Changes from 2023>2024

[The Red Telephone]

Just got back from Shambala and the set-up they have in the woods is brilliant. Loads of great art installations and a nice big bar. Love to see Woodsies improved to a similar standard.

They also have a ban on single-use paper cups in bars/ coffee stalls - really cuts down on waste and litter. Everyone just brings their own mugs.

[germanmon]

39 minutes ago, The Red Telephone said:

Just got back from Shambala and the set-up they have in the woods is brilliant. Loads of great art installations and a nice big bar. Love to see Woodsies improved to a similar standard.

They also have a ban on single-use paper cups in bars/ coffee stalls - really cuts down on waste and litter. Everyone just brings their own mugs.

Yeah, plus one on the reusable cups. We were at Shambala too and even before the clean up crews did their thing yesterday morning, the difference in ground cover of rubbish between there and other festivals was significant. It really wasn't a hassle - plenty of taps to give your own coffee cup a quick swill; if you'd paid the initial extra £1.50 to use one of their pint glasses, you got a fresh one every time. Not a problem. 

I can see some moaning initially if it was introduced, but I reckon people would quickly cotton on after a year or two and it just becomes the norm. 

[Punksnotdead]

3 hours ago, germanmon said:

Yeah, plus one on the reusable cups. We were at Shambala too and even before the clean up crews did their thing yesterday morning, the difference in ground cover of rubbish between there and other festivals was significant. It really wasn't a hassle - plenty of taps to give your own coffee cup a quick swill; if you'd paid the initial extra £1.50 to use one of their pint glasses, you got a fresh one every time. Not a problem. 

I can see some moaning initially if it was introduced, but I reckon people would quickly cotton on after a year or two and it just becomes the norm. 

I imagine it's the sheer number of reusable cups that prevent Glastonbury doing it. They do it at End of the Road & it works great, but I imagine it would be a logistical nightmare doing it for 200,000 people?

[Skip997]

9 minutes ago, Punksnotdead said:

I imagine it's the sheer number of reusable cups that prevent Glastonbury doing it. They do it at End of the Road & it works great, but I imagine it would be a logistical nightmare doing it for 200,000 people?

Why?

It's the attendees that would be providing the reusable cups, not Glastonbury.

[Punksnotdead]

6 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Why?

It's the attendees that would be providing the reusable cups, not Glastonbury.

At EOTR you pay £1.50 for the first cup & then they take it off you & change it for a washed cup. I assumed that's what we're talking about.

I would think this is something that Glastonbury have looked into & there's a good reason why they've not done it yet?

[DeanoL]

8 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Why?

It's the attendees that would be providing the reusable cups, not Glastonbury.

Generally the way these schemes work is they swap your reusable glass each time, they get cleaned overnight. The volumes involved at Glasto (plus the distance to somewhere they can be cleaned) is too large.

There's likely sufficient health issues with just re-using the same glass over and over - I think when it's optional, organisers can sort say "well it's not advised but people can take the risk if they want" but I think you'd struggle to get it signed off as the only option.

Plus the taps are busy enough without adding in 200,000 people cleaning their reusable cups every day...

(I think at Glastonbury currently they won't even fill your own container for H&S reasons)

[Skip997]

Just now, Punksnotdead said:

At EOTR you pay £1.50 for the first cup & then they take it off you & change it for a washed cup. I assumed that's what we're talking about.

I would think this is something that Glastonbury have looked into & there's a good reason why they've not done it yet?

Maybe crossed wires here.

I'm referring to the bring your own vessel to tea/coffee stalls.

[Punksnotdead]

Just now, Skip997 said:

Maybe crossed wires here.

I'm referring to the bring your own vessel to tea/coffee stalls.

Ah no - fair enough! I was talking about the bars.

[DeanoL]

I think if all the paper coffee cups vanished off-site you'd barely notice the difference at Glastonbury. They're so heavily outnumbered by the pints.

