Should the permit be increased to allow more people?

[Alcatraz]

Move the camping areas nearest to the stages into the expansion area. You can fairly safely bet the largest bottleneck points will be around main stages if the line ups been done well, create a bit of room there by extending the site, ban deck chairs and we could look at 250-300k audience easily.

It means someone is going to have to camp even further away. It means someones going to have to stand even further away from the stage. It means everyone has to walk even further.

 

It's all very well to put Woodstock up there as some kind of dream, but Woodstock was a fucking nightmare for many who attended, and there's a reason it died a death. 

[crazyguy]

It means someone is going to have to camp even further away. It means someones going to have to stand even further away from the stage. It means everyone has to walk even further.

 

It's all very well to put Woodstock up there as some kind of dream, but Woodstock was a fucking nightmare for many who attended, and there's a reason it died a death. 

 

They all seemed to be enjoying it from the footage I've seen.

[Starchild771]

I went to a lot of the smaller stages and watched some quality acts who had woefully small but enthusiastic crowds. In contrast the Pyramid and Other seemed to attract thousands of people who were content to sit and chat through many of the acts, and I found the energy in some of those crowds really flat at times. I would like to see the crowds distributed a bit more evenly, but Im not sure how they could do it as long a the Pyramid gets all the hype and attention.

[hurdy]

Needs to come down before someone gets hurt. Was in several bad crushes this year - SE Corner, Pyramid, Silver Hayes. The reliance on the crowd self policing to negate any need for heavy numbers of steward to crowd control is becoming to much of a burden. I've seen an increase in selfishness and a decrease in consideraton for fellow festivallers that was at times concerning (and I've got experience with large crowds).

It's only going to take one trip, stumble or exasperated punch before there's a nasty incident.

[The 38 year old virgin]

If anyone walked from super furry animals towards the other, then I hope you'd agree that crowd management needs to be looked at seriously. Bit scary at points

[Spindles]

Reduce the capacity to 100k, book smaller acts rather than trying to compete with other large festivals, it would lose nothing and gain much.

[little_jim]

No its busy enough as it is.

[Bristol Boy]

It feels busier than ever. We have previously sat in The Park on Wednesday and even Thursday evening and it has been nicely chilled. This year was rammed on both nights.

Expanding it would be even more pressure on the local roads. Only increasing coaches would work.

[Ryan1984]

Definitely busy enough as it is right now, although the only really bad congestion I experienced was during the turnaround between Hozier and Patti Smith (fools missing out on the latter!) and Lionel.

[ICGenie]

Agree on the increase of selfishness - or maybe it's more lack of self-awareness. I know a lot of people at Glastonbury are in varied States of inebriation but the amount of being walked into by people who aren't looking at where they are going (or just tried to walk through me like I wasn't there).

[One Tonne Baby]

the sunday was noticeably busier im guessing due to day tickets to locals? Everywhere had queues which isnt what you want on day 5. got caught in a bit of a crush heading towards shangri-la on thursday which was horrible. Seemed to be a lot more kids (16-18) this year who didnt have much respect when it came to getting anywehere. 

[Bobs]

I'd argue that the capacity should be decreased if anything.

[ticketboy69]

I think that the capacity should be decreased, making the whole experience a more comfortable one...it felt very over crowded this year and navigating your way around the Pyramid and Other was a nightmare. I was amazed at the crowds some of the bands very low down on the schedule got at those stages.

Incidentally, I'd be happy if the numbers were reduced by 20,000 and the ticket price went up by £30 or £40.

[Ezmereldasays]

It seemed really busy everywhere to me this year.  Even when the big stages opened there were crowds all over. Things were Ok though but if there had been more rain it would have been overcrowded on the paths with nowhere to sit on dry grass etc...  I think it has reached capacity bearing in mind there are extra workers on site this year I believe.  Enough is enough.. We had a great time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JAlexander191]

Felt like a scrum trying to get out of areas this year, Kanye on Saturday night was particularly bad.

[Spindles]

Agree on the increase of selfishness - or maybe it's more lack of self-awareness. I know a lot of people at Glastonbury are in varied States of inebriation but the amount of being walked into by people who aren't looking at where they are going (or just tried to walk through me like I wasn't there).

Experienced festival goers watch the oncoming patterns and swerve to avoid them, there were MANY people this year who just trudged until they ran into people then stopped dead, waiting for them to move.  You need to learn how to navigate through a moving crowd people!

