Volunteering 2025

[incident]

9 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

Glastonbury is probably the one festival where, outside the handful of gate organisers and gate supervisors, they could probably get away with less experienced people. 

 

You don't need to be radioing medicals etc etc. 

 

Yeah definitely agree with this. There's certainly festivals where Oxfam shoulder more operational stuff than others (one of the reasons I was surprised that Bearded made a change), but Glastonbury isn't one of them. As long as there's enough people running the show who know what they're doing, and the briefings cover everything that's needed, it's very routine.

[Pinhead]

5 minutes ago, incident said:

 

I reckon the absence of WOMAD probably impacted that one as well, I reckon those wanting it would have dispersed to either BDs or Shambala.

 

I'd have though Shambala certainly the better fit for ex-WOMAD punters. Its still available however whereas BD seems to have gone in just a few mins.

 

Do you know if it was BT that chose to switch everything to, was it Festaff? Or did Oxfam decide it just wasn't economical to continue doing it any longer? There was certainly no hint that it would be the last when I did it last year with them.

 

[Skip997]

29 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

I'd have though Shambala certainly the better fit for ex-WOMAD punters. Its still available however whereas BD seems to have gone in just a few mins.

 

 

Always find this odd. Somehow Shambala is still slipping under the radar, which is probably a good thing. 

[incident]

55 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Do you know if it was BT that chose to switch everything to, was it Festaff? Or did Oxfam decide it just wasn't economical to continue doing it any longer? There was certainly no hint that it would be the last when I did it last year with them.

 

Doubt the specifics will ever become public.

 

But it does seem fairly safe to assume it'll be more of a financial decision (on one side or both) than anything else. At the end of the day Oxfam are in the game to make a surplus from the festival operation so need to maximise income, and equally Bearded are looking to take a profit so want to keep costs as low as possible.

[Pinhead]

19 minutes ago, incident said:

 

Doubt the specifics will ever become public.

 

But it does seem fairly safe to assume it'll be more of a financial decision (on one side or both) than anything else. At the end of the day Oxfam are in the game to make a surplus from the festival operation so need to maximise income, and equally Bearded are looking to take a profit so want to keep costs as low as possible.

My guess, and its only a guess, is that costs had exceeded returns with BT with the organising and logistics etc, and this might also be a reason why there are far more one day festivals being offered which remove the need for so much logistics.

[tarw]

1 hour ago, Skip997 said:

Always find this odd. Somehow Shambala is still slipping under the radar, which is probably a good thing. 

It could be that Oxfam have got larger numbers there this year.  There was talk about taking on more roles and more pre-festival work (H&S accreditation) last year.

[Skip997]

Just now, tarw said:

It could be that Oxfam have got larger numbers there this year.  There was talk about taking on more roles and more pre-festival work (H&S accreditation) last year.

Could be, but last year there were still places fairly late on.

[tarw]

12 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Could be, but last year there were still places fairly late on.

I hope so because until I get a price from a roofer on Wednesday I don’t know if I’ve got the deposit at the moment 

[Old_Johno]

1 hour ago, Skip997 said:

Always find this odd. Somehow Shambala is still slipping under the radar, which is probably a good thing. 

Not always a great thing, they had to hire a lot of third party event staff last year because they didn’t have enough steward volunteers 

[philipsteak]

3 hours ago, Pinhead said:

 

 

Do you know if it was BT that chose to switch everything to, was it Festaff? Or did Oxfam decide it just wasn't economical to continue doing it any longer? There was certainly no hint that it would be the last when I did it last year with them.

 

 

 

Pure speculation of course but I'd guess something like, more commercially minded operators take over, put the contract out to tender, Festaff undercut Oxfam, Oxfam unwilling/unable to match (hence Oxfam's comments about 'reluctantly stepping away' or however it was phrased), Festaff win contract.

[Leyrulion]

1 hour ago, Pinhead said:

My guess, and its only a guess, is that costs had exceeded returns with BT with the organising and logistics etc, and this might also be a reason why there are far more one day festivals being offered which remove the need for so much logistics.

Yeah my gut is that Oxfam also aren't particularly "cheap" as a provider either.

[stuie]

27 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

Yeah my gut is that Oxfam also aren't particularly "cheap" as a provider either.

 

But that money buys good optics for your event and a quality service. 

[incident]

9 minutes ago, stuie said:

But that money buys good optics for your event and a quality service. 

