Glastonbury in August (or some other non-midsummer date)

[Avalon_Fields]

I guess they’d need to check if Mik Artistik would be available for alternative dates first.

[stuartbert two hats]

3 hours ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

 

@stuartbert two hats this should have been a poll!

You're probably right. I guess I phrased it badly, but I wasn't expecting people to say yes or no - I presumed everyone would want to go if it was moved. I was really looking for how we thought the festival experience would be affected by the change of date. Then again, I've been on here long enough to appreciate that what people actually talk about on a thread is generally more interesting than the reason it was started.

Surely if it did move, nobody on here would actually hand their ticket back???

Edited July 18, 2020 by stuartbert two hats
Even -> been

[Hugh Jass]

1 hour ago, dentalplan said:

This isn't happening, is it? Would be a little worrying if it was. Lady Gaga's show this year was to be the same day in July that she is playing next year.

Most acts I can see have gone like for like in terms of dates next year. Or at least as close as possible.

[incident]

5 hours ago, jparx said:

And on the logistical issues - it’s not really for us to worry about. The question was how would YOU feel about it. Not “list reasons why it’s unlikely”.

Although the logistical issues do have a direct impact on how I personally feel about it.

After this years shitshow, I fully intend to get to as many festivals next year as possible - right now I'm guessing about 7 of them. Any Glastonbury move would likely bugger up those plans significantly. Yeah, personally I'd choose Glastonbury in any clash. But I'd be seriously pissed off that the clash had happened.

[Northern Jack]

If it could be helped - no.

If it was the difference between going ahead or not - without a doubt!

[Quark]

Personally, yes I'd still go and enjoy it.

Realistically with the combination of logistics, availability of acts, and the possibility of it screwing over other festivals in the calendar, I think it would be unlikely to actually happen.

[Quark]

1 hour ago, danbailey80 said:

YES YES YES. For purely relish reasons. I am a primary school teacher and have never arrived before Friday. 

You would possibly get even more children and families if in school hols?

Wouldn't that leave you in a bit of a pickle though?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not even sorry.

[danbailey80]

4 hours ago, Quark said:

Wouldn't that leave you in a bit of a pickle though?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Not even sorry.

Ha! I could not, for the life of me, work out what you were on about then re-read my post!

[danbailey80]

On a rather depressing note: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244297762.html

[dotdash79]

4 minutes ago, danbailey80 said:

On a rather depressing note: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article244297762.html

Maybe he should cancel his 2021 event if he thinks that. 

[Suprefan]

It’s not his decision to make anyway. And if you go listen to the podcast it tackles the business end of it even more than the disease part. Thats what we should be focusing on. How are organizers going to survive and be able to hold events. We know the virus is going to do what it does, but its everything else. As its been talked about that Glasto would  potentially go bankrupt if they skipped 2 years in a row even with their reserves, what of everyone else thats smaller?

 

here in LA we just lost our second small venue to covid and there seems to be another one coming which will be significant because its apparently a prominent venue. So if we are at the tip of the iceberg of closures, imagine in a year?

Edited July 18, 2020 by Suprefan

[stuartbert two hats]

6 minutes ago, dotdash79 said:

Maybe he should cancel his 2021 event if he thinks that. 

That logic sounds a bit like "if you think Glastonbury 2021 is going to be cancelled then you should give your ticket back".  Thinking you might not be able to put on an event doesn't mean you should cancel it.

[Suprefan]

You should also keep in mind its kinda focusing on North America more than anywhere, because if the rest of the world is “fine” why bother touring the u.s if its off limits. We’ll suffer the most and artists just will make the living abroad for the time being

Edited July 18, 2020 by Suprefan

[Crazyfool01]

6 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

That logic sounds a bit like "if you think Glastonbury 2021 is going to be cancelled then you should give your ticket back".  Thinking you might not be able to put on an event doesn't mean you should cancel it.

Haven’t we been here before ?  

[fatyeti24]

6 hours ago, danbailey80 said:

YES YES YES. For purely relish reasons. I am a primary school teacher and have never arrived before Friday. 

 

 

 

 

So you've missed 40% of every Glastonbury? 

I hope your pupils appreciate you!

[dotdash79]

3 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

That logic sounds a bit like "if you think Glastonbury 2021 is going to be cancelled then you should give your ticket back".  Thinking you might not be able to put on an event doesn't mean you should cancel it.

It sounds like but it isn’t, if you are running an event that you might not think will happen are you going to put full effort into it? Or book that act that might be a little risky? Or try to improve it at all?

