List your "frustrations" here

[DeanoL]

People sitting down in crowds, and people pushing out and back in again to go to the loo are doing it for the exact same reason. To get relief from physical pain and discomfort, while not losing their spot in the crowd. Exact same reason. To not be in pain.

I'm not going to get angry with people who want to not be in pain.

By all means argue for a system of survival of the fittest where sitting is not allowed but that same system should also disallow going out and back in again for the same reason (and some festivals have a one way pit that essentially does do that, I'm not being ridiculous).

[paulshane]

been going to the festival for nearly 30 years, and I reckon this years was the best one so far for me. A lot of the stuff in this thread (chairs, flags, temps/shade, beers, prams, pinch points) have been 'issues' for years and are never going to change, they are ingrained in the festival now, the festival has been very popular for years now, so people that started going in the 90s will have kids/prams/chairs/need shade/have flags etc - I'm not a fan of flags, but it's just how it is.

 

I genuinly don't have anything I'd change, apart from fantasy land stuff like 'cheaper beer', I put up with flags, and people with kids are as welcome as anyone else.

 

And 'busy on Thursday' has no fix, other than to fully open the stages, which we know Mendip Council will probably never agree to, so its always going to be crowded at the small amount of venues open, because 90% of people are already on site by then.

 

anyway, I loved every second, and very much hope I get a ticket for next year.

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

2 hours ago, Glastomackem said:

Me and my mates had a terrible time in the crowd for elton, easily the worst in my 10 year of going to the festival.  The people we encountered where absolutely vile in the most part. We arrived at the back of the pyramid field about 1hr 30mins before Elton with Lil Nas X in full flow.

Took the top path from woodsies in front of row mead and attempted to walk down to get a little closer in. On the walk off the path into the field i asked one lad very politely if i could get past to which he simply ignored me. I asked him again and he said he wouldn't move out of the way as he had been standing there for 2 hours and was getting sick of moving! he told me to go another way. I didn't know you could buy shares in sections of the pyramid field that you own while at the festival.

After a few words between me and him my mates got down in front of the repeater speaker at the top of the field. We were there for around 30 mins where it got busier and busier, my wife needed the toilet and as we turned around we were met by a solid wall of people around 30 rows deep either sitting on the floor or sitting in camping chairs. There was absolutely no way through these people and nobody would move.

Everyone who wanted to move or find a way to a track was panicking as they couldn't get out. It took us 30 mins just to try and plot a way across these people to get to a walkway that led to the track at row mead. In this time i seen 2 full blown fights, people having panic attacks. I spoke to 1 woman in the field in her late 60s who had wee'd herself as nobody would move. It was absolutely horrendous and all caused by the self entitled arseholes at the back of that field in chairs or sitting in chairs. It was quite clear it was getting extremely dangerous and people were distressed. People were shouting for people to stand up so people could move....but no, everybody was quite happy sitting watching everyone struggle and actually dare to moan or complain when you stepped over them. I mean WTAF! 

Now i'm sure there are a few people in that crowd who have a medical reason to sit or rest, however if everyone has a medical problem then no the wonder the NHS is as stretched as it is!

We finally got out at the top of row mead toward williams green, it took us about 1hour 20 mins in total. As we walked away we heard them put the announcement out for people to stand up. Too little too late by that point. The festival needs to do much more in sorting this out and as for the literal ~1000 people that caused that problem, the less said the better. At least they had a good rest before enjoying Elton. 

This post is absolutely f**king hilarious and just highlights the problem with people for me, even now this mackem is oblivious.

"Me and my mates shoved our way into a crowd during one of the biggest sets of the festival and just before one of the biggest sets of all time for the festival. 

To my complete shock and horror, other people then had the audacity to do the same thing! We were obviously disgusted at those people, only We should be allowed to barge in, and subsequently barge out when desired, and everyone should of course politely move aside for us"

 

Idiot.

 

[rebeccac]

Glastonbury pushing normal festival goers to travel by eco friendly routes and encouraging Green behaviour on site (which I totally agree with and support) but allowing hundreds of no marks to fly in and out by helicopter. I’m talking about the likes of cara delevigne and holly willoughby plus others I know of who are not famous but very wealthy. They don’t add anything to the festival, the Eavis could easily ban helicopter travel for anyone other than headliners 

[Glastomackem]

9 minutes ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

This post is absolutely f**king hilarious and just highlights the problem with people for me, even now this mackem is oblivious.

