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What have you seen at other festivals that could work for Glasto?


squirrelarmy
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Just now, chazwwe said:

Gotta agree with the screens, the footage that I've seen looks phenomenal from them. Would give the stage a bigger feel too. I also think the Pyramid could use with some bigger/vertical screens too, but thats just me. 

Move the pyramid screens to the Other and get some bigger ones for the Pyramid 

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31 minutes ago, Badlands said:

Where were you queueing for 30 minutes out of curiosity?? Cannot recall ever waiting that long. Big old place obviously with lots of different bars, but other than pyramid at dusk I rarely encounter long queues.

Big queue in Shangri La, Friday afternoon when Craig Charles was on, felt like half hour. Second round I tried to find a quieter bar and ended up walking to Avalon as nothing was open through the common/block 9...wish I’d have stayed at the first bar!

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11 hours ago, MrZigster said:

Re reusable pint pots : Four time bar volunteer here. As others have stated, it's the cross contamination problem that is the issue. If you hand me your mug that you have been drinking out of and I then, despite taking care not to,  proceed to touch the pouring spout with it as I am pouring your drink, then that's your germs all over said spout and potentially also in the next x amount of pints served.  The solution to this, which is to use a separate measuring cup, is that said measuring cup will inevitably just be another generic wax lined paper pint cup and will be thrown straight in the bin afterwards, which surely defeats the point of the exercise.

So how about the £1 extra for your first plastic pint cup and you get a fresh replacement cup each time? Well where are all of those cups going to get washed up? I worked in one of the bigger bars this year and we basically just had one tiny double sink. One side for hand washing and the other side for washing up (and it didn't take long for the sign stating which was which to fall down/disappear). Along with a tiny boiler that didn't even hold enough hot water to adequately clean all of the Pimms/water jugs at the end of the shift (I personally am now very wary of drinking anything served from a jug at Glastonbury now).

Short of sending said cups off site, or insisting that every bar only uses steel measuring cups (which would, effectively, double the time it takes to pour each drink (as you are pouring it twice), and would probably mean the same measuring cups being used over and over all day, which brings its own hygiene issues), I'm not sure what the solution could be. Possibly just be best to stick to the bio degradable cups?

Latitude was one of the first events that started using ' Reusable Cups ' 

{1} - these unused cups don't slip into each other like a paper cup so they take up a lot of space compared to a paper cup

{2} - in fact they don't even come in a cardboard box - they come in a plastic flight case 

{3} - the back area had to be divided so people knew - what was clean cups and what was used cups 

as time went on # we were running out of space # as that bar could not be reached while people were about so they could not pick up the used Flight cases.

We ended up with cases being stacked high up - if anyone from H&S showed up we would have been closed down on the spot. 

No one would attempt to try and wash them at the event

you would need - 5 times the size of a back bar ' and at least double the staff ' - it just would not be practical.

There would be no room for the festival as the bars would be massive.

Amazingly all these used Reusable Cups were transported by a whole team of articulated trucks to Germany as at the time there was no plant large enough to sterilise them in the UK.

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10 hours ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

At Roskilde (maybe others) they have a pit system for the main stage. At the start of each day, they hand out wristbands for each of the acts playing the main stage that day. You collect the wristband, then later on you can use that to get in the front area for that act (think it opens about 30 mins before their set). You can also try your luck and queue up even of you don't have a wristband; if there's enough space they'll let you in. Once the set has finished, the pit is emptied.

 

It's good because it means you don't have to worry too much about getting a good spot, and it means there aren't people right at the front waiting all day just for one act they love later in the day. If you're at the front then chances are everyone around you loves the act playing, giving it a much better atmosphere

I've been thinking this for years (particularly when being shoved out the way by miserable people waiting for the headliner who have no interest in the act you're trying to see), didn't realise they had a system for this at Roskilde.

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What an excellent thread, that to @glasto-worker and @MrZigster for explaining the issues re the re-usuable cup. This year I took a reusable coffee cup, water bottle and a plastic pint. The first two massively cut down on my litter (all of which went into bins) but to my disappointment I couldn't use the third for reasons that have been stated above. So biodegradable cups seem to be the only way forward until the infrastructure is in place to enable the re-usable pint pots.

I have to say the ban on reusable plastic worked excellently this year and for the most part the festival-goers embraced this change and the site was noticeably cleaner this year.

