Tent tax - good idea?

[Make Mondays Better]

9 hours ago, hfuhruhurr said:

Sorry, it's a closed meeting, but if you have ideas then let me know, I can put them forward.

Excellent, thanks! I've launched a poll about tents (a tent poll, ahahaha) on the Reading Festival board and I've got a few replies, which is pretty exciting. I'm planning on doing a few more polls as well, so hopefully I can weed out some of the crappier ideas and get back to you.

In what capacity do you attend the meeting if you don't mind me asking, do you work for the council or are you on the festival organisation side? Actually perhaps you shouldn't answer that, either way I will probably send you loads of questions, lol!

[BlueDaze]

14 hours ago, stuie said:

I don't see them being cheaper than WV.  WV is off site and up a bastard hill so surely they'd be more expensive on the prime festival land?

WV’s attraction include showers and a car park next door... they are not going to be offering that at ‘Pre-erected Pennards’.... although tbf they would have to fence it off or any bastard could just fall asleep in your tent...

back to my original suggestion.... first sale is ‘coach + pre-erected Pennards’...  

ticks green travel and waste boxes...

[Zoo Music Girl]

39 minutes ago, BlueDaze said:

WV’s attraction include showers and a car park next door... they are not going to be offering that at ‘Pre-erected Pennards’.... although tbf they would have to fence it off or any bastard could just fall asleep in your tent...

back to my original suggestion.... first sale is ‘coach + pre-erected Pennards’...  

ticks green travel and waste boxes...

Doubt they will fence it off. Camplight was never fenced off although I think it had a couple of dedicated stewards, so maybe they will have something like that? They'd need to for booking in and stuff.

[Lycra]

Surely the real issue here is people not taking responsibility for their impact on the planet. A tent tax may reduce littering in a green field in Somerset, Berkshire, Yorkshire at al but it won't stop tents and other unwanted gear being dumped in the first bin available outside the festival. Be it general waste bins, the home dustbin or the countryside. We humans are a wasteful species by our own historical learned behaviour. Education is key to changing this but these efforts are hugely undermined by a recycling industry that is not transparent and hides it's failings. Exporting our recycling to be dumped in another country so we  can claim meeting our own national target can never be a palatable solution. 

[DeanoL]

19 hours ago, stuie said:

I don't see them being cheaper than WV.  WV is off site and up a bastard hill so surely they'd be more expensive on the prime festival land?

That'd price loads of people out of the festival though if they went that way. To the point that it likely wouldn't sell out. I can't see Eavis wanting to go to all pre-errected tents unless the ticket price can be kept around the same as it currently is.

[Havors]

On 8/28/2019 at 8:51 PM, stuartbert two hats said:

The rate of the change makes me optimistic. Hopefully things won't regress in 2020.

As long as the festival keeps banging on and on about it shouldn't... half the problem with other festivals is they make zero effort to try make people not piss on the land or leave their shit behind.. or litter for that matter. Glasto has it at the core of its philosophy these days and people seem to listening and getting involved... 

That being said the Leeds/Reading and Glasto demopgraphic are very different bunch of people...  

[eFestivals]

57 minutes ago, Havors said:

As long as the festival keeps banging on and on about it shouldn't... half the problem with other festivals is they make zero effort to try make people not piss on the land or leave their shit behind.. or litter for that matter. Glasto has it at the core of its philosophy these days and people seem to listening and getting involved... 

That being said the Leeds/Reading and Glasto demopgraphic are very different bunch of people...  

yup - and some festivals are doing better than Glastonbury too.

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

yup - and some festivals are doing better than Glastonbury too.

so what's the demographic difference ? or whats the difference ? scale ? my belief is in the following sheep factor ... when one does it others follow and it becomes the norm .... its much harder to leave a tent in an empty field than one full of already abandoned tents ... although this won't disuade the early leavers 

[hfuhruhurr]

9 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

so what's the demographic difference ? or whats the difference ? scale ? my belief is in the following sheep factor ... when one does it others follow and it becomes the norm .... its much harder to leave a tent in an empty field than one full of already abandoned tents ... although this won't disuade the early leavers 

Reading is aimed at 16-21. GCSE result right of passage from every local school. And, not to be the old fart, but they are more keen on the fuckabout and desperate not to be responsible. Trashed tent at the end is the norm. Education is the solution.

