Ways to improve the conditions?

[stardustjunkie]

Trackway is stupidly expensive. I'm not surprised they don't make it wider based on price alone.

I organise events and we were looking at Trackway for an event this September. When I spoke to our marquee company I mentioned the Trackway at Glastonbury and he laughed because he used to work with the festival and he said they spend hundreds of thousands on the stuff. 

Lets face it, if everyone stopped trying to 'beat the flow' and just walked with it, everything would work much smoother. If people used common sense and split the trackways in to two paths for both directions then we'd get everywhere quicker too. It's the idiots that also stop for a chat in the middle of them that drive me mad.

[Spindles]

Interesting point @grumpyhack I hadn't even thought for a moment that I should hold any ill will against the festival for anything that went badly.  The weather, the traffic, the possibility of having to be towed out of the car parks, all of that just seemed like stuff that was outside of their control that they did their best to deal with.

I never heard a single moan or grumble about the job they did of running this festival, it must have been bloody hard work for everyone involved and frankly they deserve our praise for doing such a grand job of things.  It might have been mud, but this year was one of the good ones for a friendly, happy, up for it crowd; I think the organisers deserve much credit for that happiness.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

Didn't go to the SE corner once this year, not out of choice but I believed the signs that said it was full so didn't bother. Left Coldplay from the left hand side and walked to Williams green almost straight away, the led signs here already said it was full? Was this true? If it is that's ridiculous, I think a solution (which many will understandably not agree with) is not to get rid of it necessarily, but to rebrand it and possibly spread it over different areas, some of the venues there could be placed elsewhere so that there isn't one single south east corner as such. It seems mad that with so much going on at other places that it is already at capacity as soon as a headliner finishes.

Edited June 28, 2016 by Deaf Nobby Burton

[Digital Monkey (Womad)]

1 hour ago, majormajormajor said:

I think it should be held in July or August. Also believe it should be a full week-long event and that it should finish on the Saturday night/Sunday morning. Perhaps have the scheduled music over four days instead of three.

 

2 hours ago, Spindles said:

This.

Sell 2 types of tickets, one that is valid from midday Tuesday, one that is valid from midday Thursday.  Reduce the numbers from 177,500 to 150,000, make about half of those tickets Tuesday entry and charge people an extra £15-25 for the early doors access with a slight reduction on the cost of the shorter festival ticket.  Soak up lost ticket revenue from lower numbers by increasing revenues from Worthy view.

 

They kind of do this all ready with the coach package deal. But it does make sense to do sometime for others. I'm going to WOMAD in a few weeks time and they have the standard weekend ticket plus an additional ticket for Thursday for a further £30 for those that wish to arrive earlier. Absolutely no reason  why Glastonbury can not do something similar as you suggest

[Spindles]

Yeah, this discussion came up in 2009 and it seemed like a sensible solution to me.  Other festivals do it and it helps to stagger arrivals.  Like you say, the coach ticket staggered timing is a great way of handling SOME of the capacity but I'd happily pay more to get in earlier knowing that others were then paying less for their shorter festival.

I feel sort of guilty for those caught in the traffic chaos.  We arrived in the car parks shortly after midnight unaware of the problems, having taken a wrong turn I used google maps to find a route and ended up accidentally going through back roads and came out right by orange.

[greenArmy12]

Seems like they've found a permanent home for Arcadia but to me this has ruined The Park area especially late at night, the last couple years have been horrendous getting in and out of there. Didn't help with parts of the track being totally inaccessible with the mud but even without that it's a job

[DeanoL]

2 hours ago, giantkatestacks said:

I would increase the coach ticket allocation again but at the same time lay on charity trolleys at Gate A to help people with their stuff to encourage people to come by coach/train.

I think we're nearly at capacity for coaches in terms of the amount of free vehicles and drivers available (although Tuesday coach-only tickets could work).

I like the idea of encouraging a "keep left on the walkways" thing.

