Crowd control issues

[Skip997]

11 minutes ago, Ayrshire Chris said:

The Avalon, whether it’s the cafe of the stage, seems to be busier than ever.

Tis a very strange phenomenon. Which I have no answers to.

[CaledonianGonzo]

It's been very busy in past years when it's booked acts that will attract a big crowd - Brucie and so on.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Didn't Kiefer Sutherland turn up there one time?

[Skip997]

2 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Didn't Kiefer Sutherland turn up there one time?

He's definitely played, almost certain it was Avalon, the most likely stage for him.

Edited October 19, 2022 by Skip997

[CaledonianGonzo]

So....the Sugababes set this year that was very oversubscribed was in fact largely par for the course.

[MrZigster]

4 hours ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

So....the Sugababes set this year that was very oversubscribed was in fact largely par for the course.

It got rammed before the previous act had finished. Resigned myself to not getting out 'till the end (and I was closer to the back than the front).

[4AssedMonkey]

Just throwing in my two-penneth on the fights thing.  I've seen 2 in all the Glastos I've been to.

1) 2010, Dance Area, busy crowd and a young lad who had clearly snorted his entire stash of marching powder and decided to kick off with someone who bumped into him.  His mates dragged him away pretty quickly.

2) This year, some bellend trying to push forward at Avalon for Sugababes where there was clearly no space whatsoever for him to push into but the cock kept trying and just ignored everyone telling him to fuck off until someone lamped him.  Then he fucked off.

I guess the moral is that bad crowd control or overcrowding frays tempers?

[gfa]

10 minutes ago, 4AssedMonkey said:

Just throwing in my two-penneth on the fights thing.  I've seen 2 in all the Glastos I've been to.

1) 2010, Dance Area, busy crowd and a young lad who had clearly snorted his entire stash of marching powder and decided to kick off with someone who bumped into him.  His mates dragged him away pretty quickly.

2) This year, some bellend trying to push forward at Avalon for Sugababes where there was clearly no space whatsoever for him to push into but the cock kept trying and just ignored everyone telling him to fuck off until someone lamped him.  Then he fucked off.

I guess the moral is that bad crowd control or overcrowding frays tempers?

Neither of these are crowd control issues, just people being idiots at busy sets. Crowd control imo more relates to chokepoints / standstill traffic in paths e.g. Arcadia / Park a lot of the weekend when big acts are starting/finishing

[dulcificum]

Presumably that's why they said "on the fights thing" which was also recently discussed in this thread. 

[gfa]

49 minutes ago, dulcificum said:

Presumably that's why they said "on the fights thing" which was also recently discussed in this thread. 

ah yes my mistake 🙂

[Suprefan]

On 10/19/2022 at 9:11 AM, CaledonianGonzo said:

So....the Sugababes set this year that was very oversubscribed was in fact largely par for the course.

Yeah. Had to break through the wall of stewards thinking they were gonna stop me from seeing an entire set of bangers. They clearly failed.

But how rammed would it have been if Sugababes were at say, West Holts and TLC was on Other cause TLC clearly needed a bigger stage.

[topmarksbri]

Pretty mad/scary seeing images from Seoul tonight - shows how dangerous can be

[Skip997]

19 hours ago, topmarksbri said:

Pretty mad/scary seeing images from Seoul tonight - shows how dangerous can be

Absolutely tragic.

Seems that most people think this could never happen at Glastonbury.

I've been in several crowded situations where I've thought if a couple of people fall over here we could be in trouble, esp pre the big fence.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

15 hours ago, Skip997 said:

Absolutely tragic.

Seems that most people think this could never happen at Glastonbury.

I've been in several crowded situations where I've thought if a couple of people fall over here we could be in trouble, esp pre the big fence.

Any time something tragic happens, it sends shockwaves through certain industries, resulting in a full review of policies (Grenfell for instance has had a significant effect on fire safety within construction). Festivals like Glastonbury of course, have the ability to control numbers and flow in various ways. It's a huge responsibility, keeping people safe has to be the organisers number one priority. It's frustrating that sometimes it takes an incident to introduce measures, but I've got no doubt GFL will have taken note of the feedback from this year, as a precaution.