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reggae.

they were on the right track with The Blues stage for a while - but they ruined that.

they definitely made an effort a couple of years ago with the Greenhouse stage - but it wasn't done particularly well and needed some work but there was definitely potential there - but instead of that they sacked it off.

just get Instrument of Jah to bring the Dubshack from One Love festival - stick it in the corner somewhere and there you go. sorted. 

Edited by Chubby Dude in a Tiny Car
highlighting the other festival bit.
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11 hours ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Plenty of the bars were selling cans or pints of Carlsberg for exactly £5, yet it was so hot the queues in a lot of the bars were savagely long. During the day we mostly drank beer and had cash, we’d queue for about 20/30 minutes only for the transaction of buying pre poured pints with cash to take approximately 10 seconds.

Basically what I’m saying is in particularly hot years such as this year, there should be an easier quicker way (separate queue perhaps) to order pints that are effectively already poured and just sitting their waiting to be bought.

At Mad Cool both last year and this year they had guys going around with those big camelback dispensers selling beer like you'd see at a sporting event or arena gig. Same price as the bar so it must have been regulated by the festival. This was super handy when in the middle of a crowd and wanted a beer and you'd never been too far from someone. They'd get busy in between sets and at the popular areas but generally there'd be maybe only one or two people in front. This seemed to reduce the bar queues for people just ordering beer but the bars could still get busy at times

Don't know how something like this could get rolled out at Glastonbury given the sheer size but may reduce some of the traffic to the larger and more popular bars

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20 minutes ago, Hotchilidog said:

I have to say the ban on reusable plastic worked excellently this year and for the most part the festival-goers embraced this change and the site was noticeably cleaner this year.

Also noticeable that I never had to worry about turning an ankle on discarded plastic bottles with the cap left on!

Cheers for the info @glasto-worker and @MrZigster.  I know some of the bars tend to take a more...relaxed view about filling the steel cups so will just chance my arm!  Either way it's still preferable to drinking out of a paper bastard :D

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Really good information about the plastic cups. If the bars only served in those cups then I can easily see that demand for them would easily strip out supply and washing facilities. The system obviously worked for Sziget as they were selling the pints alongside cans. We actually mainly drank pints in the day while it was less busy and switched to cans in the evening and during the main acts.  
 

On the hygiene and sterilisation point. I don’t think that happened at Sziget either. Sorry to be crude but I didn’t have a solid shit until about a week after getting home. My guts were certainly a mess. Although that could just be down to drinking non stop for 10 days. 

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12 hours ago, Gilgamesh69 said:

At Roskilde (maybe others) they have a pit system for the main stage. At the start of each day, they hand out wristbands for each of the acts playing the main stage that day. You collect the wristband, then later on you can use that to get in the front area for that act (think it opens about 30 mins before their set). You can also try your luck and queue up even of you don't have a wristband; if there's enough space they'll let you in. Once the set has finished, the pit is emptied.

 

It's good because it means you don't have to worry too much about getting a good spot, and it means there aren't people right at the front waiting all day just for one act they love later in the day. If you're at the front then chances are everyone around you loves the act playing, giving it a much better atmosphere

Really like the sound of this idea. Beck in 16 was a prime example of people hanging around for Coldplay and putting a damper on the show wouldn’t stop some but surely would reduce numbers. 

Are there any crowd safety issues at Roskilde due to process?

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30 minutes ago, Quark said:

Also noticeable that I never had to worry about turning an ankle on discarded plastic bottles with the cap left on!

Cheers for the info @glasto-worker and @MrZigster.  I know some of the bars tend to take a more...relaxed view about filling the steel cups so will just chance my arm!  Either way it's still preferable to drinking out of a paper bastard :D

Many years ago and no I don't have a clue the year - someone claimed their drink was spiked by bar staff which is why the WBC placed a ban of not using any Cup handed to them - sure less experienced staff may not follow the rules ' but if they are spotted they may lose their place if spotted by ' the CCTV built into many bars ' - Even in the crew bar we will not fill up from a cup handed to us and it does not have CCTV but I warn my Team that I will go ballistic if they do it.

