Your most controversial Glastonbury opinions

[Gnomicide]

18 minutes ago, The Red Telephone said:

It. Was. A. Joke. Based. On. What. Someone. On. The. Previous. Page. Said.

Apologies. Post deleted, radar is fucked.

[The Red Telephone]

4 minutes ago, Ingobernable said:

Soz mate. I've undone my downvote and given you a new upvote to say sorry. 

 

2 minutes ago, Gnomicide said:

Apologies. Post deleted, radar is fucked.

No worries guys 😘

[Janaka]

11 minutes ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Nah - you tried to pass off an anecdote as evidence. 

Ah you’re so much better at these opinions than me! 

[CaledonianGonzo]

That's just one person's opinion.

[Smeble]

3 hours ago, found home in 2009 said:

I agree with the far too many people on site. By unnecessaries do you mean excess workers or stages/areas you don't think add anything? If it's the latter there will probably be a lot of disagreement on what is unnecessary.

I would suggest that the numbers of volunteers needs an audit. 

[karlpowell]

 Flares and hot knifes should make a come back.

Edited May 16, 2022 by karlpowell

[RyanForThewin]

On 4/13/2022 at 9:42 PM, incident said:

In terms of dragging them along when they're 3 years old, that makes perfect sense.

In terms of refusing them when they're 11 years old and begging to come along (and with them having seen TV footage with loads of kids their age in shot), then you'd feel like a right dick saying no to them.

So you say yes to your kids to everything they ask for, not to feel like a dickhead? 😉

[Crazyfool01]

9 hours ago, TheGChild said:

With the exception of the CND sign, every additional feature that's been added to the top of the pyramid has looked gash, ditto for the recent embelishments to t'other.

...also they need to be reducing crowd numbers not increasing. Think this years gonna be noticeably overcrowded re: que times, venue capacity (more so than it already is).

the phoenix ? 

[MJP]

I think this will be an eFests controversial opinion, so here goes...

It's not worth doing the overnight queue. I did it in 2017 and 2019 but you end up starting the festival knackered and there's not that much benefit other than the location of your tent. It's quite cold and then the dew dampens your kit.

Luckily we have friends who are happy to take our tent, so we're heading down on Wednesday afternoon instead.

[TheGChild]

2 hours ago, karlpowell said:

 Flares and hot knifes should make a come back.

Flares and Hot Knife sound like they would play a filthy DnB set in the Common at 2am

[CaledonianGonzo]

1 hour ago, MJP said:

I think this will be an eFests controversial opinion, so here goes...

It's not worth doing the overnight queue. I did it in 2017 and 2019 but you end up starting the festival knackered and there's not that much benefit other than the location of your tent. It's quite cold and then the dew dampens your kit.

Yeah, I'm not great at sleeping if I'm not in a bed, so I can't think of anything worse. I'd start the festival buggered.

[Old_Johno]

1 hour ago, MJP said:

I think this will be an eFests controversial opinion, so here goes...

It's not worth doing the overnight queue. I did it in 2017 and 2019 but you end up starting the festival knackered and there's not that much benefit other than the location of your tent. It's quite cold and then the dew dampens your kit.

Luckily we have friends who are happy to take our tent, so we're heading down on Wednesday afternoon instead.

Having keen friends set up your tent is the gold standard. I’ll carry all your heavy cider, you take my nice light tent in. 

[TheGChild]

2 hours ago, crazyfool1 said:

the phoenix ? 

Looked shit, especially when it started flapping.

Shes a natural beauty, doesnt need the slap on her.

[chazwwe]

2 hours ago, MJP said:

I think this will be an eFests controversial opinion, so here goes...

It's not worth doing the overnight queue. I did it in 2017 and 2019 but you end up starting the festival knackered and there's not that much benefit other than the location of your tent. It's quite cold and then the dew dampens your kit.

Luckily we have friends who are happy to take our tent, so we're heading down on Wednesday afternoon instead.

