Potential Solution to increased demand

[SouthbanKen]

So, with 22 pages and counting discussing the (de)merits of the ticket allocation system, and a thread full of disappointment in the resales thread. We can clearly see that demand outstrips supply causing heartbreak and disappointment for many. 

Rather than look at a more "fair" way of allocating tickets, could the festival explore an alternative that considers the other side of the coin. Increasing capacity, and by this i am not talking about increasing by a few extra thousand here and there. What if they could double the capacity. 

A number of festivals, now operate over 2 consecutive weekends, Tomorrowland in Belgium, as an example has two weekends, back to back at the end of the July, the line up is similar but not quite the same over the two weekends. 

This may have been discussed before, it may have been dismissed by EE or ME previously,  interesting to hear why if they did and i thought an interesting topic for discussion. I have put down what i can see as a few of the Pros and Cons below. 

Pros

• Instant doubling of capacity - tickets for everyone who wants one (well probably not quite, but better than now)?
• Doesn't double the cost base for festival or traders, therefore increasing commercial value of the Fest (hopefully further ensuring its long term success and development)

Cons 

• Might end up with tickets for the "other" weekend as your mates
• Difficult to get everyone from Weekend 1 off site ahead of Weekend 2 arrivals (Tomorrowland runs Thurs to Sun, so Glasto starting on Weds is a tighter turnaround by 1 day)
• Difficult to get licensing
• Increase disruption to the locals
• Potentially difficult to recruit enough volunteers
• What about wet years, would weekend 2 be put in jeopardy as a result of a wet weekend 1?
• Different set of headliners / acts on each weekend

 

 

 

 

[eFestivals]

Just now, SouthbanKen said:

What if they could double the capacity. 

A number of festivals, now operate over 2 consecutive weekends

there's no way the local council would allow this to happen. They're prepared to have the locals suffer the disruption for one weekend each year but there's no way they'd allow it for 2 weekends.

[SouthbanKen]

Just now, eFestivals said:

there's no way the local council would allow this to happen. They're prepared to have the locals suffer the disruption for one weekend each year but there's no way they'd allow it for 2 weekends.

I thought that might be the case, what do you think about EE/ ME, is it something that they would consider if the council were to change their mind? 

[dotdash79]

I would go to both weekends 

[stuie]

Have you seen the farm at the end of a really wet/muddy year?

Another week after that would be practically impossible and if it was possible it would take the farm forever to recover, maybe causing permanent damage.

Also, what makes Glastonbury financially viable is the BBC coverage.  Bands and artists play for a fraction of their usual fee because they are guaranteed exposure.  Why would they all play for a second week?  It's not like both weekends would be televised!

[SouthbanKen]

4 minutes ago, dotdash79 said:

I would go to both weekends 

I was going to ask if anyone would be interested in doing both, but then i decided that each registration could only secure one ticket, much like now - sorry, this is aimed at increasing capacity so everyone can enjoy.

[eastynh]

They should do a northern edition. It never rains up north. Could call it Bury Festival.

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, SouthbanKen said:

I thought that might be the case, what do you think about EE/ ME, is it something that they would consider if the council were to change their mind? 

I guess it wouldn't be an impossibility for them.

I reckon it would be hard to make the 2nd weekend as vibrant as the first one tho, and that might put them off.

[SouthbanKen]

1 minute ago, stuie said:

Have you seen the farm at the end of a really wet/muddy year?

Another week after that would be practically impossible and if it was possible it would take the farm forever to recover, maybe causing permanent damage.

Also, what makes Glastonbury financially viable is the BBC coverage.  Bands and artists play for a fraction of their usual fee because they are guaranteed exposure.  Why would they all play for a second week?  It's not like both weekends would be televised!

I think the impact of a wet Weekend 1 on Weekend 2 could be one of the biggest issues, but like i said, Tomorrowland is in Belgium, there climate is similar so must have had to cope with weather in the past.

In terms of long term impact, nature is incredibly resilient,  the ground would recover almost as quickly as it does now, like you said it is ruined after 1 wet weekend, so the actual additional impact would IMO be negligible. 

Why wouldn't both weekends be televised. Every match at the Rugby World cup has been televised and that goes on for 2 months, we get wall to wall wimbledon coverage everyday for 2 weeks solid. If the viewing figures hold up and there is no reason the won't then Aunty Beeb would oblige. They could also mix up the live streams so that you get to see the Other headliners one week and the Pyramid the next week,  or you get different headliners across both weekends, again looking at Tomorrowland, the line up is not identical across the two weekends. 