[Zoo Music Girl]

25 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Any time something tragic happens, it sends shockwaves through certain industries, resulting in a full review of policies (Grenfell for instance has had a significant effect on fire safety within construction). Festivals like Glastonbury of course, have the ability to control numbers and flow in various ways. It's a huge responsibility, keeping people safe has to be the organisers number one priority. It's frustrating that sometimes it takes an incident to introduce measures, but I've got no doubt GFL will have taken note of the feedback from this year, as a precaution.

I'm not so sure they'll be taking much notice of the feedback given the responses people got from emailing. Seemed very dismissive.

Astroworld was this year wasn't it? Did any festivals announce a review after that? Didn't hear of anything like that unless it's all behind the scenes.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

1 minute ago, Zoo Music Girl said:

I'm not so sure they'll be taking much notice of the feedback given the responses people got from emailing. Seemed very dismissive.

Astroworld was this year wasn't it? Did any festivals announce a review after that? Didn't hear of anything like that unless it's all behind the scenes.

Really? Did the festival respond to feedback but seemingly were uninterested? That surprises me. Ultimately, the decision to act upon any feedback or incidents is theirs, unless forced to do so by certain authorities. However, it's a huge risk to take if incidents occur, there are recorded warnings and they've done nothing to prevent occurrence. 

I'm sure everything will be absolutely fine, I've said before I feel like we're in experienced hands. 

[Zoo Music Girl]

5 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Really? Did the festival respond to feedback but seemingly were uninterested? That surprises me. Ultimately, the decision to act upon any feedback or incidents is theirs, unless forced to do so by certain authorities. However, it's a huge risk to take if incidents occur, there are recorded warnings and they've done nothing to prevent occurrence. 

I'm sure everything will be absolutely fine, I've said before I feel like we're in experienced hands. 

I wasn't there so can't comment on what happened this year, but yeah a few people emailed them and got a pretty uninterested response. Posted back in this thread or one of the other ones.

[4AssedMonkey]

50 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Really? Did the festival respond to feedback but seemingly were uninterested? That surprises me. Ultimately, the decision to act upon any feedback or incidents is theirs, unless forced to do so by certain authorities. However, it's a huge risk to take if incidents occur, there are recorded warnings and they've done nothing to prevent occurrence. 

I'm sure everything will be absolutely fine, I've said before I feel like we're in experienced hands. 

I emailed the fest and so did a few others.  There was a clearly carefully scripted standard email they sent back in response, which to me means 2 things.  1.  There were enough emails to make it worth drafting a standard holding email to reply and 2.  They were careful not to admit or commit to anything in writing.  I work as a risk manager and had I been advising them, that's exactly what I'd have told them to do, then formally investigate and review plans and risk assessments etc. behind closed doors.  There's no way they just swept this under the carpet.

[Zoo Music Girl]

1 minute ago, 4AssedMonkey said:

I emailed the fest and so did a few others.  There was a clearly carefully scripted standard email they sent back in response, which to me means 2 things.  1.  There were enough emails to make it worth drafting a standard holding email to reply and 2.  They were careful not to admit or commit to anything in writing.  I work as a risk manager and had I been advising them, that's exactly what I'd have told them to do, then formally investigate and review plans and risk assessments etc. behind closed doors.  There's no way they just swept this under the carpet.

Fair enough. I just remember a few people being pretty unimpressed with the response, but as you say they must have had a few to draft a template to send them all.

[clarkete]

17 hours ago, Skip997 said:

I've been in several crowded situations where I've thought if a couple of people fall over here we could be in trouble, esp pre the big fence.

Yes, personally I didn't encounter any this year that were like those before the fence. 

Hopefully they'll have more stewards about in 2023 and they'll be a bit more experienced. 

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

6 minutes ago, clarkete said:

Yes, personally I didn't encounter any this year that were like those before the fence. 

Hopefully they'll have more stewards about in 2023 and they'll be a bit more experienced. 