"Me and my mates shoved our way into a crowd during one of the biggest sets of the festival and just before one of the biggest sets of all time for the festival. 

To my complete shock and horror, other people then had the audacity to do the same thing! We were obviously disgusted at those people, only We should be allowed to barge in, and subsequently barge out when desired, and everyone should of course politely move aside for us"

 

Idiot.

 

Oh do f*ck off, I never said anything of the sort. You have just made up an entirely brand new scenario to fit into your little fantasy world. I never barged in or out of anywhere, I simply couldn’t f*cking move due to chairs and people sitting. As you say with it being the biggest sets in the festivals history you would think that people could have engaged their brains and realised the problems they were causing. The festival need to do more to stop it. Anyway I hope you were suitably refreshed for Elton after your picnic in front of the pyramid.

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, rebeccac said:

They don’t add anything to the festival, the Eavis could easily ban helicopter travel for anyone other than headliners 

They couldn't.

There are third parties providing helicopter travel for anyone that can afford it and then a shuttle to the gate.

https://www.windinglake.co.uk/helicopters/

[Neil]

8 hours ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

They also need more accessible platforms in the pyramid, felt sorry for people unable to get on them.

i agree. 🙂 

[SpencerF]

Camping near Pedestrian Gate B and one night this bloke was absolutely trollied, don't know if anyone else here heard him but he wasn't just loud, he was LOUD. Kept shouting sh*t like 'LIVERPOOL AND 49' and then had this proper annoying baby voice he kept doing. Then he found out it was 6am so thought it was about time to wake everyone up with shouting and howling for a solid hour. Genuinely was a collective 'shut the f**k up' from multiple tents, which just made him louder - got to the point where if you didn't laugh you would have cried.

 

Apart from that, everything is just a little inconvenience that everyone deals with - still pisses me off how coffin dodgers can camp right at the barrier for the pyramid all day and as soon as you see their face on TV, they know none of the songs and look like they've been hit in the face with a sh*t stick. Was front and centre for Arctic Monkeys and genuinely, someone at the barrier went on someones shoulders - was in disbelief and heard audible groans when someone with already the best view in the house went that extra mile.

[Suprefan]

8 hours ago, rebeccac said:

Glastonbury pushing normal festival goers to travel by eco friendly routes and encouraging Green behaviour on site (which I totally agree with and support) but allowing hundreds of no marks to fly in and out by helicopter. I’m talking about the likes of cara delevigne and holly willoughby plus others I know of who are not famous but very wealthy. They don’t add anything to the festival, the Eavis could easily ban helicopter travel for anyone other than headliners 

Oh no, somebody is scared about a handful of famous people who flew in just to watch music. I bet some of your favorite artists hanging out flew in by jet which was worse than helicopter. Should we just ban celebrities? And the Eavii do not govern the skies.

[nicknoxx]

Didn't get tickets this year so we volunteered for Aliens Carnival Club stewarding.  We were patrolling the lane the helipad is on, keeping the Riff Raff away from the artists.  This meant walking up and down for 6 hours and sitting by a house for two.  We got shifts on Friday 8am-4pm, Saturday 4pm to midnight and Sunday midnight to 8am. 

We were about a hours walk from site so nothing to see or do while working.

We got no food or drink while working and had to ask one of the locals for water.  The final straw was finishing on Monday morning and being told we'd have to walk back to our van despite being promised a lift before we started.

I'm not doing that again.

[Hags]

Interesting that people are saying pissing on the land is a problem, and it didn’t used to be. As exactly the opposite is true: the chatter nearly a decade ago was that urine on the land was a license threat, and it isn’t so much of a pressing issue any more judging by festival comms.

Great that one of the overall messages was that 2023 was a great year. It was in my book. The place has a life of its own.

[PassingCloud]

Darble had two taps for the entire campsite. But, even then, just don’t go during the half hour of long queue and it was fine. 
My only other complaint is that I couldn’t get to experience more than I did. 
 

edit: actually, serious complaint — all of the selfish pricks that left litter/tents/gazebos, etc. all over the campsite and car parks. Car parks even more frustrating when you clearly had room in the car to bring this crap. Hope that the ticket gods smite you forever more. We had 5 tents in a little group and, without really making an effort, it remained spotless all week. It’s not difficult! 

