Ban flags in front of the stages

[Hugh Jass II]

Just now, Quark said:

Thoroughly enjoyed it myself.

What it is with you and telling people how bad sets were when they actually enjoyed them anyway? 😉

I wasn't even at Springsteen, I went to see Jarvis Cocker, just going on what I was told afterwards....

[Hugh Jass II]

1 minute ago, Quark said:

Thoroughly enjoyed it myself.

What it is with you and telling people how bad sets were when they actually enjoyed them anyway? 😉

ELO were shite though.

[Quark]

2 minutes ago, Hugh Jass II said:

ELO were shite though.

That's the nibble I was after 😄

[Memory Man]

35 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

While I agree I wonder if there's genuine concerns about being caught out with disability discrimination on that one.

Thats a fair point i hadnt thought of!

[DeanoL]

I think you can tell even from this thread, the problem is that people have all sorts of different opinions on what is and is not acceptable, and a lot of the time people have pretty much zero empathy for anyone else. 

The flags look cool in the field. They are also annoying if in the way of my view. But I can always move somewhere else and am not at the Pyramid much anyway. I'd rather we not have them but not going to campaign for them to be banned. Banning them from in front of the barrier just fixes the problem for those who are stood in front of the barrier (and probably makes it worse for everyone else unless those folk give up their flags entirely).

Sometimes people will push past you just before the band starts to get a better view. Sometimes they are just trying to get back to their mates. Neither is more or less valid than the other, you're still pushing in front of people, it happens at gigs, getting there early doesn't guarantee you your space, but neither does having your mates further in. 

If you're a short person, you need a bit of space in front of you in order to be able to see over the people in front of you. Should you therefore be entitled to keep that space to yourself? No. But are you being greedy by trying to give yourself a chance of seeing the act by not letting through people making it quite clear they want to stand there? No. But equally if the band is just about to start and you're barging through because there's "loads of space" doesn't mean you're not necessarily ruining someone else's gig. Seriously, if you're tall, next time you're in a crowd, crouch down so your head is level with the shortest person nearby. It'll give you a whole new perspective (literally) on gigs. "Oh yeah, I can sort of see now but if someone stands in that space in front of me I'm fucked".

Are there annoying, entitled people sat with picnic blankets and camping chairs near the front? Sure. But there are also people that maybe want to see three acts on the same stage in a row but are physically unable to stand for that long. So maybe they have a camping chair they sit in between acts. Yes, it's a tripping hazard when you're trying to get to the front. Deal with it. Likewise if a group set up at the Pyramid field early in the day on a picnic blanket, at a point where for the first few acts it's totally reasonable, its easy to get lost in talking to mates, drinking, and not realising that actually you're sat in the middle of a much bigger crowd. It's not okay for them to get entitled about that space but it's also possibly they're just not really aware. Should they be more self aware? Maybe. But it's a bloody festival, how self aware are you at 3am in the naughty corner? 

To be honest I've mostly stopped going down the front at gigs for all but my favourite artists. In large part because I've ended up hyper aware of all this and it just stresses me out. I worry someone will ruin my view, I worry someone will ruin my partner's view, I worry I will ruin someone elses' view  - I'm somewhat jealous of those who can just turn that part of their brain off and enjoy it. But I think it'd also help many people to have some degree of awareness of how people are different, about how their way of enjoying the festival is not the "one and only way" - that the flag wavers and picnic brigade and camping chair lot are all just trying to enjoy the festival on their own terms too, there is no one right way. And you can do what I do and end up hyper-stressed about how any action you take might negatively impact those around you, or you can just accept that some of your actions might negatively impact part of the festival for someone else and at some point other's actions will do the same to you and just live with it as that's what massive open-air festivals with no rules are.

People setting off flares can fuck off though. 😄

Edited March 9, 2022 by DeanoL

[MrZigster]

44 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Paying tens of thousands of pounds for VIP tickets hence keeping ticket prices down for the rest of us. 

A fair point. But tens of thousands? Really that much? Plus I think the bits I am referring to are more likely to be crew/working in some capacity. Our crew campsite was comparable with a punter one cramped-ness wise and outside the fence.

[MrZigster]

10 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

I think you can tell even from this thread, the problem is that people have all sorts of different opinions on what is and is not acceptable, and a lot of the time people have pretty much zero empathy for anyone else. 

The flags look cool in the field. They are also annoying if in the way of my view. But I can always move somewhere else and am not at the Pyramid much anyway. I'd rather we not have them but not going to campaign for them to be banned. Banning them from in front of the barrier just fixes the problem for those who are stood in front of the barrier (and probably makes it worse for everyone else unless those folk give up their flags entirely).

Sometimes people will push past you just before the band starts to get a better view. Sometimes they are just trying to get back to their mates. Neither is more or less valid than the other, you're still pushing in front of people, it happens at gigs, getting there early doesn't guarantee you your space, but neither does having your mates further in. 

