How big really is Glastonbury?

[smogo]

My first morning back at work after Easter, and I've spent it making these. All the same scale, blue for the festival boundary, and red for the areas where there are stages etc.

GLASTONBURY:

DOWNLOAD:

BESTIVAL:

Edited April 23, 2014 by smogo

[Abster]

Bestival is tiny!!

Do love Bestival though.... Shame it's getting "bigger" and more people walking around in Normal clothes trying to be cool, when it's all about the fancy dress

How big is Isle of wight festival in comparison? just intrigued as I'm heading there this year for the first time (won tickets!)

[smogo]

ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL:

Edited April 23, 2014 by smogo

[tommyds]

ISLE OF WIGHT FESTIVAL:

That's a really weird layout

[Glastonlocal]

My first morning back at work after Easter, and I've spent it making these. All the same scale, blue for the festival boundary, and red for the areas where there are stages etc.

GLASTONBURY:

I can see me house in that picture :-).

[Staff_Sav]

That's a really weird layout

it was a bit different last year as they had some sort of dance tent in the campsite area. First year ive seen it with a stage amongst the campsites. Although I only saw it on my way out as I only had a day ticket.

The main arena doesn't even open till about 2pm on the friday, and about midday on the other days. You find yourself walking into Newport because you gotta do something with your day. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it lacks other things to do. You dont tend to miss too many acts because of clashes though

In my opinion Bestival is much better by comparison

[Chimps in Balaclavas]

Shame the website's not working anymore. Anyone here good at coding?

+1 I'd like to show my newbie mates how big it is compared to where they live.

[smogo]

Thought I might as well do the other main ones....

READING:

LEEDS:

T IN THE PARK:

[Tr234]

Can someone make a few maps with the other festivals inside Glastonbury so we can see how big it is compared to others? I would but i'm too lazy

[smogo]

Can someone make a few maps with the other festivals inside Glastonbury so we can see how big it is compared to others? I would but i'm too lazy

Surprising results:

You can pretty much fit Reading (red), Leeds (blue) AND Isle of Wight (pink) into the Glastonbury site:

But it turns out that Bestival (yellow) and Download (grey) are both only a little bit smaller than Glastonbury:

[jonodillieono]

I read that leeds is 600 acres and Glastonbury is 900 acres. Are those figures wrong or are the comparisons a bit off?

Cause its shocking thinking those 3 festivals can fit into glastonbury

[frostypaw]

But it turns out that Bestival (yellow) and Download (grey) are both only a little bit smaller than Glastonbury:

This is quite the surprise! But neither seems to have anything like as much going on - are they much more spread out I wonder

Oh for good quality publicly accessible satellite imagery of them all

[Abster]

it was a bit different last year as they had some sort of dance tent in the campsite area. First year ive seen it with a stage amongst the campsites. Although I only saw it on my way out as I only had a day ticket.

The main arena doesn't even open till about 2pm on the friday, and about midday on the other days. You find yourself walking into Newport because you gotta do something with your day. Not to say I didn't enjoy it, but it lacks other things to do. You dont tend to miss too many acts because of clashes though

In my opinion Bestival is much better by comparison

Midday!!! Well least I will get a lie in without the I'm missing something guilt factor!

I think we are on the 12.00 ferry on the Friday so we won't miss much then! I keep forgetting I'm going to isle of wight all out chit chat has been glasto related then we remember we are going to isle of wight first (as a warm up my friend put it!)

[smogo]

I read that leeds is 600 acres and Glastonbury is 900 acres. Are those figures wrong or are the comparisons a bit off?

Cause its shocking thinking those 3 festivals can fit into glastonbury

Quoted acreages seem to be very unreliable, eg itv.com says Leeds is on a 600 acre site, but Wikipedia says the park it's held at is only 500 acres, and if you look at Google Earth, loads of that is forest which isn't used for the festival.

Likewise, metro.co.uk reckons Bestival is held on an 88 acre site, yet bbc.co.uk says that the much smaller Camp Bestival is 220 acres. (Obviously the 88 acre figure is for Robin Hill Adventure Park only, ignoring the fact that Bestival also uses loads of surrounding fields.)