Agreed. I don't understand how some can do it. 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

 

Okay, I’m unable to reply to all these messages (10 notifications!). I knew it would be controversial to say what I said, but I thought what the heck, it’s the name of the thread 😛 But I thought I would just summarise my opinion here one last time because I think my views have been wildly misunderstood. 

For clarity one last time: I’m not against women, or women in music, or I want less women on the bill. I said to one poster, that if the best musicians were 80% women and the festival punters was 80% women, I wouldn’t give a hoot. I’ve seen loads of female artists or female-led bands at Glastonbury – because believe it or not, I don’t judge a song on whether it’s sung by a man or a woman, I just want good music. Counter to that, some of the worst performances have been by men as well. That doesn't mean I now hate men either btw.

All I’m against is hiring someone just because they’ve got the correct chromosomes/skin tone/physical attribute. I don’t think it sets out at beating sexism, by swinging the pendulum in the other direction and being more sexist. It’s pretty much sexism/racism to hire someone for the festival/in real life, just because they’re “ticking a box”. Talk about tokenism instead of merit.

Yes, I know that there’s a lot of great female artists on the bill this year at Glastonbury, but it just shouldn’t really matter. What happened to enjoying music because of the music, the character of the singer, and the good vibes? Why is everyone so predisposed with what’s underneath the clothes, things that people can’t change?

And no, I can’t pinpoint who I would change off the bill, because I’m not Emily Eavis and I don’t know who she chose ahead of a male group to fulfil the quota. I’m sure a lot of the female artists are great and I’ve been listening to a few, but if it’s just done for the quotas, it’s just kind of sad how far our society has come that people think it’s actually a good idea to go around choosing individuals because of what’s between their legs, instead of their talent.

One thing I keep hearing about is representation, getting more women in to music etc, but for example, since I’ve been going to Glastonbury, the crowd has been more or less equal between men and women. And women are not these delicate little creatures who need to see themselves in the mirror or who need female artists or bands to see more artists or bands or need extra support – talk about being patronising to women. You really think they’re so weak and lame they can’t go out and earn their spot on the bill?

Women are also allowed to like whoever they want, that’s the whole point. Women can watch any artist if they’re black, brown, green, white, man, woman or whatever. Women don’t need quotas to have a good time. Women can go and watch male bands all weekend long if they want to and not give a shit about it because they like the music. Would it upset people if a woman went to Glasto and never saw any of the female artists who were supposedly there for her? “Oh, look we hired all these women to represent you, because you’re also a woman. So go and watch the women, woman!” How bloody sexist/patronising.

Again, if you make a decision purely based on if they’re male or female – that is the definition of sexism. Just like if I hire a white man just because he’s white, or a black person because they’re black, that’s right, you’ve got it; racism. If I (as a man) was to hire a man because he was a man, would that be sexist? Yes, yes it would be. So, what’s the difference? Oh, historical sexism. Again, adding more of -ism, doesn’t help the situation, it just further divides people.

Whereas people are actually advocating for splitting us all into groups of attributes we can’t change and making decisions based off of things like race, sex, sexuality. Why not add disability, broken homes, class status, financial status, history of crime, etc onto the list and really shake things up? How many white middle class go to Glasto? How many Muslims, or lesbians? If you’re part of the champions of quotas and you’re one of the majority of the ‘usual’ punter, may I suggest you off load your ticket and give it to a minority who is underrepresented. No, I didn’t think many of you would be doing that.

Like I said to one poster, why not take the physical attributes of everyone, including height, weight, skin colour, gender, and all the others at the point of sale on SeeTickets, and divide everyone up into tables, and formulate the most PERFECT and most REPRESENTATIVE crowd ever. How invasive, how terrible that we reduce our quality to our physical attributes.

If you’re for quotas, you obviously think women are weak, are historical victims, and are unable to make it on their own.

I prefer to see women as capable, strong-willed, and good musicians, not just a box to tick.

Anyway, I don't know if I can make it clearer than that, apologies for the long post 😛 

[TheGChild]

8 hours ago, Twiggy553 said:

I wear leggings almost exclusively at festivals 😂 

Hey whatever makes you happy dude. You do you! x

[Beerqueen]

2 hours ago, MJP said:

I think this will be an eFests controversial opinion, so here goes...