Edited June 28, 2023 by PassingCloud
Littering t**ts

[HoTWire]

*WALL OF TEXT ALERT*

I'll preface this with the following: I run events myself (not to the scale of Glasto obviously), and usually if someone is complaining about something we are already aware of the issue. Assuming someone from the festival team even looks through this (and I'm hoping they do), they are likely aware of most/all of these things, there could be very good reason things aren't different.

Caveat: I live locally and travel in each day, so can't speak to the camping side of things. My number one gripe would be how far I have to walk from the car park to the stages 🙂

Gripes:
Shade: this has been a problem for the last few years. This year I ended up with heat exhaustion (my own fault for trying to go from Gate C to Woodies to see Rick Astley, it being too crowded so heading to the Park all in one trip), I went to the lovely Peace Gardens near The Park which is shaded and a good place to not be surrounded by noise.  That having been said, outside of that area it was a bit of a nightmare trying to find some decent shade.
Suggestion: Not sure how feasible it is, but sails between the tent pole formations around the edge of the stages could provide much needed shelter (think three points of connections between three of the flag poles).

 

Ghettoisation of heavier music: Sure that isn't Glastonbury's main thing, but shoveling off anything remotely heavy* to The Truth stage at some ungodly hour (to the point where Skindred got moved) gives me the feeling that Glastonbury's relationship to heavier music is basically the same as Cate Blanchetts. Which is funny considering the amount of acts in the genre that are more inline with Glastonbury's supposed ethos than say The 1975......
*I guess The Hu were on West Holts, whilst they are very much great they are also one step removed from a gimmick act.

 

Hyping up "the moment" to dangerous degrees: It is great to have a headline about viewing figures and crowd sizes for certain acts, but it is often creating potentially dangerous situations. Also it is a bit f**king rude to everyone else on the bill when by the festivals own marketing and promotion they are almost guaranteeing a smaller audience for the other acts on site. It isn't about there being obviously larger crowds for some headlines, it is the relentless pushing to make something happen, it sucks the oxygen out of the wider festival (happens with Legends slots as well previously).

 

Poor cross stage curation: Clashes at festivals are inevitable, part of the whole experience, even more so when you have a broad taste in music. Glastonbury does seem to want to pit acts that are clearly going to attract similar crowds against each other at times. I'm guessing the stages work relatively independently, and I know there are so many moving pieces when attempting to put together a line up with change over times etc, but sometimes it feels like just a little more communication could make things make a bite more sense. With some of these acts even moving them forward or back by an hour or even half hour, or moving to a different day (if possible) would make for a better audience for the acts themselves. Which also brings me in to the next point...

 

Glastonbury apparently hates female acts: I'll ignore the headline stuff here, that is hard to book, I'm sure there are massive amounts of negotiation and that stuff goes in to it all, I don't give a toss about the headliners to be honest. I'm more wondering why the hell Beth Orton was on so early on West Holt, why wasn't she high up in Acoustic or Avalon (if you think she isn't deserving of a spot higher up on the 'main' stages). More than that why was she scheduled opposite Gwenno and CMAT, there are three artists right there that share an audience and would make for an absolutely fantastic run on a stage. A pattern that played out a number of times across the weekend. Poor poor show. Be better.

To be fair the positioning thing isn't restricted to female acts. Why wasn't Ben Howard much higher up? Why was Fred Again.. not headlining? Absolute madness.


With all that being said, I had a good time, lots of the site improvements are very welcome. I'm possibly one of the few that feel that Carhenge was a nice replacement, it adds a good bit of breathing room in what was a ridiculously busy area. The new paths are great. I'm sure come a wet year we'll see a benefit from the woodchip and new walk ways that have been changing the consistency of the earth over the last couple of years. The crowd management (to me at least) seemed a lot better this year.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk

[-TLR-]

Row Mead being turned into an extension of the Pyramid field meant that the Big Ground long drops were invaded by huge numbers of people who ordinarily wouldn't even know they were there.

on sunday night they had turned into the long drops in Silver Hayes i.e - f**king disgusting.

