Crowd control issues

[bigbilly]

Though the whole of the park area in general was way more busy then before. Used to be busy weds and Thurs then die down but this was pretty much rammed all the time and up the hill towards the glasto sign. I think everyone now gravitated to the sign and the ribbon tower. 

[4AssedMonkey]

10 minutes ago, bigbilly said:

Though the whole of the park area in general was way more busy then before. Used to be busy weds and Thurs then die down but this was pretty much rammed all the time and up the hill towards the glasto sign. I think everyone now gravitated to the sign and the ribbon tower. 

I spotted this.  We went up Thursday about 10:00 just for a chill and to look over the site and I've never seen it so busy.  Then when we walked out about 11:30ish there were literally floods of people coming into the Park through every entrance.  Every time I looked towards the hill it was rammed.  Don't think it's been like that before in my experience.

[bigbilly]

I think the sign and the tower are probably after the pyramid the most shown areas on TV or images used  these days. There used to be hardly anyone up on the hills. 

[Sawdusty surfer]

12 hours ago, Matt87 said:

Are we still allowed campfires at your tent though? I presume not, since there's no wood put out for them, and to be honest, there's not enough space a lot of the time. Last one I had was in 2013.

Yep, unlike most other festivals, fires are allowed. Huge pile of wood at crossroads at entrance to Greenfields at start of festival and lots still there on the Sunday night.

 

Edited July 1 by Sawdusty surfer

[ProperTea]

5 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

It does seem like a copy and paste email they sent out. Really disappointing. I hope you're in a better head space soon!

I was pretty annoyed at their lack of response, so I did follow up:

And got this reply. I'm still annoyed that they're not putting names to their emails. It's bad enough when you can't find a contact form/contact person at a soulless company like RyanAir, but for Glastonbury to just brush people away with a nameless stroke of the keyboard just really... grates...

What I get from their response is that because no one actually got hurt, there's nothing they can do about any of it retroactively. Which is kind of bullshit. There shouldn't need to be a serious injury to someone for them to be reactive.

It's interesting about the numbers though. There were only an extra 3k punters, yet an extra 7k staff/performers?! How many people did Kendrick have on stage for his opening and closing again? Lol.

But seriously, the numbers in the context they put it doesn't seem to make it sound *that* bad, so it leads me to think it must have been more down to a line-up that didn't spread the crowds out, inexperienced stewards, inexperienced festival-goers, and/or poor scheduling.

The only positive I get from it is that they have no plans to increase it further.

I just wish they would be more approachable when it comes to these kind of complaints. Especially, given it's Glastonbury.

 

I totally understand why you are frustrated with their response as it's quite defensive.

I do also see from the festival's point of view why there might be a nervousness about being anything other than defensive at this stage: something's clearly gone seriously wrong this year, I suspect the council are aware of the reports and will be investigating accordingly and therefore I think Glastonbury will be worried about appearing as if they are admitting things have gone wrong or accepting liability by saying sorry, prior to any investigations being concluded.

I hope when they've had chance to look in to all of this properly, they issue a fuller statement acknowledging people's concerns and how these will be addressed in 23. 

edit: I don't want it to seem like I'm out for blood or anything btw! Overall I had a great festival and still think it's a great bunch running it who are all trying their best & acting in good faith, but can't get everything right all the time but will hopefully learn from previous years to get better. This is just a hiccough along the road I hope!

 

Edited July 1 by ProperTea

[DeanoL]

3 hours ago, 4AssedMonkey said:

I spotted this.  We went up Thursday about 10:00 just for a chill and to look over the site and I've never seen it so busy.  Then when we walked out about 11:30ish there were literally floods of people coming into the Park through every entrance.  Every time I looked towards the hill it was rammed.  Don't think it's been like that before in my experience.

The fireworks were mentioned in the programme. Don't know if they normally are.

[clarkete]

4 hours ago, March Hare said:

This is really shocking, more and more it’s clear that something went wrong 

If you saw that 50th anniversary film on the telly they covered a number of items before the fence with safety issues, some of which prompted the fence. One of those was someone referring to a big vehicle driving over tents and how awful it would have been if people happened to be in them.  They also discussed some of those years where attendance figures were heavily bloated from ticketless folk. 

I was around in some of those years and recall a few times I felt pretty scared from the risk of crushing. I didn't necessarily feel that this time, however I'm a couple of decades older and more inclined towards choosing a quieter route than then, or finding a spot and waiting ten minutes for a crowd coming the other way to finish (eg going into a place with a tight choke point such as John Peel. 

[March Hare]

On 7/1/2022 at 10:14 PM, Sawdusty surfer said:

Yep, unlike most other festivals, fires are allowed. Huge pile of wood at crossroads at entrance to Greenfields at start of festival and lots still there on the Sunday night.

 

I was really surprised how much fire wood was there during the festival. From (hazy) memory it used to vanish on day one?

[Sawdusty surfer]

4 hours ago, March Hare said:

I was really surprised how much fire wood was there during the festival. From (hazy) memory it used to vanish on day one?