[funksoulfever]

for me going in 2013 i found the rolling stones was only crowd where ya had to cue a special way and it went all up the hill.

now this year most of hill was fullish for most acts..now i dnt know if it was the weather or the type of people getting tickets. my mate did say it seemed like less "hippies" going and lots more of the people who wont move away from main stage all day, and a lot of the trendies and stag dos and college and uni leaver types. so more people going for the music than the whole glasto experience of the circus the weird stuff etc.

we aso noticed despite the efforts of shangri la and other night areas such as arcadia many people didnt seem interested by the polotics and the effort and just wanted to go into shangri la cos it was like going into a club and they could get drunk. this meant more people in certain areas so it does seem really busy in some places and less so in others. Also ya feel like some places you will never see like beat hotel is always busy 24/7 and is rammed.

This to me means if they wanna let more people in they would need to lose some of wht makes Glastonbury dfferent and it would slowly just become another huge commercial festival instead of what it is now and i think a nice mix of the charity and polotics stuff with a bit of commerciality. Lots of arty stuff etc.

Also certin areas would just become dangerous.

[BA4 4BY]

Maybe it just seemed like it at the time, but I felt this year more than ever before that it was packed almost everywhere I went! Some areas were definitely over full, such as Shangri La even into the early hours.

Not sure letting more in would be a good idea myself under the current arrangements.

[frostypaw]

I think that the capacity should be decreased, making the whole experience a more comfortable one...it felt very over crowded this year and navigating your way around the Pyramid and Other was a nightmare. I was amazed at the crowds some of the bands very low down on the schedule got at those stages.

Incidentally, I'd be happy if the numbers were reduced by 20,000 and the ticket price went up by £30 or £40.

Totally this. It's just too many people now and I've said it many times - you add 50,000 more people and 40,000+ of them will just go pyramid>other>secorner crowding those areas out even more. It's only logical as that's how the crowds split already pretty much and the more tickets the more chances for casually interested people

Add in the tide of humungous acts and you're not attracting people for the greenfields and politics and other sides of the festival. Those people were coming anyway, the huge acts just attract the radio 1 casual crowd.

There's certainly no way certain junctions can cope with larger crowds - the pyramid/other/newbands route was insanely slow at points though didn't experience any complete seizures other than one mate caught for well over 10 minutes on the railway line in the crush moving to the se corner

[neil999]

pyramid felt ridiculous this year, more and more people just seem to set up camp there, I remember being able to move around freely during headliners, but now you can hardly do that during the day!

[Bobs]

I think that the capacity should be decreased, making the whole experience a more comfortable one...it felt very over crowded this year and navigating your way around the Pyramid and Other was a nightmare. I was amazed at the crowds some of the bands very low down on the schedule got at those stages.

Incidentally, I'd be happy if the numbers were reduced by 20,000 and the ticket price went up by £30 or £40.

 

Clearly weren't at The Strypes, it was empty.

[kingcrawler]

Clearly weren't at The Strypes, it was empty.

 

They weren't helped by them being announced so late but yeah, walked past their set about halfway through and it looked pretty quiet. 

[gizmoman]

Needs to come down before someone gets hurt. Was in several bad crushes this year - SE Corner, Pyramid, Silver Hayes. The reliance on the crowd self policing to negate any need for heavy numbers of steward to crowd control is becoming to much of a burden. I've seen an increase in selfishness and a decrease in consideraton for fellow festivallers that was at times concerning (and I've got experience with large crowds).

It's only going to take one trip, stumble or exasperated punch before there's a nasty incident.

Agree 100%, the festival is living on borrowed time in this respect, a large crowd is an unpredictable animal, at some point a combination of slippy mud, stupid behavior or some unforseen event will cause a panic that could well see people crushed, this danger exists whatever the capacity but increasing it further just increases the odds of a problem.

[General Lee]

I wanted to avoid the Pyramid in the day, but had to go from JP to william's green on Sunday, and I messed up and also went there when Hozier(?) was on - it's a fucking nightmare.

The top bit above the Mandela bar and the bottom by the icecream van are just packed with dicks setting up camp with chairs, and blankets on the 'paths' in. It just causes complete grid lock, despite the field having a load of space and as people have said will one day potentially cause serious issues.

It's just completely senseless - move into the field. Still, who cares if someone ends up getting hurt - as long as they don't stand on your fucking blanket.

[Spindles]

pyramid felt ridiculous this year, more and more people just seem to set up camp there, I remember being able to move around freely during headliners, but now you can hardly do that during the day!

Elsewhere on the forum someone posted a video from 2000 (the year of the massive fence jump fiasco) and the camera walks down the pyramid field into the crowd at the front during the sub-headliner set on the Saturday.  Half the field was just groups sat around fires and it wasn't until the sound stage that he was really walking through standing/dancing people.  Today the field would have many times more people regardless of who is playing for most of the evening.

 

I think part of the problem is that gigs in fields have become portrayed as being like festivals, so people come to festivals and behave like they are going to a one dayer with a few bands, probably never straying much further than the food stalls and bars nearby.