No indoor stages?

[Matt42]

Reading have supposedly axed all their indoor stages.

Is this something Glastonbury could replicate?

How would you feel if the JP etc and other tents had to take a break for a year?

NFR NFC!

[jparx]

Can't see how it's possible at Glastonbury. The festival either happens as normal, or it doesn't happen at all. Glastonbury without all the smaller tents, SE corner stages etc. just isn't Glastonbury.

[Hugh Jass]

It’s easy for R/L as they’ve only got three or four indoor stages.

Try that with three or four hundred stages/bars/micro venues/etc.

[Leyrulion]

I think the key question is what would be the noise implications if the John Peel tent, Williams Green, Acoustic Tent etc were outdoors?

How much Impact would it have on current stages, would the noise bleed be too high?

 

[Matt42]

3 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

It’s easy for R/L as they’ve only got three or four indoor stages.

Try that with three or four hundred stages/bars/micro venues/etc.

 

4 minutes ago, jparx said:

Can't see how it's possible at Glastonbury. The festival either happens as normal, or it doesn't happen at all. Glastonbury without all the smaller tents, SE corner stages etc. just isn't Glastonbury.

Perhaps it’s only indoor venues with a certain capacity? Idk it all seems a bit random.

Although R&L seem to be indicating that big or small they won’t have any tents. The guy who leaked the headliners (earlier today and no one believed him - bless him!) also said that the pit has been scrapped too. 

[Matt42]

6 minutes ago, jparx said:

Can't see how it's possible at Glastonbury. The festival either happens as normal, or it doesn't happen at all. Glastonbury without all the smaller tents, SE corner stages etc. just isn't Glastonbury.

I really think we need to prepare ourselves for a downsized year.

Emily did say she’d do whatever it takes to have the festival go ahead. I think 2021 will be a one off year where things are slightly different.

[mattiloy]

I often spend a fair bit of time between Billy Greens, JP and leftfield during the days, maybe the odd something at the acoustic. Hard to imagine it without getting sweatily bashed about at some noisy band on their way up. Would be a sorry affair.

I also wonder if it would help much. Bill Greens gets a bit close and personal sometimes but nowhere near as much as front and centre on the big stages during a headliner, outside or not that is a coronaviruses wet dream.

[whitehorses]

19 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

 

Perhaps it’s only indoor venues with a certain capacity? Idk it all seems a bit random.

Although R&L seem to be indicating that big or small they won’t have any tents. The guy who leaked the headliners (earlier today and no one believed him - bless him!) also said that the pit has been scrapped too. 

Where are they indicating this? I couldn’t see it. And do you have a link to the tweeting leaker? Cheers 

[Hugh Jass]

38 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

I really think we need to prepare ourselves for a downsized year.

Emily did say she’d do whatever it takes to have the festival go ahead. I think 2021 will be a one off year where things are slightly different.

As several people have explained on other threads, it’s almost impossible to downsize Glastonbury.

They have at least 120k punters with tickets for next year. Downsizing simply isn’t an option.

[incident]

To be blunt about it, if R+L are really going to make their second stage comparable size/capacity and more importantly volume, as their existing main stage, then anything else they put outdoors is a waste of time anyway. Their site is so small that anything else will get wrecked by sound bleed. The entire arena area at Reading isn't all that much bigger than the Pyramid field and so it's inevitable that they'd have to sacrifice a stage or two if they want a "second main stage".

At Glastonbury? Fuck no. Awful idea, that should be reserved for awful festivals.

[Hugh Jass]

Reading/Leeds are arena festivals, meaning it’s easy to limit the number of people inside the main arena and even control where they go and congregate.

Glastonbury is just a bloody great big field, once you’re past the fence there are very few restrictions in terms of where you can go. Downsizing will just mean a higher concentration of people in the areas that are open. 

[efcfanwirral]

50 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

 

Perhaps it’s only indoor venues with a certain capacity? Idk it all seems a bit random.

Although R&L seem to be indicating that big or small they won’t have any tents. The guy who leaked the headliners (earlier today and no one believed him - bless him!) also said that the pit has been scrapped too. 

Personally I'd be surprised if its capacity led - the idea will be that the virus would spread really easily in a packed enclosed environment (I'm sure we've all experienced the sweat off the ceiling situation....). Outdoor only seems like the most sensible option to get some live music going next year, especially if the return of indoor gigs keeps getting pushed, and in light of what we know about the virus and where it seems to spread now.

I posted in the Reading thread earlier that I think they've done really well thinking of this early, as plenty of festivals have announced lineups that are clearly very much assuming a return to "business as usual", and if that rule was to come in some could really struggle to get the tent stages outside in a way that offers a decent experience. Or indeed is even possible at all with noise restrictions, space etc. 

If somehow things are normal, at worst Reading are first to bring the two main stage / no clashes European festival concept to the UK as an experiment and can just throw a couple of the usual tents on. Fair to say they haven't exactly shelled out on some of those headliners...

