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Something to alleviate the crowds on the railway line late at night.  If that means moving a few things around then so be it.  2016 was a nightmare in the mud and the railway line couldn’t handle the numbers.    The crowds around the loos at the bottom of Pennards near where it meets the railway line were massive, and not helped by loads coming down from the Park.   Everyone going to the SE corner and using the railway line at the same time isn’t good even when it’s dry.

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Remember, If you want more stuff, it will cost more so ticket prices will go up even more. Personally, I'd rather they pulled the Wednesday entertainment, hopefully it would save a bit of money -it used to be fine without it. I think sometimes you get so used to having entertainment options all the time you can forget that you're more than capable of making your own. 

Edited by Mr.Tease
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On 7/3/2018 at 12:37 PM, ghostdancer1 said:

said it before, I'll say it again, the Avalon/Theatre/Circus/Cabaret/Bellas fields are absolutely dead at night, and rarely busy during the day either.

they should make 4 fields into 3, which I suppose would probably mean moving Avalon into the Cabaret field, and then shifting the Cabaret tent in with one of the others.

that creates an empty field on the edge of the SE Corner. move The Common into that field (or Glasto Latino, and shift the Common into GL's area), and then there's much more space for Shangri-La, which is by far the busiest and most wedged area of the SE corner.

Disagree dude, for a couple of reasons.  Part of what makes Glastonbury so cool is the fact that, as well as massively busy and crowded popular areas, you have places that are slightly quieter and a bit less crammed.  Places like Avalon and the Circus / Cabaret fields fit that bill, and offer a different part of the festival experience. Cutting them down to make room for more party stuff would take a chunk of that away.  You could lose the Acoustic Tent for the same rationale, but that would suck too. Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and all that.

Also you could argue that the SE corner is largely dead during the day, so clearly it's not making the best use of the space.  That's a real devil's advocate position to take, but it helps make the point.  Avalon in particular may not be rammed, but I'd say it's got a constant level of people there from morning to night.

They definitely need to look at how they control that flow of human traffic between the areas of the SE corner, but I'd argue that the growth in those late night venues makes them the johnny-come-latelys, and the established and pretty core things like Avalon and the Cabaret Fields shouldn't be compromised to make room. 

Urinals though, absolutely.  Bang on shout there.

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You need to retain the likes of Avalon and Acoustic as they're a small oasis of calm when you need it.  They also have the best two real ale bars.    Also my Dad is still doing Glasto and still loves it particularly Avalon and Acoustic and he'll be 76 next time around.  You need to cater for all or it'll just become like every other festival.  

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3 hours ago, Quark said:

Disagree dude, for a couple of reasons.  Part of what makes Glastonbury so cool is the fact that, as well as massively busy and crowded popular areas, you have places that are slightly quieter and a bit less crammed.  Places like Avalon and the Circus / Cabaret fields fit that bill, and offer a different part of the festival experience. Cutting them down to make room for more party stuff would take a chunk of that away.  You could lose the Acoustic Tent for the same rationale, but that would suck too. Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts and all that.

Also you could argue that the SE corner is largely dead during the day, so clearly it's not making the best use of the space.  That's a real devil's advocate position to take, but it helps make the point.  Avalon in particular may not be rammed, but I'd say it's got a constant level of people there from morning to night.

Agreed.

Avalon is always busy during the day and night while bands are on in the tents. I have mates who spend all their time there, if you mess with it you're going to upset a lot of people. Plus it's been there for years and years.

The Theatre and Circus fields are also really busy during the daytime.

Edited by Johnnyseven
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I didn't say get rid of them though, I'm talking about moving a bar/tent 200m onto a different patch of grass. Avalon bar/tent being in Bella's field wouldn't really make much of a difference, the Avalon field is completely nondescript, it's the bar that makes it. most people wouldn't even notice, let alone care, and new punters certainly wouldn't care. the only people that would notice are veterans stuck in their ways, and i'm sure they'd get over it after their first pint, there's little changes every year....