[kalifire]

The problem with this idea is it’s a green fields event. The farm takes an absolute battering over five days as it is, to the extent that a second weekend would be an unavoidably inferior experience. 

[Gnomicide]

It's a none starter. Imaging the carparks and campervan fields alone after a year like 2016.

[Quark]

Honestly, no. Sorry.  It's amazing because it is what it is.  Doubling up would undoubtedly water down the magic, so on that basis I'm not a fan of the idea. And as the driver of Glastonbury isn't a profit-maximising enterprise, I wouldn't expect Michael and now Emily to look at it and think they could generate more revenue from a second week. My feeling is that they continue to see it as a special once a year event, although that's purely my speculation.

Ultimately, people are going to miss out.  I'm probably going to come across as some kind of massive "young people of today" Tory (which I'm not btw  ), but people just have to deal with that.  If you miss out on something in life, the world doesn't necessarily have to re-adjust to accommodate that and make you feel better. That doesn't apply to the important stuff like housing, healthcare etc, but for what is essentially a leisure time luxury it's a case of "tough" to be brutal about it.

Full disclosure, I've been massively lucky with tickets and I'm 8 from 8, so I've not had to deal with missing out yet.  But I'd pretty much resigned myself to missing out this year as luck can't hold forever. I'd made my peace with it, and had started scoping out other things I could do instead. Basically the world doesn't owe anyone a Glastonbury ticket.

[dotdash79]

17 minutes ago, SouthbanKen said:

I was going to ask if anyone would be interested in doing both, but then i decided that each registration could only secure one ticket, much like now - sorry, this is aimed at increasing capacity so everyone can enjoy.

I would change my name to Guy Incognito 

[Quark]

1 minute ago, dotdash79 said:

I would change my name to Guy Incognito 

Sorry, @Guy Incognito has already got dibs on that one

[Hugh Jass]

1 minute ago, dotdash79 said:

I would change my name to Guy Incognito 

I think @Guy Incognito might have something to say about that.

[Hugh Jass]

Damn you Quark!

[Quark]

Guy's going to be buzzing with all these notifications though. Man's going to feel like a playa

[squirrelarmy]

Rather than a two weekend festival make it a 7 day festival but sell tickets in 3 different packages. Mon-Thurs and then Fri-Sun. Plus an additional 7 day ticket. 

There wouldn’t be much different in terms of disruption as there is now. 
 

The big negative of doing this is you’d have to make it more of an arena style festival to stop people sneaking in with a 3 day ticket. It just wouldn’t be Glastonbury then. Stupid idea. Don’t even know why I suggested it. 
 

 

[SouthbanKen]

6 minutes ago, Quark said:

Honestly, no. Sorry.  It's amazing because it is what it is.  Doubling up would undoubtedly water down the magic, so on that basis I'm not a fan of the idea. And as the driver of Glastonbury isn't a profit-maximising enterprise, I wouldn't expect Michael and now Emily to look at it and think they could generate more revenue from a second week. My feeling is that they continue to see it as a special once a year event, although that's purely my speculation.

Ultimately, people are going to miss out.  I'm probably going to come across as some kind of massive "young people of today" Tory (which I'm not btw  ), but people just have to deal with that.  If you miss out on something in life, the world doesn't necessarily have to re-adjust to accommodate that and make you feel better. That doesn't apply to the important stuff like housing, healthcare etc, but for what is essentially a leisure time luxury it's a case of "tough" to be brutal about it.

Full disclosure, I've been massively lucky with tickets and I'm 8 from 8, so I've not had to deal with missing out yet.  But I'd pretty much resigned myself to missing out this year as luck can't hold forever. I'd made my peace with it, and had started scoping out other things I could do instead. Basically the world doesn't owe anyone a Glastonbury ticket.

Fully on board with a lot of this, you win some you lose some, and life is what you make of it. Indeed the idea came to me because we did not get tickets (yet ? for the resale) this year and Tomorrowland is a festival i have had my eye on for a while so been seriously looking at that - and it looks amazing, although is almost as difficult to tickets for so i now have more TDay fears. 

My points around the commercial are not about EE / ME maximising profits, but about increasing revenue both for them to drive long term security for the festival, but also importantly for the traders, who are the ones that are really on a knife edge financially and the additional security of a second weekend could really help.  

The one point i disagree on is that doubling up would "water down the magic". Take yourself as an example, whichever weekend you got tickets for, are you going to enjoy it any less because its the second weekend? Are you fuck! Times that by the other 120,000 plus who got tickets and there is your magic.  

[SouthbanKen]

Just now, squirrelarmy said:

Rather than a two weekend festival make it a 7 day festival but sell tickets in 3 different packages. Mon-Thurs and then Fri-Sun. Plus an additional 7 day ticket. 