Where this type of ruling would leave Glastonbury is as has been stated I guess - a huge adaptation to outdoor only. I'm sure they'd make it work, and I'm sure if Melvin Benn is on it then Glastonbury will have been advised to make a contingency along these lines. But the turnaround time from when we'll know if it's necessary or not to build could be really short. We need to see how the whole winter plays out 

Edited August 31, 2020 by efcfanwirral

[Gnomicide]

Solved it.

[Ryan1984]

So, are we thinking Reading goes ahead with JUST the two ‘main’ stages next year then?

Crying shame if they lose the Festival Republic, comedy, Pit and dance tent.

[efcfanwirral]

11 minutes ago, incident said:

To be blunt about it, if R+L are really going to make their second stage comparable size/capacity and more importantly volume, as their existing main stage, then anything else they put outdoors is a waste of time anyway. Their site is so small that anything else will get wrecked by sound bleed. The entire arena area at Reading isn't all that much bigger than the Pyramid field and so it's inevitable that they'd have to sacrifice a stage or two if they want a "second main stage".

At Glastonbury? Fuck no. Awful idea, that should be reserved for awful festivals.

You could possibly have a small outdoor stage where the Lockup/Festival Republic stages are, and only have bands on there when the other main stage at the other side of the site is on, and then the same up the other end by having one instead of the funfair.

The outdoor BBC Introducing in the middle of the site surprisingly didnt suffer from the main stage sound bleed too badly last year so a couple that size dotted about could be ok. 

That's just for Reading from last year's layout, I thankfully haven't set foot in Leeds Festival for nearly 10 years 😂

Hedging their bets for now I guess just to see what the rules are

 

Edited August 31, 2020 by efcfanwirral

[Matt42]

6 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

Hedging their bets for now I guess just to see what the rules are

 

Exactly - I wonder if FR reached out to the government for advice on how to plan the festival.

Glasto might suck if they can’t have indoor venues, but if it is the difference of the festival being cancelled or not I imagine they will go for whatever keeps the event on.

[Matt42]

44 minutes ago, whitehorses said:

Where are they indicating this? I couldn’t see it. And do you have a link to the tweeting leaker? Cheers 

2 mainstages, no NME tent, @WhoOdyssey has heard there is no pit + no mention of the FR stage nor any artists that look likely to play it yet.

Someone else did mention that there were no indoor venues but I can’t find the post. There were a lot of posts in the R&L section today.

Edited August 31, 2020 by Matt42

[Hugh Jass]

7 minutes ago, Matt42 said:

Exactly - I wonder if FR reached out to the government for advice on how to plan the festival.

Glasto might suck if they can’t have indoor venues, but if it is the difference of the festival being cancelled or not I imagine they will go for whatever keeps the event on.

And what will they do with the 120k+ people who already have tickets?

That’s the number one issue here, you can’t reduce size or venues or anything else with that number of punters on site.

[whitehorses]

@Matt42 thanks  interesting 

[whitehorses]

2 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

And what will they do with the 120k+ people who already have tickets?

That’s the number one issue here, you can’t reduce size or venues or anything else with that number of punters on site.

If anything you’d increase venues and size of venues. 

[Matt42]

2 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

And what will they do with the 120k+ people who already have tickets?

That’s the number one issue here, you can’t reduce size or venues or anything else with that number of punters on site.

Perhaps rejig the site? Create more room in the other field etc if the JP isn’t in use.

Theres loads they can do.

[Matt42]

1 minute ago, whitehorses said:

If anything you’d increase venues and size of venues. 

Exactly. Increase crowd capacity for the outdoor stages.

@Hugh Jass apologies if I’m unclear but I wish there was a better word I can use than downsize. By downsize I mean less stages, not less people. The stages they do have - a site rejig to hold more people / larger crowds.

All I’m focusing on is R&L supposedly cutting tents and increasing the capacity for outdoor stages. Something Glastonbury can easily do. This isn’t about making crowds smaller if the emphasis is on them being outside.

[Leyrulion]

I wonder if for Glastonbury it would make that much difference with no internal stages. A lot of the SE corner is actually outdoors now with the new layout. 

You could do queues outside tents in the healing fields. 

Circus tent you erect something similar to the current temple in SE corner.

Expand the use headphones, like in the silent disco for the cinema tents. 

Rabbit hole would just be even harder to get into. 

Some of the bars like stone bridge and bimble inn and avalon would be trickier. But they could just not put roofs on them in the build, or only cover the staff areas?

[kaytee...]

Seems like a daft move given that it's rained at more Leeds fests I've been to than not. Also the atmosphere in tents is often miles better than outdoors. Not to mention less space between stages than Glasto would have. Melvin's fucked it if true.

[Hutchmaster]

1 minute ago, Matt42 said:

Perhaps rejig the site? Create more room in the other field etc if the JP isn’t in use.

Theres loads they can do.

But, unless there's a price reduction, wouldn't that piss off your average punter if they're essentially getting a reduced service? I know most of us here are "Glasto at any cost", but I can imagine some people feeling short changed if they're still paying full whack. I know Glasto is incredible value as it is, but still.