I mentioned Avalon as that's logistically the easiest way to do it due to proximity. there are other fields around there that could be used instead, the field north of Glasto Latino is a not-massively-busy staff camping area, going by the GlastoMap image. the staff would then have to be accommodated somewhere else though, seems to be a bit of space in Dragon Field though.

or they could swap Shangri-La with Glasto Latino and The Common, as the area those 2 are in seem to have a little more space, and aren't as busy as Shangri-La.

either way, the SE Corner, and more specifically Shangri-La, are far too popular for the size they're crammed into. the crowds down there in 2016 with the mud were seriously dangerous.
 

re: the SE Corner being dead during the day, yes, and they should put more on there during the day (especially Wednesday and Thursday), and indeed have it open earlier on the other days, even just for people to walk around and see it and get it out of their system. we had a few newbies with us last year and got down there during the daytime, and couldn't get in until after about 3pm IIRC. however, there aren't any major capacity issues at venues during the daytime, it's the night-time, and specifically the SE Corner that is the biggest problem.

Edited by ghostdancer1
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1 hour ago, ghostdancer1 said:

I didn't say get rid of them though, I'm talking about moving a bar/tent 200m onto a different patch of grass. Avalon bar/tent being in Bella's field wouldn't really make much of a difference, the Avalon field is completely nondescript, it's the bar that makes it. most people wouldn't even notice, let alone care, and new punters certainly wouldn't care. the only people that would notice are veterans stuck in their ways, and i'm sure they'd get over it after their first pint, there's little changes every year....

Well, you pretty much did though.  Lumping stuff together and turning the field over to more SE corner would be getting rid of the Field of Avalon, no?

Massively sweeping judgement on Avalon itself.  I've been to some cracking, and rammed, sets in both the main Avalon stage and in the Avalon Cafe, and to say people are only going there for the bar is just not true.  That whole section is set up to be for a different chunk of the Glastonbury family, just because it doesn't appeal to you or the SE Corner Crowd doesn't mean it should be reduced, stripped back or stuffed to the back like an embarrassing relative.

I'd definitely notice, and I don't even go there for the bar.  Pretty sure there's a chunk of regulars on this board who'd miss it.  The punters who go there and love it would absolutely miss it.  And I know people who've never been to Glastonbury and want to come next year who's love it in there.

To get rid of stuff like that because "the only people that would notice are veterans stuck in their ways" is nonsense.  You could say that about any part of the festival that you don't happen to care about but others do, as they're the bits that make Glastonbury what it is.

With that mentality lies the way to the Amazon Glastonbury Festival with a Nando's on every corner.  No thanks.

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With you on some of the rest of it though. I remember '16 in there and it was not good, think I had one crack at it and didn't bother for the rest of the weekend.  The options around moving staff camping would make more sense if possible.

I do think that there are better options to improve the flow of people, increase the number of exit points and reduce some for the bottlenecks without encroaching on the other fields.

And would definitely like to be able to see more of the installation type stuff earlier in the week.  I'm sure someone can explain why, but I've never understood why it's not ready a wee bit earlier.

I love Avalon and the Theatre Circus and Cabaret fields in case you hadn't guessed :D

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36 minutes ago, Quark said:

I'd definitely notice, and I don't even go there for the bar.  Pretty sure there's a chunk of regulars on this board who'd miss it.  The punters who go there and love it would absolutely miss it.

I would yeah. Have spent many happy hours in there meeting some great people from all over the world over the years. My local so to speak. 

Nothing like a kedgeree and an 11am litre of rosé to start the day.

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I think the answer to the South East Corner overcrowding is changes to the Dance village area .... It has some very busy areas at times but lots of open spaces between tents that could definitely accommodate some change ... make this area equally as interesting and bizarre with some installations and make it open a bit later to slow the rush from the headliners finishing at the main stages to take some of other and pyramid crowds away at that time its a shorter walk to this area . Not sure of the residents effect of this being open a bit later ... oh and the other biggie for me put the bloody urinals all around the blue tarped areas not just on three sides .... or even better put them on the outside walls too ... we have it with pop up toilets in towns and on the continent so why not in a field in Somerset ..... if anyone from the fest is reading this give me a shout would be more than happy to help with festival infrastructure / ideas :) 

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I went to Best Kept Secret festival in the Netherlands this year, and they seemed to have the single-use plastic ban sorted. None of the food vendors sold bottled soft drinks, and all the bars sold their drinks in reusable plastic cups (1 euro deposit). It's a lot smaller than Glasto, so the practicalities of getting clean cups where they're needed or not being able to buy a bottle of coke with your dinner aren't going to be on the same scale, but it could work.