[Tumbleweed166]

Quote

 

cheeper coaches please!! I feel like they've gone up massively in price since I first went in 2009 obviously things go up in price but this year it would have cost over £500 for 4 people to go from Manchester/Leeds compared to £80 for 4 people in a small car including the parking ticket also the as far as I'm aware the coaches do not put money towards charity causes like the Glasto ticket (that goes up every year but I know it's also charitable) so I find it very frustrating.

This is not particularly related to how the weather affected the ground but imho it's hard to build infrastructure around extreme weather that may only occur once every 10 years.

 

i still had a smashing time

[arcade fireman]

More seating in certain areas. Some areas (e.g. around the Cider Bus) have loads of seating (which inevitably gets full). But a few more stools and benches around some of the food stalls would work a treat in muddy years. 

[Chimps in Balaclavas]

More woodchippings if it is muddy and more metal trackways on the areas where you come in from the carpark to the festival. The amount of mud made a 10 min journey into a 45 minute wade.

The amount of people breaking down or getting stuck in the mud was crazy, I seen 2 exhausts dropping off when people broke down & dozens of cars getting stuck in the mud. There was one A.A van flying around the festival but compared to what was going on they weren't much help.

 

 

[Ommadawn]

2 hours ago, Digital Monkey (Womad) said:

 

They kind of do this all ready with the coach package deal. But it does make sense to do sometime for others. I'm going to WOMAD in a few weeks time and they have the standard weekend ticket plus an additional ticket for Thursday for a further £30 for those that wish to arrive earlier. Absolutely no reason  why Glastonbury can not do something similar as you suggest

I'm not sure how Michael would feel about this. I know he's already concerned about the price of a ticket and adding to it might not go down well.

[Ommadawn]

44 minutes ago, arcade fireman said:

More seating in certain areas. Some areas (e.g. around the Cider Bus) have loads of seating (which inevitably gets full). But a few more stools and benches around some of the food stalls would work a treat in muddy years. 

I'd agree with this. When you can't sit on the grass, you do need somewhere to sit.

[DeanoL]

25 minutes ago, Ommadawn said:

I'm not sure how Michael would feel about this. I know he's already concerned about the price of a ticket and adding to it might not go down well.

Okay well put it this way, lets reduce the price by £30 for people who buy a Thursday ticket....

[Scotdy]

Move the date of the festival further into the year. It used to be that Glastonbury was always the first festival to kick off the season, it no longer is so why not move it to August.

[Ommadawn]

2 minutes ago, Scotdy said:

Move the date of the festival further into the year. It used to be that Glastonbury was always the first festival to kick off the season, it no longer is so why not move it to August.

The summer solstice isn't in August.

[jonodillieono]

Tarmac the whole fucking thing. Don't leave a single blade of grass the chance to grow. Fuck the mud, we need to send a strong statement that it's type isn't welcome around these parts

[ghostdancer1]

- re-jig the SE corner. Shangri-La is far too small for the area it's in. Glasto Latino and The Common have a larger area, less people, plus there's a staff camping area to the north of them which going by GlastoMap, isn't all that busy and could be reduced to make better use of the space. that would also allow both the Bellas Field entrance and Railway line entrance to be used at night as you'd have people coming from both sides rather than everyone trying to come down one or the other, or at Shangri-La from one side as currently happens.

 

- bigger urinals. this was my second year at Glastonbury and yet again i'm amazed at how (pardon the pun) piss-poor the toilet facilities are. for a festival so concerned about people peeing on the land, why are the urinals in some places so small? if you're at The Park stage/Stonebridge/Rabbit Hole/Park Hill/anywhere in the south of The Park you have to go over into Pennards for a piss. you can fit 8 people at those urinals. this year they were covered in 2ft of mud all through Saturday and Sunday as nobody had bothered putting down woodchippings in there. it was no surprise to see people opting to piss in the hedges instead (which happened last year even without any mud issues).

[Scotdy]

2 minutes ago, Ommadawn said:

The summer solstice isn't in August.

