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Lack of facilities and end of Gate D hell


Apone
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After 4 hours doing that gruelling Gate D entry was shocked to see a complete lack of refreshment facilties at the end of it other than an overworked ice cream van selling hot fanta's and cokes. there was a lovely big staff cafe though. 

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1 hour ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

It's almost like they didn't warn people that the queues might be considerably longer this year and that the weather people failed to warn us it would be 30 degrees+ that day, I mean if you'd know you would've brought your own refreshments surely?

It's perfectly reasonable to complain about the bigger queues tbh.

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1 hour ago, Aragorn said:

They handed out loads of water in the queue

I heard they handed out a lot of water later on. If you were only, you didn't get it. We prepared for it though so I wasn't too bothered.

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I found the whole getting into site thing a bit of a debacle this year. Arriving at Gate A via a shuttle, we were sent to the back of an absurdly long line that seemed to include loads of people from other gates (including D) who were sent there because their own lines were too long. Then some random steward came by and suggested anyone who wants to camp at Pennards should leave the queue and go to join the queue at D. It felt disorganised and chaotic, but I was in before 9am and before it got hot. I'd hate to have waited for hours in the heat of Wednesday, and the organisers should definitely have made sure water was freely available.

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We came into gate A about 2 or 3 on the Wednesday when it was absolutely blazing hot. To be fair to the organisers they were giving out free bottles of water to everyone and misting people down with a big hose. Got us in bloody quickly too. So maybe arriving later was the way forward this year (unless you're one of their Pennards or bust types).

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11 hours ago, GETOFFAMYLAWN said:

It's perfectly reasonable to complain about the bigger queues tbh.

The original poster seems to moaning about the lack of refreshments at the end of said queue though, not the actual queue. I can only assume they are moaning about that because they didn't have their own, which would have been rather foolish considering we had fair warning the queues would be very long and it would be very hot that day. FWIW I don't think it's that reasonable to complain about the queue itself either though. We were all given fair warning that they would be big, and all given the choice to be in the big queues or arrive later.  

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Don't even get me started on the re-entry queue at C... we had our wristbands and were told we still had to enter the normal queue. 2 hours later in the blazing midday sun we get to the front and they say, oh you're re-entry. You didn't have to queue again.

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Got to gate D around 10ish Wednesday morning so expected a 3 hour queue (which is more or less what happened), I've never drank so much water and not needed a piss it was crazy, sweating tidal waves. Some people were really struggling, not sure how many people around us enjoyed that Wednesday. Shout out to anyone who let me under their umbrella for a bit!

My only frustration with the queue is that I seemed to be at the back the whole time, do the car parks let people in in waves or could you just waltz in from around half 1/2ish?

Edit: this is a very very mild personal frustration as I like feeling the progress of a queue and I don't if I'm on the back end the whole time, I dont think anybody did anything wrong if that's how that reads.

Edited by priest17
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We normally take an empty 5l bottle for camp admin. This year we decided not to bother emptying it just in case - we could always ditch it once on site if we breezed in. We certainly weren't the only ones with this strategy, but a lot of people were less prepared. We queued from about 7:20am to 11:00am on the Weds. The first half was pleasant enough but then around 9:30/10:00 it started getting hot. 

Within about 10 mins the police and security were handing out water, firstly to any groups with young children, then anyone else who needed it. Within 30 mins they were walking up and down giving out bottles just in case people needed them later.

I don't think they could have handled it any better in my opinion.

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Gate D was craziness. We arrived at 9am (mistake number 1) and got through after about 3 hours. Only bought cold stella in an icebox (mistake or maybe not a mistake number 2) so slowly worked our way through that in the queue.

Luckily we had umbrellas, hats and sun cream but certainly no water was being handed out when we were there, maybe were unlucky. I had a water bottle with me but I gave it to a lad who was on the floor suffering from heatstroke in the zig zag bit.

Got to security, no questions asked, straight through to wristbands, no queue and collapsed the other side of gate D for about half an hour (slightly pissed and dehydrated haha).

The sweatiest start to glasto but we didn't care once through the gates.

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I was working on Gate D this year, started at 5.45am on the Wednesday. Had various different roles over the 8 hours including checking tickets and handing out programmes/lanyards. From about 11am-2pm I was directing people, and for the last few hours was basically not allowing them to collapse exhausted in the obvious place you would want to do exactly that, just after you passed through everything and emerged into Glastonbury proper. Sorry about that if I was nagging you; I vos only obeying orders!

Just when I thought I had seen the most distressed and ill-est person, another one would pearl up at the front of the queue!  Jesus, there were some severely dehydrated and exhausted people in that queue, and I really felt for them. By the end of the shift I had given away everything I had on me to eat and drink, to people who's need was definitely greater than mine! I had to physically support a few folks who were teetering on the edge of collapse through the silly small turnstiles; some of the loads they were carrying on their backs were extraordinary! I was involved with helping the ambulance through twice for individuals who were fitting due to heat stroke, not a very nice start to your Glastonbury weekend I'd have thought.

It's true there was nothing in terms of refreshments waiting for you once you emerged blinking into the festival after the wrist-banding area, however there was a water tap up by the hedges on the right in the 1st field you saw (up where Dairy meets Back House), plus there was lots of water given out.  I think people have to take a degree of responsibility for themselves. I'm sure almost everyone in that Gate D queue had expected to be in a queue, and we all knew what the weather forecast was.

fc

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48 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Nope, it's just a different take on the "you're not stuck in a traffic jam, you ARE the traffic jam" thing.

 

EVERY Friday evening of my working life, listening to hundreds of tourists who who seem surprised that 100,000 other people have had the same idea as them to come to the Lake District

Edited by philipsteak
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