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13 minutes ago, Simsy said:

I went to Best Kept Secret festival in the Netherlands this year, and they seemed to have the single-use plastic ban sorted. None of the food vendors sold bottled soft drinks, and all the bars sold their drinks in reusable plastic cups (1 euro deposit). It's a lot smaller than Glasto, so the practicalities of getting clean cups where they're needed or not being able to buy a bottle of coke with your dinner aren't going to be on the same scale, but it could work.

Yikes! I like drinking pop! So can you not buy any softdrinks on site, or do they sell cans? 

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21 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

Yikes! I like drinking pop! So can you not buy any softdrinks on site, or do they sell cans? 

Just glass bottles from the bars (which they obviously decant into cups when you buy it), and there was a separate cola bar as well. Never any queues at the bars, but I think it's only about 20,000 people there. I normally bring rum to Glasto and buy mixers there, so I tend to get through a few plastic bottles.

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On the topic of the SE Corner. I don't think just making the total area bigger is the solution. A lot of the crowding forms around bottlenecks at the entrances and exits to the venues. I don't know what the solution is on a venue by venue basis, but having two large venues entrances close to each other forms a natural wall of people. A lot of the time, I imagine, the venue locations are dictated by hedges and ditches behind the scenes we can't see as punters. Each venue is going to need to be near some sort of drainage and a natural slope to help water run-off. Yes, spreading them out over a larger area would ease the total pressure on the area as a whole, but a re-design of the layout could be used as a shorter-term fix. 

Another big help would be a theme around the entrances to allow for more calculated in/out ratios. Instead of letting large numbers in a time after a long wait at the main entrance, some kind of live counter to funnel people in as someone leaves would keep the crowd moving. At the London Marathon (my old job) we used to calculate traffic flow along the start areas very precisely to work out route widths etc.  

As also mentioned, easiest fix in terms of infrastructure would be to spread out the naughtiness. 

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Sorting out access in/out of Arcadia would be high on my list. I went in there to meet mates after the headliner last year and it's the only time at Glasto i've been genuinely concerned about safety. It was a massive crush of people all trying to go in and out. I tried to get in, entered the crush and then couldn't get out of it!

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9 hours ago, Johnnyseven said:

Sorting out access in/out of Arcadia would be high on my list. I went in there to meet mates after the headliner last year and it's the only time at Glasto i've been genuinely concerned about safety. It was a massive crush of people all trying to go in and out. I tried to get in, entered the crush and then couldn't get out of it!

Yeah, that needs to be one a one-way system at night too. It's unfortunate because I feel control like that take away from the magic of Glasto, but I have definitely been a bit concerned about a crush. 

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1 hour ago, Dave_c said:

The sound at the other stage needs sorting out as it is always affected by the wind, and Silver Haynes needs a complete rethink, it's the worst area of the whole festival.

I liked the first year of the dance village (I think 2005), but then it seemed to get gradually worse. I was quite looking forward to it when they changed it to silver Hayes, and I do like the gully and the blues bit, but they do need to get rid of the sonic tent at the very least- I don't know why they thought that shape would be a good idea! 

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41 minutes ago, Mr.Tease said:

I liked the first year of the dance village (I think 2005), but then it seemed to get gradually worse. I was quite looking forward to it when they changed it to silver Hayes, and I do like the gully and the blues bit, but they do need to get rid of the sonic tent at the very least- I don't know why they thought that shape would be a good idea! 

Yeah the Gully and the blues are decent but the rest is a bit shit. Doesn't have any of the creativity of the rest of the site, just some stages thrown together.

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