There wouldn’t be much different in terms of disruption as there is now. 
 

The big negative of doing this is you’d have to make it more of an arena style festival to stop people sneaking in with a 3 day ticket. It just wouldn’t be Glastonbury then. Stupid idea. Don’t even know why I suggested it. 
 

 

Difficult / impossible to police as you say, interesting to see your thought process written out though, so thanks for that ?

[Quark]

1 minute ago, squirrelarmy said:

Rather than a two weekend festival make it a 7 day festival but sell tickets in 3 different packages. Mon-Thurs and then Fri-Sun. Plus an additional 7 day ticket. 

There wouldn’t be much different in terms of disruption as there is now. 
 

The big negative of doing this is you’d have to make it more of an arena style festival to stop people sneaking in with a 3 day ticket. It just wouldn’t be Glastonbury then. Stupid idea. Don’t even know why I suggested it. 
 

 

Love watching people talk themselves out of their own ideas

[Hugh Jass]

5 minutes ago, Quark said:

Love watching people talk themselves out of their own ideas

I did the same thing over on the ticket allocation thread a few minutes ago.

Sometimes it's important just to demonstrate that you are thinking about things...

[stuie]

16 minutes ago, SouthbanKen said:

My points around the commercial are not about EE / ME maximising profits, but about increasing revenue both for them to drive long term security for the festival,

 

The issues relating to the long term security of the festival are:

• Damage to the farm and it's surrounds
• Pollution of the rivers and streams
• Losing co-operation of the locals

All of which would be severely and negatively impacted by your proposal.

 

[Quark]

11 minutes ago, SouthbanKen said:

Fully on board with a lot of this, you win some you lose some, and life is what you make of it. Indeed the idea came to me because we did not get tickets (yet ? for the resale) this year and Tomorrowland is a festival i have had my eye on for a while so been seriously looking at that - and it looks amazing, although is almost as difficult to tickets for so i now have more TDay fears. 

My points around the commercial are not about EE / ME maximising profits, but about increasing revenue both for them to drive long term security for the festival, but also importantly for the traders, who are the ones that are really on a knife edge financially and the additional security of a second weekend could really help.  

The one point i disagree on is that doubling up would "water down the magic". Take yourself as an example, whichever weekend you got tickets for, are you going to enjoy it any less because its the second weekend? Are you fuck! Times that by the other 120,000 plus who got tickets and there is your magic.  

So first up, fingers crossed for resale or finding a decent alternative

If the traders are on a knife edge, would extending the fest help that? Anecdotally the pitch prices for Glastonbury are high anyway, and if they extend the festival then surely the pitch price will increase accordingly for a longer period?  That one is pure guesswork, but I'd be surprised if the pitch price remained the same while allowing them to effectively double revenue?

Also you can't be too arrogant about these sorts of things, but I'm pretty sure the things that would risk the festival's viability aren't going to be revenue based.  Regulatory changes, H&S requirements, pollution of the streams and groundwater, council licensing all seem more likely to be a threat.

The watering down I'd definitely disagree on though.  So the excitement for a punter coming through the gates for round 2 might be the same, but would the setup around it?  Would the traders and bars still be as smiling and enthusiastic for the second go?  Will security and police be as friendly and relaxed (for the most part)?  So much of the atmosphere, for me at least, comes from these kinds of people as from the bands you see.

And taking the bands, you've got two possibilities.  If you get different lineups then the "quality" is unavoidably going to be watered down purely because of the number of bands available.  We bitch enough on here about weak headliners; now imagine them spreading it over 2 weeks!  You'd absolutely end up with a diluted lineup.  And then you've got the situation where you have a legendary appearance one weekend (think Blur 2009, Stevie Wonder 2010, Stones 2013) but the punters for second weekend miss out on that.  The level of kickback it would get from people getting a ticket for the "wrong" weekend would be a nightmare.

Alternatively you get the same lineups, which is probably less likely because of touring schedules, cost etc.  Again, would they be putting on the same level of show 2 weekends on the bounce?  I'm sure some would, but equally some wouldn't.  And again, what about those amazing, one off defining sets you get?  Those special moments sometimes just can't be replicated.

I see where you;re going with this and happy to agree to disagree, but it's a no from me

[eFestivals]

30 minutes ago, squirrelarmy said:

There wouldn’t be much different in terms of disruption as there is now. 

yeah there would - three lots of traffic in & out.

Nowadays that's the part that causes the most disruption, and it can jam up the roads for miles around. For someone trying to get to work that's a big disruption.