 

And in the case of Bearded - a small number of positions that probably should have been given to badged security in the first place (which they got away with of course because Bearded is full of lovely people, but would have become an issue at several other festivals).

[Leyrulion]

8 minutes ago, stuie said:

 

But that money buys good optics for your event and a quality service. 

Well yes, that's the bonus. I guess ultimately some fests will have at least a notional idea of the value the optics and service are too them when deciding who to go with. 

 

For my work we'd define all that stuff into a social value part of the contract tender which gets scored alongside costs etc and forms part of the decision. 

[philipsteak]

Although with some of the scandals that Oxfam have had recently I wonder how much value some festivals place on those optics

[Paul ™]

7 hours ago, efcfanwirral said:

That was my first thought too. Wonder if the feedback from the new gate manager system was that they need some better trained people around them

 

4 hours ago, Leyrulion said:

Glastonbury is probably the one festival where, outside the handful of gate organisers and gate supervisors, they could probably get away with less experienced people. 

 

You don't need to be radioing medicals etc etc. 

 

Definitely agree with this, as a Gate Manager this year, we were constantly feeding back to Gates Control regarding numbers, requirements, timings etc..

 

1 hour ago, philipsteak said:

 

 

Pure speculation of course but I'd guess something like, more commercially minded operators take over, put the contract out to tender, Festaff undercut Oxfam, Oxfam unwilling/unable to match (hence Oxfam's comments about 'reluctantly stepping away' or however it was phrased), Festaff win contract.

I believe this is what has happened, end of contract and out to tender.

Also bringing in 2 companies that did similar jobs and replacing that with 1 makes sense.

[Pinhead]

49 minutes ago, incident said:

 

And in the case of Bearded - a small number of positions that probably should have been given to badged security in the first place (which they got away with of course because Bearded is full of lovely people, but would have become an issue at several other festivals).

Definately - they used to stick us on wristbanding / checking with no security backups anywhere so there wasn't much we could do if we saw peeps without other than call it in for the stats.

[Pinhead]

Not a bad line up for Beautiful Days. Do they usually fill this festival with priortiy stewards and if not, are priority stewards still allowed to sign up on the 11th when public applications open (can you see where I'm going with this 😉

 

[incident]

20 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Not a bad line up for Beautiful Days. Do they usually fill this festival with priortiy stewards and if not, are priority stewards still allowed to sign up on the 11th when public applications open (can you see where I'm going with this 😉

 

 

It's already full. Don't think they'll be holding back places for non-priority - as far as I'm aware that's only ever happened once, for Glastonbury, and that was a long time ago.

[balti-pie]

1 hour ago, Pinhead said:

Not a bad line up for Beautiful Days. Do they usually fill this festival with priortiy stewards and if not, are priority stewards still allowed to sign up on the 11th when public applications open (can you see where I'm going with this 😉

 

A few spots opened up sporadically last year here and there, but not very many - worth booking the time off and keeping an eye out I’d say. It does look a good lineup and I hear it’s a lovely event to volunteer at, lots of facilities etc for the workers! (I absolutely hate the Levellers though, if I do it I think I’d schedule myself to leave early doors on the Sunday evening so I don’t get levellered) 

[incident]

6 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

(I absolutely hate the Levellers though, if I do it I think I’d schedule myself to leave early doors on the Sunday evening so I don’t get levellered) 

 

I don't quite hate the Levellers, but am bored of them at this point so probably would have done that myself the time I worked BDs. Except that I had a Monday 8am-4pm shift (Oxfam had quite a few on duty at the time so decent chance of getting one if you tick that box).

[Pinhead]

1 hour ago, incident said:

 

It's already full. Don't think they'll be holding back places for non-priority - as far as I'm aware that's only ever happened once, for Glastonbury, and that was a long time ago.

Still have it listed on their festivals page. They ought to say its full on there so public apps realise.

[sedra]

5 minutes ago, Pinhead said:

Still have it listed on their festivals page. They ought to say its full on there so public apps realise.

It only says full when you go in to your account to book a festival- there are a few others already sold out. If you already have priority you can see now if places are available or not. 

[rwhitehouse13]

That BD line-up is great, have been there before with Oxfam and really liked it, hope that a spare place might pop up!

[Pinhead]

7 minutes ago, rwhitehouse13 said:

That BD line-up is great, have been there before with Oxfam and really liked it, hope that a spare place might pop up!

How do you put yourself down for BD as interested in filling a spare place if it comes up?