Now, here's controversy, plastics are not as bad as other environmental issues. Plastics are an issue  when we send them to the far east feeling all green about ourselves when the truth is a lot just gets dumped. Stuffing them in landfill isn't half as bad as the travel-based carbon footprint of the festival. That's the one to focus on. I reckon the footprint of getting 250k people to/from glastonbury makes it way less green than every Reading festival goer leaving their tent.

[Crazyfool01]

1 minute ago, hfuhruhurr said:

Reading is aimed at 16-21. GCSE result right of passage from every local school. And, not to be the old fart, but they are more keen on the fuckabout and desperate not to be responsible. Trashed tent at the end is the norm. Education is the solution.

Now, here's controversy, plastics are not as bad as other environmental issues. Plastics are an issue  when we send them to the far east feeling all green about ourselves when the truth is a lot just gets dumped. Stuffing them in landfill isn't half as bad as the travel-based carbon footprint of the festival. That's the one to focus on. I reckon the footprint of getting 250k people to/from glastonbury makes it way less green than every Reading festival goer leaving their tent.

yes but I guess for some it replaces a foreign holiday ... so the impact is reduced from what it might be ...... and if Glastonbury is happening anyway and we aren't to remain in a tent using no power and doing nothing humans will always have some impact ... the norm can be easily changed and picking up a tent is more easy to do than anything .. so start small 

[DeanoL]

Do you think? I have wondered what’s the electric and travel costs of the festival versus the average person’s electric/travel cost for five days at home x 200000

[danmarks]

This reminds me of when we watched radiohead in hyde park or victoria park. They had this massive thing about tshirts you could buy made out of recycled milk bottles. Very worthy and all that but if you didnt sell them at all andi used the rcycled for something more than a wear it twice (for most) t shirt surely that would be better. I thonk most people want to do what they can as long as it doesnt impact themselves too much. Me included obviously.  

[danmarks]

Could Glastonbury shed some of the stuff it does without too muxh detriment to most people. Yep but those things will be different depending on who you ask. But maybe at some point it will come to that. 200000 people = x amount of power. Lets lose (for example) park stage. Thatl save some and we will still sell out. Some people would be up in arms. Some wouldn't notice and some would just be meh . Dunno what  im trying to say but maybe mega festivals are too much to maintain a truly green ethos. 

[fatyeti24]

2 hours ago, hfuhruhurr said:

Reading is aimed at 16-21. GCSE result right of passage from every local school. And, not to be the old fart, but they are more keen on the fuckabout and desperate not to be responsible. Trashed tent at the end is the norm. Education is the solution.

Now, here's controversy, plastics are not as bad as other environmental issues. Plastics are an issue  when we send them to the far east feeling all green about ourselves when the truth is a lot just gets dumped. Stuffing them in landfill isn't half as bad as the travel-based carbon footprint of the festival. That's the one to focus on. I reckon the footprint of getting 250k people to/from glastonbury makes it way less green than every Reading festival goer leaving their tent.

This is the elephant in the room isn't it?  I've been mentioning it for a few years now.  To put it in crude and simplistic terms, if they were *that* arsed about the environment then they wouldn't have the festival in the first place.

Of course things, particularly when it comes to carbon footprints, are never as simplistic as that, but all the messages on behaviour, education etc and efforts of mitigation shouldn't obscure the fact that the festival causes a fuckton of damage.

[BlueJeansAndWhiteTshirts]

You been brewing that reply for 3 years......?

[maelzoid]

1 hour ago, BlueJeansAndWhiteTshirts said:

You been brewing that reply for 3 years......?

We'll get an answer to this in 2026....

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

I can't see a recent reply ie not one that's brewed for 3 years. Can anybody offer guidance?

[Crazyfool01]

2 hours ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

I can't see a recent reply ie not one that's brewed for 3 years. Can anybody offer guidance?

i deleted it 

[Yoghurt on a Stick]

On 2/6/2023 at 2:26 PM, Crazyfool01 said:

i deleted it 

Thanks for the info Crazy. Thought I was losing my mind there for a bit. Not that it isn't on the high seas at the best of times.