THAT SAID, I think I may have completely missed the car parking space off of the Leeds map. I might research and amend accordingly tomorrow....

(Oh and also, the Download map's a little misleading, because that big racetrack in the middle of it - which accounts for about 25% of the area - is just dead space and doesn't get used.)

Edited April 23, 2014 by smogo

[FirsG]

Whilst I fully appreciated the size of Glasto when I went last summer (1st time), I didn't find it as exhausting to go from one side to the other that I expected. My group camped in Lime Kiln and went to the naughty corner every night and didn't really struggle! The thing about the size is just how easy it is to get lost, but that only led to discovering amazing things anyway

[UEF]

It helps if it's a dry day and you have some comfy trainers/boots on.

The 'bog' years can slow you down... the ground gets sticky (with overflowing piss and shit from the toilets)

[tommyds]

It helps if it's a dry day and you have some comfy trainers/boots on.

The 'bog' years can slow you down... the ground gets sticky (with overflowing piss and shit from the toilets)

The joy of walking around in trainers after a few days in wellys/boots in the mud cannot be exaggerated

[rinzeanne]

http://howbigreally.com/dimension/festivals_and_specticles/glastonbury

Still no alternative on how to get this website up and running again? I'm sure there must be some whiz kids around who could fix this? Or is there an alternative of putting the dimensions of Glastonbury over your own postcode area?

[UEF]

I notified both Google and BBC of the error and got absolutely zero in response, so "not my job mate" seems to have been the response here.

[stuartbert two hats]

From what I can tell, Google have changed their map API, so the whole thing needs rewriting, or substantially updated, which can only be done by the BBC, unless the release their source code.

Doesn't look good.

[RobertProsineckisLighter]

Smogo you don't happen to make a living out of gis do you?

[glasto-worker]

Whilst I fully appreciated the size of Glasto when I went last summer (1st time), I didn't find it as exhausting to go from one side to the other that I expected. My group camped in Lime Kiln and went to the naughty corner every night and didn't really struggle! The thing about the size is just how easy it is to get lost, but that only led to discovering amazing things anyway

Your tempting fate - if you get a Muddy Year you will know all about it - your little jaunt in a muddy year can easily take 150 minuets - and just before you assume - well the old bastard cant walk fast - there was five others in my Team and they were all under 22 and they were fucking struggling.

We timed it and to get from our crew camp { near gate A } to The Park Bar in a year that was not really bad compared to 1985 - it did take us { and everyone else who made that journey } 140 minuets and as we were starting a shift we were not hanging about ' and I knew where I was going ' When the mud dried up sure it was less but that was not until the Sunday .

Even getting from The Pyramid stage to the Other stage can eat up one hour in a muddy year.

TV Reports of a muddy year just cant get across that its not normal mud - its clay - stand still for a few minuets and you will start sinking.

image below is from 2011 ' just as people arrived ' - it got far worse than that - but seeing I did not fancy losing my camera I just left my camera in my tent.

Glastonbury in the dry is easy .

[jeffie]

Your tempting fate - if you get a Muddy Year you will know all about it - your little jaunt in a muddy year can easily take 150 minuets - and just before you assume - well the old bastard cant walk fast - there was five others in my Team and they were all under 22 and they were fucking struggling.

We timed it and to get from our crew camp { near gate A } to The Park Bar in a year that was not really bad compared to 1985 - it did take us { and everyone else who made that journey } 140 minuets and as we were starting a shift we were not hanging about ' and I knew where I was going ' When the mud dried up sure it was less but that was not until the Sunday .

Even getting from The Pyramid stage to the Other stage can eat up one hour in a muddy year.

TV Reports of a muddy year just cant get across that its not normal mud - its clay - stand still for a few minuets and you will start sinking.

image below is from 2011 ' just as people arrived ' - it got far worse than that - but seeing I did not fancy losing my camera I just left my camera in my tent.

Glastonbury in the dry is easy .

+1

[Abster]

I broke my leg in that Clay in 08..... Horrible stuff..... now when its muddy my friends won't left me wonder on my own

[Divein]

I broke my leg in that Clay in 08..... Horrible stuff..... now when its muddy my friends won't left me wonder on my own

How on earth did you do that? Sounds horrible