True, but the link between the two is pretty much gone in the last 10+ years

[Ommadawn]

4 minutes ago, Scotdy said:

True, but the link between the two is pretty much gone in the last 10+ years

To the detriment of the festival I would argue.

[jonodillieono]

13 minutes ago, ghostdancer1 said:

- re-jig the SE corner. Shangri-La is far too small for the area it's in. Glasto Latino and The Common have a larger area, less people, plus there's a staff camping area to the north of them which going by GlastoMap, isn't all that busy and could be reduced to make better use of the space. that would also allow both the Bellas Field entrance and Railway line entrance to be used at night as you'd have people coming from both sides rather than everyone trying to come down one or the other, or at Shangri-La from one side as currently happens.

 

- bigger urinals. this was my second year at Glastonbury and yet again i'm amazed at how (pardon the pun) piss-poor the toilet facilities are. for a festival so concerned about people peeing on the land, why are the urinals in some places so small? if you're at The Park stage/Stonebridge/Rabbit Hole/Park Hill/anywhere in the south of The Park you have to go over into Pennards for a piss. you can fit 8 people at those urinals. this year they were covered in 2ft of mud all through Saturday and Sunday as nobody had bothered putting down woodchippings in there. it was no surprise to see people opting to piss in the hedges instead (which happened last year even without any mud issues).

Used those on the sunday night. Horrendous urinals, the mud was like glue that went almost over my welly and so I felt rooted in the ground and it was the tightest squeeze in ever. Can you even fit 8 in? It looked like 6 was the max when I used them

[ghostdancer1]

1 hour ago, jonodillieono said:

Used those on the sunday night. Horrendous urinals, the mud was like glue that went almost over my welly and so I felt rooted in the ground and it was the tightest squeeze in ever. Can you even fit 8 in? It looked like 6 was the max when I used them

3 on either side and 2 at the end. the laughable thing is that people from that corner of Pennards campsite use them as well. they're connected into the first row of longdrops there. the other 3 rows of longdrops have nothing on the end of them, just empty space looking onto a hedge.....which is where plenty choose to piss rather than queuing with 50 other lads after a big Park stage act finishes.

[majormajormajor]

8 hours ago, Ommadawn said:

The summer solstice isn't in August.

Who cares?

[I am Jon]

Probably not realistic to have much more in the way or track-ways and wood-chip. Sounds like they already used all the wood-chip they could get. Track-ways are expensive and I think logistically their main purpose is to allow vehicle access to all areas of the site rather than for people to walk on.

For me the one area they failed on mud wise was coming through Gate A on Wednesday night. People were really struggling to get their stuff though the foot deep sticky mud around the turn-styles and wrist band point. Surely they could of had some spare wood-chip around to help out. Was still in a pretty poor state when leaving early Monday as well.

Regarding the traffic I would prefer more / better coach ticket options. It seems even people who want to travel by coach often end-up travelling 50+ miles to the pickup point because that's the only ticket they could get, when there are other coaches departing from their home town (e.g. National Express). We also have no idea of departure times etc at the time of ordering. Seems cars have all the advantages when in comes to getting there early.

Why not open up the ticket packages to include National Express as well? and how about some sort of early arrival / entry option for coach passengers?

Edited June 29, 2016 by I am Jon

[bucko]

i dont think the arrival time needs changing its worked well since the tuesday opening of carparks was introduced.

the problem this year was they were behind on the site build.

at the end of the day there is only so much money GFL LIMITED will throw at improving site infastructer to cope with wet weather on site.

if  you phone the wood chippings bloke and say i need10'000 tonnes now they would triple the price.

GFL made mistakes this year on certain things that maybe you wouldn't think with the knowledge they have but it was still a great festival they put together for they ticket price.

 

 

[Spindles]

11 hours ago, Ommadawn said:

The summer solstice isn't in August.

Longest days and shortest nights of the year Glastonbury weekend, so the absolute prime time to hold a festival.  Statistically the weather on that weekend is also among the best of the summer, the occasional wet one might drawer attention but don't forget it's 9 years since we last had a proper muddy one and it was 9 years before that.