If you're a short person, you need a bit of space in front of you in order to be able to see over the people in front of you. Should you therefore be entitled to keep that space to yourself? No. But are you being greedy by trying to give yourself a chance of seeing the act by not letting through people making it quite clear they want to stand there? No. But equally if the band is just about to start and you're barging through because there's "loads of space" doesn't mean you're not necessarily ruining someone else's gig. Seriously, if you're tall, next time you're in a crowd, crouch down so your head is level with the shortest person nearby. It'll give you a whole new perspective (literally) on gigs. "Oh yeah, I can sort of see now but if someone stands in that space in front of me I'm fucked".

Are there annoying, entitled people sat with picnic blankets and camping chairs near the front? Sure. But there are also people that maybe want to see three acts on the same stage in a row but are physically unable to stand for that long. So maybe they have a camping chair they sit in between acts. Yes, it's a tripping hazard when you're trying to get to the front. Deal with it. Likewise if a group set up at the Pyramid field early in the day on a picnic blanket, at a point where for the first few acts it's totally reasonable, its easy to get lost in talking to mates, drinking, and not realising that actually you're sat in the middle of a much bigger crowd. It's not okay for them to get entitled about that space but it's also possibly they're just not really aware. Should they be more self aware? Maybe. But it's a bloody festival, how self aware are you at 3am in the naughty corner? 

To be honest I've mostly stopped going down the front at gigs for all but my favourite artists. In large part because I've ended up hyper aware of all this and it just stresses me out. I worry someone will ruin my view, I worry someone will ruin my partner's view, I worry I will ruin someone elses' view  - I'm somewhat jealous of those who can just turn that part of their brain off and enjoy it. But I think it'd also help many people to have some degree of awareness of how people are different, about how their way of enjoying the festival is not the "one and only way" - that the flag wavers and picnic brigade and camping chair lot are all just trying to enjoy the festival on their own terms too, there is no one right way. And you can do what I do and end up hyper-stressed about how any action you take might negatively impact those around you, or you can just accept that some of your actions might negatively impact part of the festival for someone else and at some point other's actions will do the same to you and just live with it as that's what massive open-air festivals with no rules are.

People setting off flares can fuck off though. 😄

Great post. Out of upvotes.

[DeanoL]

1 minute ago, MrZigster said:

A fair point. But tens of thousands? Really that much? Plus I think the bits I am referring to are more likely to be crew/working in some capacity. Our crew campsite was comparable with a punter one cramped-ness wise and outside the fence.

It's possible - but there's like hospitality tickets which are a few grand market value I think now? But there's gotta be a level above that surely? Where the Hollywood stars go or the top billed bands that actually want to hang out at the festival. (I mean they're not paying but they need to go somewhere).

[stuie]

16 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

It's possible - but there's like hospitality tickets which are a few grand market value I think now? But there's gotta be a level above that surely? Where the Hollywood stars go or the top billed bands that actually want to hang out at the festival. (I mean they're not paying but they need to go somewhere).

Well, that's all off site at various places nearby so it doesn't really do much to keep ticket prices down. 

If you're interested, you can get a super luxury 4 bedroom tent house for about £10,000 :-I

https://glastonburyretreat.co.uk/book-now/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqde1jYe59gIV3oBQBh0Q3w9sEAAYBCAAEgKzvfD_BwE

[guypjfreak]

11 hours ago, Yoghurt on a Stick said:

I hate being in a crowd. I mean what do all them c**ts want, anyway? What on earth has driven them to actually surround me. And in a not so intimate manner. I shall have to take off vertically.

Totally agree 

You lot know that I'm having a small intermit party at Pilton.. But WHY do people invite thousands of people I just don't know.. 

They all arrive with tents and the kitchen sink and I don't even get any cards.. 

Then they go around the place as if they own the place.. 

Still they seem to have fun 

LOL 

I do actually say thank you to some people especially if they are carrying flags .. And they look back at me as if to say.. 

Fuck off you nutter 

Me nutter.. Your the one carrying a flag... I'm caring a fucking can of cider in one hand and reaching for another with the other hand.. Whilst you fucked you flag carrying nutter... 

PLUS I DIDN'T EVEN INVITE YOU.. Lol. 

It's been 7 weeks without a cider.. Does it show old sons... 

Peace to Ukraine fuck the Zs

[gfa]

26 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

It's possible - but there's like hospitality tickets which are a few grand market value I think now? But there's gotta be a level above that surely? Where the Hollywood stars go or the top billed bands that actually want to hang out at the festival. (I mean they're not paying but they need to go somewhere).

