No indoor stages?

[Mardy]

I think the reason the JP can't be open air is sound pollution, it's the village end of the site, right? Hence the late night stuff all being the other end of the festival, further away from residents

[stuartbert two hats]

JP could be open air. For a soundsystem that large, the tent doesn't do a great deal for keeping the levels down. The secret sauce is all in the Martin Audio MLA Compact, used by JP and West Holts which has no problems with sound bleed.

John Peel is one of the very lowest hanging fruit.

[Crazyfool01]

17 minutes ago, Mardy said:

I think the reason the JP can't be open air is sound pollution, it's the village end of the site, right? Hence the late night stuff all being the other end of the festival, further away from residents

Jp has effectively gone ahead as an open air stage for the pilton party though last few years  ... I know it’s a couple of nights less but I’m sure it could be wangled with incentives 

[Hugh Jass]

Makes you wonder how few tickets were actually returned for the festival to decide a sale isn’t worth it. Considering cash flow will be incredibly tight and every thousand tickets would be worth 50 grand (before See and others take their share).

Going to play devil’s advocate for a minute... The issue here is simple, to reduce amenities they need to reduce the number of ticket holders, but they’ve already sold all the tickets. So how could it be done?

If they stated publicly that Glastonbury 2021 will go ahead but drastically reduced in scope they could:

Offer all current ticket holders the opportunity to voluntarily defer their deposits until 22 when the festival will be back up to full strength and hope enough people do to allow a reduced capacity.

Defer all tickets to 22 and sell GF21 as an entirely separate event.

Randomly pick people to go this year and those to defer - the nuclear option, not advisable.

[fred quimby]

I am not sure the tent thing works at Glastonbury.

Imagine the SE Corner, I know some is open but you need to reduce capacity there and have a one out and one in system maybe and just everyone else roaming the site. Pyramid field gets packed now, imagine all those other people coming along to watch bands they are not really interested in

 

I am with @Hugh Jassnot sure I see how it works, but we will see.

 

 

[mazola]

Just because there has been virtually no ticket refunds requested, doesn't mean everyone is still intending to go. At the moment you need to actively work to get the refund, there will still be plenty of people who don't pay the balance when it comes to it.

[Hugh Jass]

2 minutes ago, mazola said:

Just because there has been virtually no ticket refunds requested, doesn't mean everyone is still intending to go. At the moment you need to actively work to get the refund, there will still be plenty of people who don't pay the balance when it comes to it.

No, but that’s not until April and they will need to make the go/no go decision before then.

This year they pulled it just before balances were due.

[zahidf]

Reading arent reducing capacity though. Going ahead on the assumption of full capacity. 

It;; be the same for glasto. Either no social distancing or no festival

 

[Tommy101]

I'd be very surprised if a UK festival is planning to have no shelter from the elements for punters no matter what time of year it is. 

[incident]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

Reading arent reducing capacity though. Going ahead on the assumption of full capacity. 

It;; be the same for glasto. Either no social distancing or no festival

Yep.

If Reading+Leeds really are cutting one or two stages, and moving the rest outdoors, then I have to think it's either for cost saving, or marketing (they've already got a decent amount of publicity out of "2 main stages / 6 headliners"), or most likely some combination of the two and not because it'll actually make it more likely to go ahead.

Yes, on average indoors is considered more risky than outdoors but that's far from the only factor. When you've got a load of people crammed together at the front of a stage singing and shouting in unison, that'll still be considered a substantial risk regardless of whether there's a roof or not.

[SwedgeAntilles]

41 minutes ago, Hugh Jass said:

Makes you wonder how few tickets were actually returned for the festival to decide a sale isn’t worth it. Considering cash flow will be incredibly tight and every thousand tickets would be worth 50 grand (before See and others take their share).

Going to play devil’s advocate for a minute... The issue here is simple, to reduce amenities they need to reduce the number of ticket holders, but they’ve already sold all the tickets. So how could it be done?

If they stated publicly that Glastonbury 2021 will go ahead but drastically reduced in scope they could:

Offer all current ticket holders the opportunity to voluntarily defer their deposits until 22 when the festival will be back up to full strength and hope enough people do to allow a reduced capacity.

Defer all tickets to 22 and sell GF21 as an entirely separate event.

Randomly pick people to go this year and those to defer - the nuclear option, not advisable.

I'm still surprised this part isn't what the decided to do from the beginning. Don't get me wrong, as a ticket holder for this year I was delighted that they rolled them over but I do wonder now, with the benefit of hindsight, if they've booked themselves into a bit of a corner with that decision.

[eFestivals]

35 minutes ago, Tommy101 said:

I'd be very surprised if a UK festival is planning to have no shelter from the elements for punters no matter what time of year it is. 

it's how they all used to be. They can be again.

Edited September 1, 2020 by eFestivals

[eFestivals]

30 minutes ago, incident said:

If Reading+Leeds really are cutting one or two stages, and moving the rest outdoors, then I have to think it's either for cost saving, or marketing (they've already got a decent amount of publicity out of "2 main stages / 6 headliners"), or most likely some combination of the two and not because it'll actually make it more likely to go ahead.

I think it's both, but I also think it makes it more likely to go ahead too.

I've no idea what's happening with their other stages, but by making a decision now to have 2 outdoor stages they're maximising their chances of being able to go ahead and present at least 2 stages of music.

(it also allows them to book a few fewer bands across those two stages - and Live Nation are deeply in the financial shit at the mo).

[sadimmock]

1 hour ago, Hugh Jass said:

Makes you wonder how few tickets were actually returned for the festival to decide a sale isn’t worth it. Considering cash flow will be incredibly tight and every thousand tickets would be worth 50 grand (before See and others take their share).

