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Capacity Increase Confirmed


4519dennis
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Radio Avalon started in 1983 so in one year between 1983 and 1987 I do recall a announcement
which went a bit like this 'We believe the council have rented a plane and intend to fly over to try and count the people so can you please go in your tent when you hear it fly over - now who asked them to do it I don't have a Clue - if it was meant to be a joke - I don't have a clue all I know was I was in my tent and I did hear a few people round me ' rush in their tent as a plane had been spotted.

Perhaps its old age but I do find at times I would like to turn back time to the early 80's as I do find it to be very full in certain areas.

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14 hours ago, Pinhead said:

They kicked out Camplight so that might help a bit. Restructuring some of the crew camping would help too I reckon.

 

How would that help though? Camplight were essentially just a bunch of tents taken up by punters, so those same punters will take up the same space. More will still be needed.

Agree that it definitely feels overcrowded at times so you would hope they would increase capacity. But to do that would cost more money presumably so wouldn't help. I wouldn't want the ticket price to go up though, it's pricey enough as it is.

I like the idea of earlier acts in the SE corner. I barely go there these days as I hate the crowding and don't want to spend my festival queueing. Would like to though!

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20 minutes ago, ticketboy69 said:

I think that there are a lot of people who would  happily pay more if it kept the numbers as they were. Personally, I would be happy for a larger price rise to reduce numbers. 

Something they could do is charge a nominal ticket fee for children. Currently under 12’s are free. 

Increasing the price just makes it more "exclusive" for the hiipsters etc. You risk destroying the vibe.

As for crowding in camping areas, there is capacity in many of the less popular areas like Bushy.

I tend to avoid the SE corner straight after the main stages close, I will pop in the Cabaret Tent or Avalon Cafe to let the rush die down. Similarly if there are too many people on the railway line, get off it and wander through Green Futures. If you know the site you can dodge these bottle necks.

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53 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

How would that help though? Camplight were essentially just a bunch of tents taken up by punters, so those same punters will take up the same space. More will still be needed.

I thought Camplight were going off-site rather than leaving altogether. Assuming they're not displacing another off-site provider, that would mean there is extra space.

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19 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

I thought Camplight were going off-site rather than leaving altogether. Assuming they're not displacing another off-site provider, that would mean there is extra space.

Oh right I get you. So there would need to be more offsite camping options to accommodate people. But you can't guarantee people will camp offsite can you? What if they don't? 

Logical thing would be to extend Worthy View I guess.

Edit: What I mean is that people who used Camplight before did so because of the attraction of it being onsite (I have friends who did for that reason) so these people aren't likely to follow it offsite?

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22 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

What I mean is that people who used Camplight before did so because of the attraction of it being onsite (I have friends who did for that reason) so these people aren't likely to follow it offsite?

You're right, it would probably be different people and it's much less attractive now, so might not sell out at all. Presumably all they would have going for them now would be price.

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3 hours ago, Rumblestripe said:

Increasing the price just makes it more "exclusive" for the hiipsters etc. You risk destroying the vibe.

Indeed those who advocate a rise immediately exclude it from some potential current attendees and the festival have always strived to be as affordable as they can for what they do. 

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2 hours ago, clarkete said:

Indeed those who advocate a rise immediately exclude it from some potential current attendees and the festival have always strived to be as affordable as they can for what they do. 

Yep.The festival know that they could increase the ticket price considerably but choose not to.

Hats off to them.

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13 hours ago, ticketboy69 said:

I think that there are a lot of people who would  happily pay more if it kept the numbers as they were. Personally, I would be happy for a larger price rise to reduce numbers. 

Something they could do is charge a nominal ticket fee for children. Currently under 12’s are free. 

I dont think children under 12 are adding to any of the issues. I think if there was a few people just wouldnt take their kids... when the kids arent adding to the overcrowding. 

 

12 hours ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Oh right I get you. So there would need to be more offsite camping options to accommodate people. But you can't guarantee people will camp offsite can you? What if they don't? 

Logical thing would be to extend Worthy View I guess.

Edit: What I mean is that people who used Camplight before did so because of the attraction of it being onsite (I have friends who did for that reason) so these people aren't likely to follow it offsite?

I think some people use camplight because they're travelling from outside the UK likely on a plane and it's easier to not be responsible for a tent. Luckily Ive got a friend in London who stores my tent... but if I didnt I would have booked camplight for sure. If it was offsite but not too far I might still consider it (if I was in the situation of not being able to store my tent)

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19 minutes ago, MetaKate said:

I dont think children under 12 are adding to any of the issues. I think if there was a few people just wouldnt take their kids... when the kids arent adding to the overcrowding.

Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that they were adding to the overcrowding. I was just trying to think of additional ways for GFL to increase turnover without increasing capacity.

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1 hour ago, ticketboy69 said:

Sorry, I wasn’t suggesting that they were adding to the overcrowding. I was just trying to think of additional ways for GFL to increase turnover without increasing capacity.

Yeah I got that... it would be interesting to find out how many kids under 12 go... but I would imagine in order to make a dent they'd have to charge them full ticket price... and I think most people would just leave their kids home if it was no longer free. Therefore the 2 options would be to 1. Start charging and lose most of the kids and make a small amount of more money on the kids that came 2. Dont charge and keep the kids and make no extra money. 

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Ever since i read the announcement i've been trying to work out why they wouldn't use these extra tickets this year. there was nothing in the information i saw which said they couldn't and i just can't think of a reason why a business who always say that they would love everyone to get a ticket wouldn't jump at the chance to get 7000+ people through the door. the extra cash and customer satisfaction would go down well i would have thought. There are no arrangements that they must make and having three new areas this year seems like a great chance to spread out that increase a bit over the site. 