I stewarded for the first time this year. There was a very useful pre-festival online induction but I received absolutely zero training when on site (no evacuation or emergency procedures, etc) and my walkie-talkie worked for about ten minutes. Luckily, after attending for many years, and coming onto this website, I pretty much know where everything is and where the quickest routes are. Strangely enough, five minutes into my first shift (beginning 8am near pedestrian gate C), my first urgent enquiry was the location of the nearest medical tent. It was a good reminder that I wasn't just there to point people towards Pennards and Dairy. My second shift was in the same location but overnight and into the early hours, and over the actual weekend, so it was a very different experience. After speaking with members of the roaming security team, my concern was that not only did they have no previous festival experience, they had no formal first aid training and as part of their duties they were being asked to identify and assist with medical situations. They themselves expressed their own worries of what was being asked of them. I think in 2022, experienced labour was either hard to come by, or too expensive, and corners were cut. Maybe not by GFL, but by the security sub-contractors responsible. 

[stuie]

44 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

I stewarded for the first time this year. There was a very useful pre-festival online induction but I received absolutely zero training when on site (no evacuation or emergency procedures, etc) and my walkie-talkie worked for about ten minutes. Luckily, after attending for many years, and coming onto this website, I pretty much know where everything is and where the quickest routes are. Strangely enough, five minutes into my first shift (beginning 8am near pedestrian gate C), my first urgent enquiry was the location of the nearest medical tent. It was a good reminder that I wasn't just there to point people towards Pennards and Dairy. My second shift was in the same location but overnight and into the early hours, and over the actual weekend, so it was a very different experience. After speaking with members of the roaming security team, my concern was that not only did they have no previous festival experience, they had no formal first aid training and as part of their duties they were being asked to identify and assist with medical situations. They themselves expressed their own worries of what was being asked of them. I think in 2022, experienced labour was either hard to come by, or too expensive, and corners were cut. Maybe not by GFL, but by the security sub-contractors responsible. 

It's interesting to hear of different experiences.  Who did you steward with? 

SIA licenced security have to have first aid training these days, so it's surprising to hear this! 

[Ayrshire Chris]

One of the problems this year, and in the past, is putting acts that would obviously attract large crowds on the smaller stages. Having such acts in intimate stages is great in theory but not when huge crowds try to descend on an area not designed to cope with huge numbers. 

[4AssedMonkey]

39 minutes ago, Ayrshire Chris said:

One of the problems this year, and in the past, is putting acts that would obviously attract large crowds on the smaller stages. Having such acts in intimate stages is great in theory but not when huge crowds try to descend on an area not designed to cope with huge numbers. 

I think the problem with this is that they all used to be secret slots, back when you could at least in part keep them secret, which limited numbers to a degree.  You can't keep a secret anymore, acts use their own social media to drop hints, rumours spread like wildfire.  I know Avalon never really played the secret slot game as much and has always had the odd act who should by rights be on a larger stage, but I think there is an argument now to can the idea of secret slots, announce the whole lineup and make sure the acts are on at appropriate venues.

[clarkete]

2 hours ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

I stewarded for the first time this year. There was a very useful pre-festival online induction but I received absolutely zero training when on site (no evacuation or emergency procedures, etc) and my walkie-talkie worked for about ten minutes. Luckily, after attending for many years, and coming onto this website, I pretty much know where everything is and where the quickest routes are. Strangely enough, five minutes into my first shift (beginning 8am near pedestrian gate C), my first urgent enquiry was the location of the nearest medical tent. It was a good reminder that I wasn't just there to point people towards Pennards and Dairy. My second shift was in the same location but overnight and into the early hours, and over the actual weekend, so it was a very different experience. After speaking with members of the roaming security team, my concern was that not only did they have no previous festival experience, they had no formal first aid training and as part of their duties they were being asked to identify and assist with medical situations. They themselves expressed their own worries of what was being asked of them. I think in 2022, experienced labour was either hard to come by, or too expensive, and corners were cut. Maybe not by GFL, but by the security sub-contractors responsible. 

Thank you for your service