[March Hare]

I’d rather it wasn’t later in the year as I like the way it’s kicks off my summer.  I’ve already got 2-3 festivals lined up for late July-late August and would hate to have to ditch one.  Bloody love Green Man - don’t make me choose between them!!

Edited July 18, 2020 by March Hare

[Leyrulion]

So the problems with moving so far would be

1) stages/fences being used at other festivals

I'm probably naive but if the companies that make stages know there's going to be extra demand for them in August could they not just make more and charge extra for it? 

2) Areas like SE Corner being committed to other festivals e.g. boomtown. 

If it wasn't a direct clash they could  try to make both work to get the income they've not had this year.Otherwise SE Corner might be not as great for a year, but that's alright. 

 If it was August there wouldn't be a clash with awakenings festival so the dance line up could actually be even stronger.

 

 

[incident]

3 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

2) Areas like SE Corner being committed to other festivals e.g. boomtown. 

If it wasn't a direct clash they could  try to make both work to get the income they've not had this year.Otherwise SE Corner might be not as great for a year, but that's alright.

Problem is (large chunks of) the SE Corner crew doubling at Boomtown was just an example, and it was one of many. It wouldn't need to be a direct clash to cause problems - Boomtown has approximately a month long build, starting mid-July - a lot of the crew pretty much finish the break at Glastonbury and go straight there. There's no possible scenario under which both would be viable for any crew involved in the build (ie the most important crew) if Glastonbury was moved back by more than about a week or two.

The build (and to a lesser extent break) time thing affects the whole festival, not just the SE Corner. It even affects food (and all other) stalls - unlike every other festival on the circuit, Glastonbury requires traders to arrive on site on the Saturday & Sunday before the festival - the festival is lucrative enough that asking them to give up a relatively quiet weekend in mid June is viable - would they be as willing to give up a prime weekend in the summer holidays?

Some other direct conflicts, off the top of my head so there'll be plenty I missed or just don't know about:
- Key people in the Avalon Stage crew also run Cambridge Folk Festival at the start of August
- Large chunks of the T&C crew & performers are tied up throughout most of August at Edinburgh
- Many of those that aren't in Edinburgh perform in Covent Garden and the like, with August being by far their peak season for income
- Quite a few of the smaller venues (Bimble Inn, Small World Stage, Lizard Stage, amongst others) tour around other events and/or run their own festivals.

It's not understating it to say, if Glastonbury did attempt to move the festival back to August, then the festival overall would be diminished more than you can possibly imagine. More than I can imagine either, as I'm certain there'll be dozens, if not hundreds, of conflicts I've got no idea about.

But GFL know this and I can confidently say they never would do it. There's more chance of Nick Cave, Emeli Sande, and Foals headlining the Pyramid next year.

[Leyrulion]

39 minutes ago, incident said:

Problem is (large chunks of) the SE Corner crew doubling at Boomtown was just an example, and it was one of many. It wouldn't need to be a direct clash to cause problems - Boomtown has approximately a month long build, starting mid-July - a lot of the crew pretty much finish the break at Glastonbury and go straight there. There's no possible scenario under which both would be viable for any crew involved in the build (ie the most important crew) if Glastonbury was moved back by more than about a week or two.

The build (and to a lesser extent break) time thing affects the whole festival, not just the SE Corner. It even affects food (and all other) stalls - unlike every other festival on the circuit, Glastonbury requires traders to arrive on site on the Saturday & Sunday before the festival - the festival is lucrative enough that asking them to give up a relatively quiet weekend in mid June is viable - would they be as willing to give up a prime weekend in the summer holidays?

Some other direct conflicts, off the top of my head so there'll be plenty I missed or just don't know about:
- Key people in the Avalon Stage crew also run Cambridge Folk Festival at the start of August
- Large chunks of the T&C crew & performers are tied up throughout most of August at Edinburgh
- Many of those that aren't in Edinburgh perform in Covent Garden and the like, with August being by far their peak season for income
- Quite a few of the smaller venues (Bimble Inn, Small World Stage, Lizard Stage, amongst others) tour around other events and/or run their own festivals.

It's not understating it to say, if Glastonbury did attempt to move the festival back to August, then the festival overall would be diminished more than you can possibly imagine. More than I can imagine either, as I'm certain there'll be dozens, if not hundreds, of conflicts I've got no idea about.