Going to play devil’s advocate for a minute... The issue here is simple, to reduce amenities they need to reduce the number of ticket holders, but they’ve already sold all the tickets. So how could it be done?

If they stated publicly that Glastonbury 2021 will go ahead but drastically reduced in scope they could:

Offer all current ticket holders the opportunity to voluntarily defer their deposits until 22 when the festival will be back up to full strength and hope enough people do to allow a reduced capacity.

Defer all tickets to 22 and sell GF21 as an entirely separate event.

Randomly pick people to go this year and those to defer - the nuclear option, not advisable.

If this is the case (and I suspect that they haven't made any decisions on scaling down yet) hen there are no good solutions. As you say randomly selecting ticket-holders for the 21 mini-Glastonbury is a PR disaster in waiting. 

However I'm not sure that allowing people to defer until 22 is a great idea either. The festival will have an idea of how many regular festival goers missed out on 20 tickets and I do think that there may be some nervousness about significantly reducing the amount of tickets available to them in 22. 

Anyway I don't think that any significant decisions will be taken until after Christmas. 

[fred quimby]

Bring back the outdoor Cinema field

[stuartbert two hats]

Consolidating multiple indoor venues into a fewer number of larger outdoor stages does seem like a good idea to reduce costs and shrink crowds.  It would take away some of the variety and vibrancy of the festival, but it does seems doable.

Whether it's worth it or not is another question.  But it's not out of the question, especially with some of the fancy noise cancelling PAs I'm fond of banging on about.

EDIT: The reason I say "reduce crowds" is because you're going to have fewer people milling around between stages, making more efficient use of the space. 

Edited September 1, 2020 by stuartbert two hats

[Ryan1984]

9 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Bring back the outdoor Cinema field

And the ‘football field’ that appeared in 2010?

[incident]

6 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

EDIT: The reason I say "reduce crowds" is because you're going to have fewer people milling around between stages, making more efficient use of the space. 

The problem is still that of the various "types" of crowd (big stage crowds, mass movement, people milling around, people bimbling around, sat people watching, etc etc (we could come up with 3 dozen variants I'm sure), you've essentially targetted the least problematic type, and in doing so have probably made the most problematic types bigger / worse.

if you're in a situation where you need to take steps like that, then you're in a situation where you can't hold the festival at least not without cutting it down to an almost unrecognisable and undesirable level.

[eFestivals]

10 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Consolidating multiple indoor venues into a fewer number of larger outdoor stages does seem like a good idea to reduce costs and shrink crowds. 

I don't see how that shrinks crowds. It makes for bigger crowds.

If there's an issue with indoor stages, the only thing I see happening is those stages being taken outside - if possible; there might be a shortage of outdoor stage structures.

I can't see number reductions either. With most tickets sold already the reduction they could do would be pretty insignificant.

[Crazyfool01]

Is there any space they could use from elsewhere to enlarge the site at all ? Same number of stages ... probably been explored already though , I guess the most inefficient and probably safest use of space would be the camping areas ?

Edited September 1, 2020 by crazyfool1

[thrillhouse188]

It's unlikely, but worth mentioning that while certain reductions/changes might not practically help in reducing spread, that doesn't mean they could still be put in place purely to pass whatever arbitrary limitations the government sets

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 minute ago, thrillhouse188 said:

It's unlikely, but worth mentioning that while certain reductions/changes might not practically help in reducing spread, that doesn't mean they could still be put in place purely to pass whatever arbitrary limitations the government sets

Yeah I was making this point the other day. We all know that reducing numbers won't stop those that are there from crowding together. But if they can say "look we've reduced the numbers so people can distance more" that might be enough to go ahead.

 

[Leyrulion]

4 hours ago, Hugh Jass said:

At a quick glance, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, the following areas/venues would be affected;

John Peel, Acoustic, Avalon, Stonebridge, Rabbit Hole, Crow’s Nest, the Glade, Croissant Neuf, Left Field, Williams Green, most of the Dance Village, most of the SE Corner, Theatre/Circus fields, the whole of the Green/Healing/Craft Fields, most of the bars and the markets...

It’s simply not workable.

Acoustic is in a corner couldn't that go outdoors? Give people in the cinema next to it wireless headphones and it'd work. 

SE Corner already has temple, truth stage, gas tower, iicon, samula that are outdoors. They could rework a couple of the current indoors ones to be outdoors and/or make the current stages bigger to accommodate fewer indoor venues.

Circus field you just do an open top tent.

Isn't the glade sorta outside anyway? Just leave it in the trees.

A lot of the healing/craft field I reckon you could do queue systems and only allow 5/6 people in at a time. Assuming the restriction is mass indoor events. A lot of it is also outside. 

I think it's not maybe quite as drastic as it first sounds , definitely a lot of it could be reworked with some planning. Everything except the indoor pubs which might just have to miss a year.

 

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by Leyrulion
Words

[incident]

2 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

Acoustic is in a corner couldn't that go outdoors? Give people in the cinema next to it wireless headphones and it'd work. 

No.

Even if you took out the Cinema it wouldn't work - the Acoustic already suffers a bit from being too close to the Pyramid field (though not as badly as it used to). Take away the tent and there's genuinely no point having a stage at that location, at least not one programmed like that.

[thrillhouse188]

16 minutes ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

Yeah I was making this point the other day. We all know that reducing numbers won't stop those that are there from crowding together. But if they can say "look we've reduced the numbers so people can distance more" that might be enough to go ahead.

 

Yeah. Even something like government saying 'no indoor venues over X', meaning certain tents either can't open or are converted to outdoor, honestly who knows anymore. I've reached the point where I'm almost expecting it to not go ahead so I can't be disappointed