 

[EFC1996]

Had an amazing festival but does the south east corner really need every stage playing D&B? Less D&B and more house/songs you can actually dance to. That is all 

[moogster]

17 minutes ago, HoTWire said:

 

 

Glastonbury apparently hates female acts: I'll ignore the headline stuff here, that is hard to book, I'm sure there are massive amounts of negotiation and that stuff goes in to it all, I don't give a toss about the headliners to be honest. I'm more wondering why the hell Beth Orton was on so early on West Holt, why wasn't she high up in Acoustic or Avalon (if you think she isn't deserving of a spot higher up on the 'main' stages). More than that why was she scheduled opposite Gwenno and CMAT, there are three artists right there that share an audience and would make for an absolutely fantastic run on a stage. A pattern that played out a number of times across the weekend. Poor poor show. Be better.
 

Beth Orton actually headlined Avalon a few years ago.

I counted that we saw 3 "white male" acts during the whole fest. Clashes show the wealth of acts. And sometimes it's between artists you can put in similar "groups". 

I think that saying the fest hates female acts is pushing it a bit far.

[HoTWire]

17 minutes ago, moogster said:

Beth Orton actually headlined Avalon a few years ago.

I think that saying the fest hates female acts is pushing it a bit far.

So early on West Holts feels like a demotion from that position, for an act that has a new (very well received) album last year.

I was being hyperbolic for the sake of drama 🙂 However it did feel like a certain area of music that is currently thriving got rather short shrift this year. I'm sure there are some behind the scene reasons for some acts that are currently touring not getting stage time, and for the ordering of the stages, but still... a gripe is a gripe, and that is mine.

[Crazyfool01]

9 hours ago, Glastomackem said:

Oh do f*ck off, I never said anything of the sort. You have just made up an entirely brand new scenario to fit into your little fantasy world. I never barged in or out of anywhere, I simply couldn’t f*cking move due to chairs and people sitting. As you say with it being the biggest sets in the festivals history you would think that people could have engaged their brains and realised the problems they were causing. The festival need to do more to stop it. Anyway I hope you were suitably refreshed for Elton after your picnic in front of the pyramid.

they did make an announcement and put it up on the big screens for the first time ever ... so a start has been made at least however im not sure the pyramid will ever get a crowd of the likes of Elton ever again ?

[Skip997]

44 minutes ago, HoTWire said:

Glastonbury apparently hates female acts

A quick mental assessment suggests around 50/50 male/female for the acts I saw.

[moogster]

OK there is ONE thing I have to mention here. Some of you may have experimented the Monday queue for London coaches. Accidents, traffic, whatever, it happens. BUT our coach left with about 3 or 4 seats empty, while the queue was still extending to gate A. I really don't get that. See kept on saying "it's not in our power to make things go faster because traffic stewards etc" well here yes it was. Get in the bus, have a quick look, get 4 more people back home.

[dg.bandol]

18 minutes ago, Crazyfool01 said:

they did make an announcement and put it up on the big screens for the first time ever ... so a start has been made at least however im not sure the pyramid will ever get a crowd of the likes of Elton ever again ?

Was debating whether to post on here as the festival, for a first timer, was absolutely brilliant and I would love to do it annually but this post struck a chord with my only "panic" moment of the weekend as the chairs debacle wasn't just during Elton.

We managed to get down the front for Sophie Ellis-Bextor and stayed through the end of Cat Stevens.  We left immediately after his set and couldn't find a way out of the front pit, left or right.  Ironically, there was (comparatively) lots of room right at the front but the further back you went there were people in camping chairs for the last 25% or so of the front pit refusing to move for anybody.  To the extent that I actually lost my balance in the crush of people that was building up behind me, also trying to leave the pit.  Tried to reason with a few of them, saying we were trying to get out, not trying to nick their spot etc and they steadfastly refused to move- even got called an ar*ehole as we were attempting to leave!

As a tall guy, 6'6, I managed to shout across to the security guys in between the crush barriers and he said if we were leaving just to come up and he would lift us over.  Amazingly, even after hearing this entire conversation, one person whose camping chair was set up right at the back barrier refused to get up to let us over the fence until the security guard told her where to go.

