Fewer bars this year

[Mark E. Spliff]

I've just heard this evening that the Workers Beer Company, who run the bars at Glastonbury, Reading etc., have decided they need to become more efficient this year.

To anyone who's worked for them in the past, this won't come as a major surprise - they run the bars in an extraordinarily relaxed way, and only collect a fraction of the money they should. The profits from drink sales are supposed to go to the organizers and artists, who are understandably putting a lot of pressure on them to sort it out.

So this year, there will be changes, starting with Glastonbury. I don't yet know which bars will be axed, but it's likely to be the low-volume ones, as they're aiming to utilise economies of scale. I doubt they'd be able to get rid of the Real Ale Bar, due to public demand, but apart from that I think we'll be left with the big beer-factories, like the Mandela Bar (the one nearest the Pyramid Stage.)

Watch this space for more info about what's going and what's staying. So long as they plan it right, this could be a good thing for everyone: WBC bars have automated pumps which are capable of churning out drinks at colossal rates. However, they waste this facility by allowing bottlenecks to mess everything up. For example, all bars also serve drinks which have to be poured by hand. The volunteer servers end up waiting 10 minutes in a huge queue to get a pint whilst there is no one serving the customers at the bar. If they can separate the automated drinks from the hand-pulled, everyone wins out.

Talk of efficiency might not be very 'Glasto,' but i'm hoping it's going to remove 5 hours of daily stress from my festival. If the punters can walk straight up to the bar and get served, then the volunteer servers can switch to 'hungover zombie beer-factory-worker' mode, as opposed to 'taking-abuse-from-irate customers mode'. All the low-volume drinks, like bitter and scrumpy could still be served, but at a separate part of the bar where there'd never be a queue, and it wouldn't hold up the lager highway.

Edited February 13, 2009 by Mark E. Spliff

[Paul ™]

Interesting, I realise they probably do run too many bars.

When we did the security for them there was I think about 22 bars at one point with some that were ridiculously close to each other.

What is it you do for the WBC Mark?

[Neville Street]

There is room for improvement, but I like the WBC bars a lot, especially the Real Ale bar which I only actually visited twice last year, but it is definitely getting more visits this year

I will not be using any Lager highway

[Kowalski]

When we did the security for them there was I think about 22 bars at one point with some that were ridiculously close to each other.

[Mark E. Spliff]

Interesting, I realise they probably do run too many bars.

When we did the security for them there was I think about 22 bars at one point with some that were ridiculously close to each other.

What is it you do for the WBC Mark?

[Paul ™]

Were you working for UK Security, or was it earlier than that Paul?

Edited February 13, 2009 by Paul ™

[Ricochet]

especially the Real Ale bar which I only actually visited twice last year, but it is definitely getting more visits this year

[llcoolphil]

This needs sorting out

<bump>

[jameshunt]

There is room for improvement, but I like the WBC bars a lot, especially the Real Ale bar which I only actually visited twice last year, but it is definitely getting more visits this year

I will not be using any Lager highway

[HurrahBrother]

not everyone likes/cares for cider (it hates me), so they had better not axe the ones by the cider bus or the west holts/jazzworld stage. The Avalon field one (is that a WBC bar?) is a good one as well. Remove those and I will be most miffed.

[al_coholic]

Is it not true that some of the bars will still be there, just not run by the WBC anymore, instead they will be run by either the fields or the festival. So I dont think anyone will have a problem getting a drink, please correct me if I am wrong

[budvar]

Were there actually fewer bars last year, given the age of the original post?

[dvjj]

To maximise efficiency I heard that they're going to connect the urinals straight to the lager highways, cutting out the middle men.

[Craigston]

Were there actually fewer bars last year, given the age of the original post?

[sinhala]

I think there will be the same amount of bars as usual, but WBC have lost out on a lot of their allocation to Shelter this year.

[glasto-worker]

Is it not true that some of the bars will still be there, just not run by the WBC anymore, instead they will be run by either the fields or the festival. So I dont think anyone will have a problem getting a drink, please correct me if I am wrong