Yep, this was the first time for years that I can remember wood being available. It always gets snaffled for the build or for crew fires. Nice to see that loads was left.... like it always used to be.

[lukemack]

9 minutes ago, Sawdusty surfer said:

Yep, this was the first time for years that I can remember wood being available. It always gets snaffled for the build or for crew fires. Nice to see that loads was left.... like it always used to be.

I think it was a combination of people not knowing it was there, no longer having camp fires or not having space by there tents for one

We usually always have a small fire between our tents, normally bring our own wood, but just wasn't enough space for us to have one safely where we were on Oxlyers, barely any space between tents

[Sawdusty surfer]

3 minutes ago, lukemack said:

I think it was a combination of people not knowing it was there, no longer having camp fires or not having space by there tents for one

We usually always have a small fire between our tents, normally bring our own wood, but just wasn't enough space for us to have one safely where we were on Oxlyers, barely any space between tents

And possibly many people having no idea that they were actually allowed a fire or even not knowing how to go about having one? 

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, Sawdusty surfer said:

And possibly many people having no idea that they were actually allowed a fire or even not knowing how to go about having one? 

Once it was Thursday or Friday certainly the further out bits we saw didn't have much safe space for fires - especially where folks tried to claim space with excessive guy ropes. 

[March Hare]

17 hours ago, clarkete said:

Once it was Thursday or Friday certainly the further out bits we saw didn't have much safe space for fires - especially where folks tried to claim space with excessive guy ropes. 

While I love a camp fire, I’d be nervous setting one up in the closer fields

[Pinhead]

There was a massive pile of firewood up by the main drag crossing. Not seen that in years...

[MrZigster]

There was enough space for a fire next to my tent in Row Mead. Not seen that for years. Not that I bothered.

[Skip997]

On 7/5/2022 at 10:10 PM, Sawdusty surfer said:

And possibly many people having no idea that they were actually allowed a fire or even not knowing how to go about having one? 

I'm amazed that fires are allowed in the general public camping fields. The tents are too close and people are often very intoxicated. I'm also amazed that, to the best of my knowledge there's never been a major campsite fire.

[Sawdusty surfer]

4 hours ago, Skip997 said:

I'm amazed that fires are allowed in the general public camping fields. 

One of the many wonderful things about Glastonbury that are rarely found at other events. 

[Sawdusty surfer]

4 hours ago, Skip997 said:

I'm also amazed that, to the best of my knowledge there's never been a major campsite fire.

EU law 5912 specifies that all tents have to be fire retardant.

Obviously they can be burnt if you try hard enough, but the retardant works pretty damn well. 

Remember this? 🤣

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/6977458

[gfa]

4 hours ago, Skip997 said:

I'm amazed that fires are allowed in the general public camping fields. The tents are too close and people are often very intoxicated. I'm also amazed that, to the best of my knowledge there's never been a major campsite fire.

Compared to a lot of other festivals i've done i felt like Glastonbury was relatively spread out. Lots of big tents so they don't fit in as well, vs 2/3 mans that can be crammed into any gap

[giantkatestacks]

2 hours ago, Sawdusty surfer said:

EU law 5912 specifies that all tents have to be fire retardant.

Obviously they can be burnt if you try hard enough, but the retardant works pretty damn well. 

Remember this? 🤣

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/6977458

Yeah it used to be one of the questions asked in the Oxfam training, 'how many tent fires do you think there are a year?' Answer of course:  none as tents are flame retardant.

In the early 90s though in a crew field I saw a large traveller van go up though, it was really scary.

[Pinhead]

Yeah what happens is the fires shower your tent with little embers which make a thousand little holes in your tent and right it off...

[charlie.light]

4 hours ago, giantkatestacks said:

Yeah it used to be one of the questions asked in the Oxfam training, 'how many tent fires do you think there are a year?' Answer of course:  none as tents are flame retardant.

In the early 90s though in a crew field I saw a large traveller van go up though, it was really scary.

I’ve seen lots of tent fires when working at reading, there’s a reason fires are banned after 8pm on Sunday night 

[Rufus Gwertigan]

I remember working at beautiful days and watching some idiots pour lighter fuel all over the tent and then set fire to it. To start off with the fuel just burn off but eventually it's set fire to the tent and that's when the screaming started. Sorry I just laughed. Guess that's why I'm not a very good fire marshal

 

 

 

 

 

[GeezLouise]

On 7/1/2022 at 8:33 AM, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

Sent this to the festival along with a link to this thread so they could see some of the thoughts:

 

They gave me this reply. It's your standard non-committal politician's answer:

Apparently, if anyone felt bad or got stuck, it's your own fault that you didn't read the useful tips webpage.

What email address did you use? I can't fit my email in the 500 characters allowed on the website. 

thanks 🙂

[Pinhead]

22 hours ago, charlie.light said:

I’ve seen lots of tent fires when working at reading, there’s a reason fires are banned after 8pm on Sunday night 

Yeah but... Reading.