[DeanoL]

(I'd also suspect shards of broken ceramics may be as much of an issue as broken glass for the farm)

[stuie]

48 minutes ago, Punksnotdead said:

At EOTR you pay £1.50 for the first cup & then they take it off you & change it for a washed cup. I assumed that's what we're talking about.

I would think this is something that Glastonbury have looked into & there's a good reason why they've not done it yet?

 

47 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Generally the way these schemes work is they swap your reusable glass each time, they get cleaned overnight. The volumes involved at Glasto (plus the distance to somewhere they can be cleaned) is too large.

There's likely sufficient health issues with just re-using the same glass over and over - I think when it's optional, organisers can sort say "well it's not advised but people can take the risk if they want" but I think you'd struggle to get it signed off as the only option.

Plus the taps are busy enough without adding in 200,000 people cleaning their reusable cups every day...

(I think at Glastonbury currently they won't even fill your own container for H&S reasons)

Glastonbury already have this pint/half pint plastic cup replacement in operation in the crew bars… they have done since 2019. 

I expect it’s something they are working up to offering across the whole site soon.

[Skip997]

1 minute ago, stuie said:

 

Glastonbury already have this pint/half pint plastic cup replacement in operation in the crew bars… they have done since 2019. 

I expect it’s something they are working up to offering across the whole site soon.

I didn't realize it was only crew bars, I thought it was all bars.

I've never been in a punters bar at Glastonbury.

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

7 hours ago, The Red Telephone said:

Just got back from Shambala and the set-up they have in the woods is brilliant. Loads of great art installations and a nice big bar. Love to see Woodsies improved to a similar standard.

They also have a ban on single-use paper cups in bars/ coffee stalls - really cuts down on waste and litter. Everyone just brings their own mugs.

On the second point as well, there were a few of the mini bars, for example near the Glade and between Silver Hayes and Woodsies that were only selling cans, but they would decant them into a single use cup. 

It made absolutely no sense. Just give us the can if that's what's on offer.

[gfa]

15 hours ago, Justcalledtosay said:

Different perspectives etc. The Leeds screens ‘wrap around’ at the sides too which is a cool feature.

ahh yeah forgot they didn't actually add the screens when they used the same main stage structure

13 hours ago, Skip997 said:

Move Carhenge to Unfairground with the addition of an appropriate stage, preferably Wango Rilleys (if it still exists). Put loads of old school "festi" bands on the line up.

Still confused by all there's no variety in the post midnight music complaints. There's loads, people just ain't looking.

Last thing the SEC needs is more stuff clogging it up

7 hours ago, Punksnotdead said:

I imagine it's the sheer number of reusable cups that prevent Glastonbury doing it. They do it at End of the Road & it works great, but I imagine it would be a logistical nightmare doing it for 200,000 people?

Sziget do this at a very large scale - while less people are on site at once theres probably a similar amount over the 6-9 days

[Ryan1984]

20 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

Does seem like there could be a nice fit there if they're looking to fill CH/WG with a proper line-up next year. Just need to make sure they don't put oversized bands on there for the Wed/Thurs when there's no competition across the rest of the site. 

I didn’t go this year but weren’t Empire State Bastard on at an equally absurd time? Let those of us who like our heavier bands (and sleep/kids) rock out in the daylight!

[Skip997]

8 hours ago, gfa said:

ahh yeah forgot they didn't actually add the screens when they used the same main stage structure

Last thing the SEC needs is more stuff clogging it up

Sziget do this at a very large scale - while less people are on site at once theres probably a similar amount over the 6-9 days

It would be a replacement for Unfairground

[DeanoL]

8 hours ago, gfa said:

ahh yeah forgot they didn't actually add the screens when they used the same main stage structure

Last thing the SEC needs is more stuff clogging it up

Sziget do this at a very large scale - while less people are on site at once theres probably a similar amount over the 6-9 days

Sziget is also in a city which probably has nearby industrial cleaning facilities.