For top billed bands surely this just is part of their agreement to play / comes out of that

[DeanoL]

14 minutes ago, gfa said:

For top billed bands surely this just is part of their agreement to play / comes out of that

Yeah but I can imagine at least some of them, or the super rich lot, going "I don't really want to stay off site, I want to be in the thick of everything. But not with everyone else". Hence the camping inside the site that's walled off to others. I'm just guessing, just sounds like the most likely explanation to me. 

[incident]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

It's possible - but there's like hospitality tickets which are a few grand market value I think now? But there's gotta be a level above that surely? Where the Hollywood stars go or the top billed bands that actually want to hang out at the festival. (I mean they're not paying but they need to go somewhere).

It's difficult to say exactly what it brings in because of how it's structured at Glastonbury -

The actual Hospitality tickets have a fixed price, which is usually set at approximately twice as much as a General Sale ticket - so they'll be paying ~570 quid each this year. I'm pretty certain there's no higher tier than that. The only things that a Hospitality Ticket really gets you (above a General ticket) is access to the Hospitality campsite (which is just a campsite with a few perks) and the Interstage area/bar (which anyone can blag into easily).

Where the money can become crazy is if someone adds Glamping type options - some of which are available to the Public, some of which aren't, and some of which aren't directly sold at all.

Of course at that level, who's paying for what becomes blurred anyway - Singer X might be given a prime location yurt, top tier accommodation for "free", but it could be that the Festival is trying to court them for next year. Or maybe it's paid for but by their record company / PR agency to try and get some positive press coverage.

[Leyrulion]

29 minutes ago, incident said:

and the Interstage area/bar (which anyone can blag into easily

I accidentally found myself here once, just followed the crowd after an other stage set, it was only after I'd gone past security that I realised it was a bit odd they'd asked us to hold our wristbands up. 

[incident]

23 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

I accidentally found myself here once, just followed the crowd after an other stage set, it was only after I'd gone past security that I realised it was a bit odd they'd asked us to hold our wristbands up. 

Yeah - I've heard of others ending up there accidentally - it's especially easy from the Other Stage entrance as there's usually just one security guard on the gate who'll get overwhelmed by the rush that happens whenever an act finishes.

The problem is that once you get "in", there's not much reason to actually stick around..

[Leyrulion]

25 minutes ago, incident said:

The problem is that once you get "in", there's not much reason to actually stick around..

Yeah, it was pretty boring tbh.

[blutarsky]

1 hour ago, incident said:

Yeah - I've heard of others ending up there accidentally - it's especially easy from the Other Stage entrance as there's usually just one security guard on the gate who'll get overwhelmed by the rush that happens whenever an act finishes.

The problem is that once you get "in", there's not much reason to actually stick around..

I worked there in 2019 in a sit down restaurant - that may be a reason to hang for a bit of you've mortgaged the house. 

[fred quimby]

3 hours ago, stuie said:

Well, that's all off site at various places nearby so it doesn't really do much to keep ticket prices down. 

If you're interested, you can get a super luxury 4 bedroom tent house for about £10,000 :-I

https://glastonburyretreat.co.uk/book-now/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIqde1jYe59gIV3oBQBh0Q3w9sEAAYBCAAEgKzvfD_BwE

Shit the bed.

Still it would be great to be in one.

[found home in 2009]

5 hours ago, MrZigster said:

It's a thought. But the me me me crowd will just ignore any polite requests. See gazebos at campsites, don't pee on the land, leave no litter, etc, etc...

I think there are some people that are selfish and don't care and will ignore polite requests. But there are others that don't realise how annoying their behaviour is and would actually moderate it if they realised. At the end of the day if Glastonbury did promote good crowd etiquette I don't see how it could do any harm.

[found home in 2009]

4 hours ago, DeanoL said:

I think you can tell even from this thread, the problem is that people have all sorts of different opinions on what is and is not acceptable, and a lot of the time people have pretty much zero empathy for anyone else. 

The flags look cool in the field. They are also annoying if in the way of my view. But I can always move somewhere else and am not at the Pyramid much anyway. I'd rather we not have them but not going to campaign for them to be banned. Banning them from in front of the barrier just fixes the problem for those who are stood in front of the barrier (and probably makes it worse for everyone else unless those folk give up their flags entirely).

Sometimes people will push past you just before the band starts to get a better view. Sometimes they are just trying to get back to their mates. Neither is more or less valid than the other, you're still pushing in front of people, it happens at gigs, getting there early doesn't guarantee you your space, but neither does having your mates further in. 

If you're a short person, you need a bit of space in front of you in order to be able to see over the people in front of you. Should you therefore be entitled to keep that space to yourself? No. But are you being greedy by trying to give yourself a chance of seeing the act by not letting through people making it quite clear they want to stand there? No. But equally if the band is just about to start and you're barging through because there's "loads of space" doesn't mean you're not necessarily ruining someone else's gig. Seriously, if you're tall, next time you're in a crowd, crouch down so your head is level with the shortest person nearby. It'll give you a whole new perspective (literally) on gigs. "Oh yeah, I can sort of see now but if someone stands in that space in front of me I'm fucked".

