by jeffie

[al_coholic]

There will still be plenty of queues in the early afternoon, it wont really die down till Wednesday evening. As there is no football on this year people will more than likely be arriving throughout the day rather than everyone first thing.

Pennards will probably be virtually full by lunchtime, but most of the other sites should have enough space

[chopper4001]

Cheers. Not too bad then. Dont mind a bit of queueing and as long as we can camp somewhere central-ish, then its all good. I was expecting most people to have turned up at 8, and all but the most distant campsites be full.

[parsonjack]

dont underestimate the queues on weds afternoon....

it took us 3 hours to travel 9 miles on the A361 from Frome to Pilton in 2009 - leaving at 0900 and getting on site at 1200

friends travelled 20 miles from Trowbridge - leaving at 1100 and getting on site 6 hours later - after also hitting the traffic on the A361

if you leave london late morning i wouldn't expect to be on site until late afternoon - any earlier will then be a bonus.

[The_Amazing_Oblong]

Look for the campsite crew as you enter the first fields. I think they normally wear yellow t shirts with campsite crew or similar written on the back. Anyway they are obvious if your looking for them. They will be able to point you at a big map of the campsites and have up to date information on where space is available, which fields are full, nearly full etc. Speak to them, they are nice and friendly and helpful.

[Magic Bus]

We were lucky enough to have a fab position in the East campervan fields on Tuesday afternoon, and could watch the site fill up on Wednesday morning - and the constant slow moving queue of campers making their way to pedestrian gate C. It was awesome to look across the site and see how fast Pennards filled up on wednesday morning. By 9am we were pitching tents in Kidney Mead for friends who couldn't get there until later, and it was virtually full by 11am.

If you can persuade your friends to leave London earlier, you'll get a better spot - but either way you'll probably hit queues on both the roads and at the pedestrian gates - so factor that into your journey time.

There's a campsite crew caravan, and large up-to-the-minute map of space availability on the right hand side as you enter the site from PGC.

Edited May 11, 2011 by Magic Bus

[ukslim]

Look for the campsite crew as you enter the first fields. I think they normally wear yellow t shirts with campsite crew or similar written on the back. Anyway they are obvious if your looking for them. They will be able to point you at a big map of the campsites and have up to date information on where space is available, which fields are full, nearly full etc. Speak to them, they are nice and friendly and helpful.

[chopper4001]

Cheers for the responses.

From some of the stuff I've read on here, some of the campsite "crew" are more like mini-hitlers, determined to dole out grief to any weary campers that dare to interupt their solice. If they're anything like the ones at Reading, they're little more use than sandbags, to stop water getting in. Even then they stuggle.

I'm no particularly concerned about finding some space, more that I dont fancy a long walk back to the tent at 6am every morning.

Gonna have to try and get my mates to go earlier I think.

NB. Sorry if I've offended any "crew" by my above remarks. Poor form from a newbie I know (he says waiting to get burned), but I'm only going on what I've read on here and my experiences at other festivals. I'm sure some of you are wonderful helpful people, and I'll enjoy letting you direct me to the darkest reaches of the campsite.

[LusciousLucy]

We walked through Ped Gate D at 1pm Wednesday last year. Absolutely NO queue, fair to plenty amount of space all the way along the walk way to bottom of Paines (Park Home side) and up to Dairy. Pennards and Park on the other hand, nearly to totally full already.

This year without the footy being such a push, it may be less busy but if the car parks are doing the open Tuesday thing again then it may be another very busy morning.

[ukslim]

From some of the stuff I've read on here, some of the campsite "crew" are more like mini-hitlers, determined to dole out grief to any weary campers that dare to interupt their solice.

[musky]

Not my experience at all. Just that sometimes you get some who are a bit new to it and don't know what they're doing.

[bigsmoke]

we got through the gates about 1.30-11 last year - couldn't get into pennards so ended up in park home again. we couldn't fit all of our group in at that point (about 35 of us though) so the other 20 went into dairy.

went to visit them over the weekend and it was all still pretty spacious in there, don't think it ever go full so if there's only a few of you it might be worth heading straight there if you're arriving later on.

[G1T]

At the risk of a shameless plug, make sure you listen to Worthy Fm (the festival's own radio station) on 87.7fm on the way in. As well as traffic reports, we broadcast the latest on the state of each of the campsites too, on the hour and half past all day wednesday. We do a lot of phoning around pretty much constantly to stay on top of the state of play over the site, so you can work out where to head before you even get through the gate.

Edited May 13, 2011 by G1T

[chopper4001]

At the risk of a shameless plug, make sure you listen to Worthy Fm (the festival's own radio station) on 87.7fm on the way in. As well as traffic reports, we broadcast the latest on the state of each of the campsites too, on the hour and half past all day wednesday. We do a lot of phoning around pretty much constantly to stay on top of the state of play over the site, so you can work out where to head before you even get through the gate.

[ferkh10]

Going for the first time since 2004 in my camper van, but can't get there until Thursday evening. What are the queues like for the east camper van field around 6pm Thursday?