I don't agree that under 12's don't add to the overcrowding or congestion issues, they must do. There will be extra tents involved and more space taken up on walkways by trolleys or pushchairs. 

The 7000 extra tickets COULD lead to  an extra 21000 people on site IF all those tickets went to families who took a couple of kids along. We have taken our kids 3 times so i'm not anti kids by any stretch. If they did charge for the kids it would make a big difference to a lot of people and it is one of the special things that GFL do as part of the event.

The reverse side is, if they did charge for kids would this then make them paying punters and part of the full ticket allocation? This would have an impact on the revenue of the festival and would i believe then we would see a reduction in crowding issues. 

I don't think there are any figures as too how many under 12's attend but it wouldn't surprise me if it got to somewhere to between 5 and 10K.

We have had very few issues with crowding or congestion as we either move to our next place before or after a set finishes but it is noticeable that the pyramid area is packed almost all day on Sunday and unless something is done when the extra tickets do get released then this area in particular will become unbearable, as there is no doubt that the current extras on a Sunday don't distribute evenly over the site and a good proportion of these new ticket folks would end up in that area too.

I have seen congestion issues in my earlier years and they can be extremely scary for a lot of people so i'm hoping that this delay in releasing the tickets has something to do with monitoring and then a change in plans for 2020. 

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9 hours ago, The other Bellboy said:

The 7000 extra tickets COULD lead to  an extra 21000 people on site IF all those tickets went to families who took a couple of kids along.

The extra 7000 are all going to be coach tickets, I'm not exactly sure how coach tickets for kids works but think that restricts it to exactly that number? 

It will though mean another 100+ coaches arriving on site. I wonder if it will mean a bigger increase in Thursday coaches.

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8 hours ago, Gnomicide said:

The extra 7000 are all going to be coach tickets, I'm not exactly sure how coach tickets for kids works but think that restricts it to exactly that number? 

It will though mean another 100+ coaches arriving on site. I wonder if it will mean a bigger increase in Thursday coaches.

i re-read the news release yesterday and saw that all of the tickets were going to be coach ones and was thinking about it on the way to work this morning. All i know about kids and coaches is that they have to have a coach seat ticket bought for them even if they don't need to have a festival ticket.. its going to be difficult to manage in some ways because if the first 1000 tickets are sold to people with kids and they reserve 3000 coach seats then that would leave 6000 tickets left but only 4000 seats. There must already be a similar issue and i think i've read that extra coaches do get arranged if required so i don't think that it will strictly be limited to an extra 7000 people. We have a long time to wait to find out that's for sure! 

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If it is just for the money, can't understand why they don't hold back 7,000 tickets and sell them for 3x the price giving a third to charity. I reckon there are enough people willing to spend that much (ref: worthy view, tipis, campervans selling out in seconds). No need to increase capacity.

7k = 5% not much of an increase in terms of over-crowding, but as everyone has said, some areas are already daft and unpleasant with crowds. A lot has been done on being able to move between places, but the railway etc are nightmares. Also spread out the after hours fun and bring the SE to life from 8pm.

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2 hours ago, hfuhruhurr said:

If it is just for the money, can't understand why they don't hold back 7,000 tickets and sell them for 3x the price giving a third to charity. I reckon there are enough people willing to spend that much (ref: worthy view, tipis, campervans selling out in seconds). No need to increase capacity.

As already discussed, it's not about the people's willingness to pay, it's about the festival wanting to keep their tickets affordable.

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Whenever it was they increased the capacity last time made a noticeable difference and not for the better. Got used to it now but just hope they expand things enough to cope with the extra people. Personally would rather pay more for a ticket (if lucky enough to get one)

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I wonder if they will need more staff on site to support the extra  7000 people, I mean the extra logistics alone will take some thinking,

I am  sure they have/will of planned for the extra drop off traffic, camping space, food water ,security, toilets ,rubbish , etc

 

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20 minutes ago, keepad said:

I wonder if they will need more staff on site to support the extra  7000 people, I mean the extra logistics alone will take some thinking,

the 'staff' allocation - which is also performers, guests, hospitality, and kids - has gone up by around 35,000 just prior to getting these extra punter places, so I'm guessing that has enough slack in it to cover any extra needs for the extra punters.

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Mendip Council have updated their web page which covers the festival licence.

Reading through the premises licence submitted in September, it makes any increase in tickets sound a lot less definite than the Somerset Live article suggests.

Quote

Any increase in numbers would be subject to additional land becoming available to accommodate this, and is not intended to be undertaken in the immediate future. If land did become available, proposals and changes would be made in conjunction with the Licensing Authority and Responsible Authorities;and only if the Licensing Authority and Responsible Authorities concluded the proposal met the obligations of the Licence, would authority be given to increase ticket numbers as part of the Event Management Plan.

What's more interesting about the licence, to me at least, is that it doesn't define the staff/public/sunday split quite as clearly as the previous one did - it just says up to 210,000 and (elsewhere) gives some guidelines of a 70/30 public/staff split with the specifics to be defined in the EMP.

Quote

This licence shall authorise a cumulative maximum attendance for each event of  up  to  210,000  that  includes  all  public  weekend  tickets  and  Sunday-only tickets for those who are 13 years old or above, as well as staff, complimentary, performer passes. The cumulative maximum and the ticket/passes breakdown for  each  annual  event mustbe  agreed  withand  to  the  satisfaction  ofthe Licensing Authority and the Responsible Authorities at least 90 days prior to the start of the event and will be subject to the satisfactory arrangements in the EMP

 

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