## at least in the WBC bars the wbc use the station principal ## below is the largest bar the WBC has ever had ' in England ' { some of the bars the WBC use in Ireland are even larger than this }

that was at Reading - that is a ' 16 station bar ' { look at the roof and you can see the support poles }

the important fact to take into consideration is bar staff ' are instructed ' to remain at their station - crowds tend to form in the middle but if people stood back a bit ' they could easily find a free station and get served in seconds.'

So why don't we allow staff to move between stations ?

its all down to space - staff would be falling over themselves if they strayed into another station - by separating them they operate like 16 separate Bars.

we used to use megaphones telling customers to come down or up 

the bottom shot shows the mob in the middle with less people at the next station ' even although station 1 was empty ' - all they had to do was walk 20 feet and they would get served straight away. 

All the WBC follow the same practice for their large bars - GFL restrict how large a bar can be and they did not want the WBC to use very large bars.

Over in Ireland these very large bars are very popular due to the fact that there is room to place barriers so people are held until a station is free - by doing that ' Customers can carry their drinks away without fear of it being spilt by the crowds but at Glastonbury there is just not enough room to have that system.
 

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1 minute ago, glasto-worker said:

Many years ago and no I don't have a clue the year - someone claimed their drink was spiked by bar staff which is why the WBC placed a ban of not using any Cup handed to them - sure less experienced staff may not follow the rules ' but if they are spotted they may lose their place if spotted by ' the CCTV built into many bars ' - Even in the crew bar we will not fill up from a cup handed to us and it does not have CCTV but I warn my Team that I will go ballistic if they do it.

Ah fair enough, will try to avoid putting anyone in that position then

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13 minutes ago, Harry49 said:

 

Are there any crowd safety issues at Roskilde due to process?

Nah the crowds at Roskilde seem pretty safe, they control it quite well these days; you're not even allowed to crowdsurf (bit lame but oh well).

There was an awful incident in 2001 where 9 people got killed at the main stage because of a crowd crush, so I think they introduced that system as a way of better controlling the crowds. But I think it's a good system; just a shame that such a tragedy is what led to it.

 

This year The Cure closed the main stage. Probably my favourite band, and I also met a really nice girl  there that loves them too, and we gradually bonded while at the festival. On the last day we got gothed up, as it was a special occasion for both of us. Being right up front for The Cure, dancing along with her and everyone else there at like 1am was a pretty great festival experience tbh

 

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1 hour ago, Chubby Dude in a Tiny Car said:

reggae.

they were on the right track with The Blues stage for a while - but they ruined that.

they definitely made an effort a couple of years ago with the Greenhouse stage - but it wasn't done particularly well and needed some work but there was definitely potential there - but instead of that they sacked it off.

just get Instrument of Jah to bring the Dubshack from One Love festival - stick it in the corner somewhere and there you go. sorted. 

out of upvotes but massively agree, last year not enough reggae by far! If One Love curated a stage for a day that would be fantastic!

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47 minutes ago, Quark said:

Ah fair enough, will try to avoid putting anyone in that position then

No problem you were not to know - we went back and back to that bar but no one slipped anything into our drink and I personally would doubt the claim as it sounds unrealistic as there would be no point to do it to a random stranger but that drove them to install CCTV.

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3 hours ago, Quark said:

Also noticeable that I never had to worry about turning an ankle on discarded plastic bottles with the cap left on!

Cheers for the info @glasto-worker and @MrZigster.  I know some of the bars tend to take a more...relaxed view about filling the steel cups so will just chance my arm!  Either way it's still preferable to drinking out of a paper bastard :D

At least one bar, I think it was the Greenpeace Stage one, had a plastic jug by the beer taps so when I went there with the metal cup they filled their plastic jug and tipped that into the metal one.  Saved wasting a paper cup at least.

Most of the bars have those machines that fill a load of paper cups up at a time so won't work everywhere though.

 

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19 hours ago, Tommy Dickfingers said:

Why wouldn’t you rent a sleeping bag? It’ll be new! You just leave it in your tent after for the festival to donate somewhere. 

I’ll expand on my idea. You’d pay say 300 quid and you’d be able to use a tent, sleeping bag, air bed and pillow. They’d be pumped up all ready for you when you got there. 

 

This is precisely the reason they don't do it. 

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Since water shortages were such a big issue this year, I'd love to see Glastonbury implement something like these taps. They spray a mist rather than a stream (so would be best suited for hand-washing taps, rather than water refill stations).

It was really frustrating to see so many people washing their faces with a tap going full-blast.

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