Are there annoying, entitled people sat with picnic blankets and camping chairs near the front? Sure. But there are also people that maybe want to see three acts on the same stage in a row but are physically unable to stand for that long. So maybe they have a camping chair they sit in between acts. Yes, it's a tripping hazard when you're trying to get to the front. Deal with it. Likewise if a group set up at the Pyramid field early in the day on a picnic blanket, at a point where for the first few acts it's totally reasonable, its easy to get lost in talking to mates, drinking, and not realising that actually you're sat in the middle of a much bigger crowd. It's not okay for them to get entitled about that space but it's also possibly they're just not really aware. Should they be more self aware? Maybe. But it's a bloody festival, how self aware are you at 3am in the naughty corner? 

To be honest I've mostly stopped going down the front at gigs for all but my favourite artists. In large part because I've ended up hyper aware of all this and it just stresses me out. I worry someone will ruin my view, I worry someone will ruin my partner's view, I worry I will ruin someone elses' view  - I'm somewhat jealous of those who can just turn that part of their brain off and enjoy it. But I think it'd also help many people to have some degree of awareness of how people are different, about how their way of enjoying the festival is not the "one and only way" - that the flag wavers and picnic brigade and camping chair lot are all just trying to enjoy the festival on their own terms too, there is no one right way. And you can do what I do and end up hyper-stressed about how any action you take might negatively impact those around you, or you can just accept that some of your actions might negatively impact part of the festival for someone else and at some point other's actions will do the same to you and just live with it as that's what massive open-air festivals with no rules are.

People setting off flares can fuck off though. 😄

Completely disagree with the bit I bolded. If your further back at night the stage is almost completely obscured by the flags of people in front of the barrier. The closer a flag is to the stage the more it blocks out for those behind it. Someone in the middle of the crowd with a flag is ruining the view of 4 or 5 people. Someone at the front with a flag is ruining the view of thousands of people.

Not sure why people don't take collapsible flag poles. One of my mates always takes a flag. Holds it up whilst he's waiting for gigs to start, makes it really easy to find him. The second the bands starts he takes the flag down and puts it in his bag. If someone in our group goes away for a piss or to get pints it will go back up till they return then he'll put it away again. Occasionally a random person in the crowd will ask if you can put the flag up for ten minutes till my friends find me which we'll always oblige and is a nice way to meet new people.

Really feel like if everyone had the same attitude you would get the benefits of both worlds.
 

[stuie]

27 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Shit the bed.

Still it would be great to be in one.

They’ll charge you extra if you do that!! 

[whitehorses]

5 hours ago, MrZigster said:

A fair point. But tens of thousands? Really that much? Plus I think the bits I am referring to are more likely to be crew/working in some capacity. Our crew campsite was comparable with a punter one cramped-ness wise and outside the fence.

Highest ticket price I heard of was 15k. And for that the guy could fly his helicopter in to his glampsite. Him and his missus had vip access everywhere and unlimited drink etc at bars. 

Edited March 9, 2022 by whitehorses
Addition

[stuie]

4 minutes ago, whitehorses said:

Highest ticket price I heard of was 15k. And for that the guy could fly his helicopter in to his glampsite. Him and his missus had vip access everywhere and unlimited drink etc at bars. 

If there was a helicopter involved, I think they were probably staying at Windinglake Farm (Fly Glastonbury).

https://www.windinglake.co.uk

 

[whitehorses]

1 minute ago, stuie said:

If there was a helicopter involved, I think they were probably staying at Windinglake Farm (Fly Glastonbury).

https://www.windinglake.co.uk

 

Ah yeah makes sense - looks the kind of thing doesn’t it 

[squirrelarmy]

39 minutes ago, found home in 2009 said:

Not sure why people don't take collapsible flag poles. One of my mates always takes a flag. Holds it up whilst he's waiting for gigs to start, makes it really easy to find him. The second the bands starts he takes the flag down and puts it in his bag. If someone in our group goes away for a piss or to get pints it will go back up till they return then he'll put it away again. Occasionally a random person in the crowd will ask if you can put the flag up for ten minutes till my friends find me which we'll always oblige and is a nice way to meet new people.

This is what I do. My flag is collapsable and is nicely unobtrusive the majority of the time. It also tucks into a pocket so my hands are free to carry beers. 
 

If you’re unlucky enough to be stood behind me then my flag is going to be the least of your worries. I rarely go to the front of crowds, usually either just in front of the crush barrier or sound stage. I get a lot of complaints from people stood behind me, I do offer my shoulders though for the less leggy people if they are struggling to see. 
 

The only time I have gone to the front with my flag was for the Kaiser Chiefs so I can’t imagine many complaints about people missing the view for that.