[stuie]

20 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

Sziget is also in a city which probably has nearby industrial cleaning facilities.

I’m sure that helps but Glastonbury not being in a city hasn’t hindered them in the past and if they can do it for 40k staff it can be scaled up to total population. 

We’re talking about a festival with its own reservoirs, waste storage, recycling centre and a fully equipped hospital! 

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, stuie said:

I’m sure that helps but Glastonbury not being in a city hasn’t hindered them in the past and if they can do it for 40k staff it can be scaled up to total population. 

We’re talking about a festival with its own reservoirs, waste storage, recycling centre and a fully equipped hospital! 

Oh it can be done. It's just if there's any environmental benefit left after it's been done. For all their faults, Glasto aim their green policies at where they can actually make meaningful reductions and not just greenwashing. You'd probably be limited to restocking bars overnight, realistically, because of traffic. So you'd need maybe a million hard plastic glasses? Average of five drinks per person on site per day. Plus some of those will get "lost" by people who just dump them because they're too lazy/out-of-it/stupid to do otherwise.

Plus it seems a lot of festivals doing this these days are doing a "branded festival cups on the last day and take them home with you" rather refunding the deposit, which is nice, but pushes the problem further down the road. We have 6 plastic pint cups from festivals this year alone in the cupboard. I'll be honest, come next year some will be going in the bin....

[gfa]

2 hours ago, Skip997 said:

It would be a replacement for Unfairground

Ah right sorry i missed that... couldn't they just keep it where it is and actually put stuff there to help spread out crowds more though?

2 hours ago, DeanoL said:

Sziget is also in a city which probably has nearby industrial cleaning facilities.

I'm pretty sure they clean them onsite - like you just watch them clean them if i recall (went 4 years ago)

Edited August 30, 2023 by gfa

[moogster]

The way this works at Dutch festivals these days is: you get a token for your first drink when getting your wristband. Which comes in one of those compostable plastic cups. They are not nice to drink from but well... When you go for another drink, or you hand over your old one, or pay a small fee. Or you get a token back for the day after if you're done drinking. It does makes everything more complex for the bars, although there are cups/token exchange points around. And for the punter too. The cost of those compostable cups is probably higher than normal too. 

Overall something's gotta give. Costs, manpower, hygiene, convenience...

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

5 hours ago, Ryan1984 said:

I didn’t go this year but weren’t Empire State Bastard on at an equally absurd time? Let those of us who like our heavier bands (and sleep/kids) rock out in the daylight!

Yeah, like 1:30am in the morning. I was at Woodsies until 11:45 and wanted to see ESB, but no way was I prepared to walk all the way to SEC for a one-off band. It's a shame, could easily lump a few bands together of that genre and whack them on Woodsies or Other during the day/early evening.

[Skip997]

5 hours ago, Ryan1984 said:

I didn’t go this year but weren’t Empire State Bastard on at an equally absurd time? Let those of us who like our heavier bands (and sleep/kids) rock out in the daylight!

So we get regular complaints on here that there's nothing but "dance music" on after midnight (not true) and then we get complaints that "non-dance music" acts are on too late (i.e. after midnight).

[giantkatestacks]

4 hours ago, stuie said:

I’m sure that helps but Glastonbury not being in a city hasn’t hindered them in the past and if they can do it for 40k staff it can be scaled up to total population. 

We’re talking about a festival with its own reservoirs, waste storage, recycling centre and a fully equipped hospital! 

Doesnt it work more for the crew bars as we have more facility to wash our reusuable cups in the first place and they arent for the most part doing that thing where they pour 30 pints at a time and leave them standing - though they would be a damn site quicker if they did.

[stuie]

5 minutes ago, giantkatestacks said:

Doesnt it work more for the crew bars as we have more facility to wash our reusuable cups in the first place and they arent for the most part doing that thing where they pour 30 pints at a time and leave them standing - though they would be a damn site quicker if they did.

I've not washed my reusable bar cups before! They give out fresh ones when you take them back.