 

So, yeah, I would absolutely ban camping chairs from the front pit.  less of an issue with people sitting down on the ground- they were all fine as they would shuffle out the way to let people past but the chairs were downright dangerous despite the relative serenity right at the front and in the centre.

Final gripe, which is more bemusing than anything, was the sheer volume of litter strewn around the fields (particularly the Pyramid) which was just incredibly lazy.  99% of people had a backpack.  Just put your empty tins in there are find a bin when you leave!

[louis694]

On 6/26/2023 at 10:36 PM, D-Low said:

Another one for the lack of nighttime music that wasn’t drum and bass. We went to taphouse one night but other than that the only indie night was a 1 hour set by baggy Mondays (they have a 4 hour 11-3am set at Kendal calling so why do they only do an hour in the afternoon here). Why can’t they bring back silent disco for a weds/thur night to ease some of the crowds. I heard one same song about 8 times over the weekend spun by different DJ’s of the same genre. 
 

There seemed to be a distinct lack of ‘glasto moments’ for me this year too. Like the little quirks that made it special. I always remember there would be like the phones that would ring and other cool things like that. San Reno area just looks like a desert wasteland. 
 

People breaking in. I think most of the overcrowding is because of this. Saw at least 3-4 scouse groups. All with loads of hair bangles on their arms to disguise. One group of girls were saying how the trader is getting coach loads of people in for £500 and he was doing it all weekend up to Sunday. It’s beyond now. Why can’t they put in some barriers like the south east corner entrance across the main walkways from campsites/main pathways to check wristbands. 
 

some of the new layout and paths with no cut throughs were terrible. Big green fences. Felt like a maze walking around towards gate A. 

This! I went to a few DJ sets around the site and they were great fun but by Sunday you’d heard the same songs at every stage or even just walking around. After a certain point in the evening it was all techno😅 

Loved Rum shack you could sing along and dance. Shame we couldn’t go until very late on Saturday due to Shangri-La being closed off but that did control the crowds well! Thursday felt dangerous there.

*Edit: camped somewhere else and instantly regretted it. Big groups of lads having afters blaring music from 4am or waking up to the sound of whippets at 8am. It felt like Reading & Leeds at times…

Edited June 28, 2023 by louis694

[bobsacamano]

42 minutes ago, HoTWire said:

So early on West Holts feels like a demotion from that position, for an act that has a new (very well received) album last year.

I was being hyperbolic for the sake of drama 🙂 However it did feel like a certain area of music that is currently thriving got rather short shrift this year. I'm sure there are some behind the scene reasons for some acts that are currently touring not getting stage time, and for the ordering of the stages, but still... a gripe is a gripe, and that is mine.

Beth Orton was great on the West Holt's early, perfect wake up act. She had a decent crowd and the vibe was lovely. With acts like Beth they can do an intimate late night set for sure however I'm usually looking for something more upbeat. Anyway that was one early set I really appreciated.

[I am Jon]

1 hour ago, HoTWire said:

Glastonbury apparently hates female acts: I'll ignore the headline stuff here, that is hard to book, I'm sure there are massive amounts of negotiation and that stuff goes in to it all, I don't give a toss about the headliners to be honest. I'm more wondering why the hell Beth Orton was on so early on West Holt, why wasn't she high up in Acoustic or Avalon (if you think she isn't deserving of a spot higher up on the 'main' stages). More than that why was she scheduled opposite Gwenno and CMAT, there are three artists right there that share an audience and would make for an absolutely fantastic run on a stage. A pattern that played out a number of times across the weekend. Poor poor show. Be better.

To be fair the positioning thing isn't restricted to female acts. Why wasn't Ben Howard much higher up? Why was Fred Again.. not headlining? Absolute madness.

I think one of the great things about Glastonbury is an artist can draw in huge crowds at any time of day, often more than the headliners get. This year Rick Astley at 12pm was pretty packed, Churnups was packed, legend slot always draws a big crowd. Was much better seeing Beth Orton play afternoon slot on West Holts rather than clashing with Elton etc.

[HoTWire]

34 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

A quick mental assessment suggests around 50/50 male/female for the acts I saw.

Think we were not far off that (although numbers a little skewed by only seeing one and a half acts on Saturday thanks to the heat). I just feel position wise and booking wise female artists got done badly this year, particularly with the amount of available talent.