But GFL know this and I can confidently say they never would do it. There's more chance of Nick Cave, Emeli Sande, and Foals headlining the Pyramid next year.

Wow, ok so my thinking of "surely you could muddle through, give the newbies or up and coming outfits a chance to have a go at things" is clearly not gonna fly. 

Its truly amazing how interconnected it all is, which I guess is kind of obvious when you think about it.

[stuie]

14 hours ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Surely if it did move, nobody on here would actually hand their ticket back???

It depends when it moves to. If it’s a week either side of Awakenings or Noisily then I’d be missing my first Glasto in the last ten, since I first went 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

9 hours ago, incident said:

Problem is (large chunks of) the SE Corner crew doubling at Boomtown was just an example, and it was one of many. It wouldn't need to be a direct clash to cause problems - Boomtown has approximately a month long build, starting mid-July - a lot of the crew pretty much finish the break at Glastonbury and go straight there. There's no possible scenario under which both would be viable for any crew involved in the build (ie the most important crew) if Glastonbury was moved back by more than about a week or two.

The build (and to a lesser extent break) time thing affects the whole festival, not just the SE Corner. It even affects food (and all other) stalls - unlike every other festival on the circuit, Glastonbury requires traders to arrive on site on the Saturday & Sunday before the festival - the festival is lucrative enough that asking them to give up a relatively quiet weekend in mid June is viable - would they be as willing to give up a prime weekend in the summer holidays?

Some other direct conflicts, off the top of my head so there'll be plenty I missed or just don't know about:
- Key people in the Avalon Stage crew also run Cambridge Folk Festival at the start of August
- Large chunks of the T&C crew & performers are tied up throughout most of August at Edinburgh
- Many of those that aren't in Edinburgh perform in Covent Garden and the like, with August being by far their peak season for income
- Quite a few of the smaller venues (Bimble Inn, Small World Stage, Lizard Stage, amongst others) tour around other events and/or run their own festivals.

It's not understating it to say, if Glastonbury did attempt to move the festival back to August, then the festival overall would be diminished more than you can possibly imagine. More than I can imagine either, as I'm certain there'll be dozens, if not hundreds, of conflicts I've got no idea about.

But GFL know this and I can confidently say they never would do it. There's more chance of Nick Cave, Emeli Sande, and Foals headlining the Pyramid next year.

Yeah that’s why it’s all moot, really. Glastonbury is the king, every other festival and everyone connected to them plans around it to some degree. When it’s not on IOW often move their festival to the same weekend, but obviously wouldn’t do that when Glastonbury was on. Glastonbury are the least commercial enterprise out of all of them, so there is no way they’d move the festival if it would have a negative impact on another one, it’s just not their style especially with the current climate putting such a strain on the industry as whole. 

[stuartbert two hats]

We are talking about the same festival that booked The Who as headliner despite them having a sold out date in Paris for that night.

We might be surprised what they might do when under an existential threat. Hopefully it's all academic and there will be no problem going ahead at the normal date.

[Paul ™]

10 hours ago, Leyrulion said:

So the problems with moving so far would be

1) stages/fences being used at other festivals

I'm probably naive but if the companies that make stages know there's going to be extra demand for them in August could they not just make more and charge extra for it? 

2) Areas like SE Corner being committed to other festivals e.g. boomtown. 

If it wasn't a direct clash they could  try to make both work to get the income they've not had this year.Otherwise SE Corner might be not as great for a year, but that's alright. 

 If it was August there wouldn't be a clash with awakenings festival so the dance line up could actually be even stronger.

 

 

I won't go into too much on your 2nd point as incident again has covered most of it. Also regards to crew, as incident states many go on from build - break on a run of events over the summer, I know guys that do straight Glastonbury > Latitude > Boomtown > Reading etc for weeks at a time, there is a huge crossover and moving G would mess that all up. 
I worked Glastonbury many times doing security, we would have 500+ staff on site for around a week, and moving it to the August BH for example would create a nightmare as that weekend they have 800+ staff at Reading! 

In regards to the 1st point, it's not just as simple as making extra stages. The main player in the market (Serious Stages) who are based very local to the festival, custom design and make pretty much all the bigger stages that tour the festival circuit. It's not feasible to just make some extras as they wouldn't be used the majority of the time. 
 

[Zoo Music Girl]

Genuinely amazed by the amount of festivals some of you can afford to do in a year! Thought I was doing alright for money but seven would bankrupt me. Suppose I shouldn't be that surprised on a festival forum but still.