It's not worth doing the overnight queue. I did it in 2017 and 2019 but you end up starting the festival knackered and there's not that much benefit other than the location of your tent. It's quite cold and then the dew dampens your kit.

Luckily we have friends who are happy to take our tent, so we're heading down on Wednesday afternoon instead.

Totally agree!  I've never even thought about doing it.  Getting there Wednesday mid-morning/lunchtime is fine by me.  I don't tend to care much where I camp and don't want to start the festival knackered.

[coma girl]

3 hours ago, MJP said:

I think this will be an eFests controversial opinion, so here goes...

It's not worth doing the overnight queue. I did it in 2017 and 2019 but you end up starting the festival knackered and there's not that much benefit other than the location of your tent. It's quite cold and then the dew dampens your kit.

Luckily we have friends who are happy to take our tent, so we're heading down on Wednesday afternoon instead.

Are your mates queuing overnight? 

The queue isn't my favourite thing but I am happy to put up with a few hours mild discomfort to guarantee 5 days in our preferred camping spot. 

[balti-pie]

Bollocks to an overnight queue - never have, never will. And now I volunteer for oxfam I don’t suppose I have to! I walked past them at about 10pm last time, light bit of drizzle coming down, hunkered in their chairs excitedly chattering away - and then I got into my nice comfy bed and smiled smugly 🤣🤣 sorry 

[Respectfatfrog]

Done the overnight que once its a young man's game good banter and builds up nice but it does take it out of you the next day. The gates opened and so did the hevans never had such a bad start to the festival 

[Camden Leisure Pirate]

2 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

 

Okay, I’m unable to reply to all these messages (10 notifications!). I knew it would be controversial to say what I said, but I thought what the heck, it’s the name of the thread 😛 But I thought I would just summarise my opinion here one last time because I think my views have been wildly misunderstood. 

For clarity one last time: I’m not against women, or women in music, or I want less women on the bill. I said to one poster, that if the best musicians were 80% women and the festival punters was 80% women, I wouldn’t give a hoot. I’ve seen loads of female artists or female-led bands at Glastonbury – because believe it or not, I don’t judge a song on whether it’s sung by a man or a woman, I just want good music. Counter to that, some of the worst performances have been by men as well. That doesn't mean I now hate men either btw.

All I’m against is hiring someone just because they’ve got the correct chromosomes/skin tone/physical attribute. I don’t think it sets out at beating sexism, by swinging the pendulum in the other direction and being more sexist. It’s pretty much sexism/racism to hire someone for the festival/in real life, just because they’re “ticking a box”. Talk about tokenism instead of merit.

Yes, I know that there’s a lot of great female artists on the bill this year at Glastonbury, but it just shouldn’t really matter. What happened to enjoying music because of the music, the character of the singer, and the good vibes? Why is everyone so predisposed with what’s underneath the clothes, things that people can’t change?

And no, I can’t pinpoint who I would change off the bill, because I’m not Emily Eavis and I don’t know who she chose ahead of a male group to fulfil the quota. I’m sure a lot of the female artists are great and I’ve been listening to a few, but if it’s just done for the quotas, it’s just kind of sad how far our society has come that people think it’s actually a good idea to go around choosing individuals because of what’s between their legs, instead of their talent.

One thing I keep hearing about is representation, getting more women in to music etc, but for example, since I’ve been going to Glastonbury, the crowd has been more or less equal between men and women. And women are not these delicate little creatures who need to see themselves in the mirror or who need female artists or bands to see more artists or bands or need extra support – talk about being patronising to women. You really think they’re so weak and lame they can’t go out and earn their spot on the bill?

Women are also allowed to like whoever they want, that’s the whole point. Women can watch any artist if they’re black, brown, green, white, man, woman or whatever. Women don’t need quotas to have a good time. Women can go and watch male bands all weekend long if they want to and not give a shit about it because they like the music. Would it upset people if a woman went to Glasto and never saw any of the female artists who were supposedly there for her? “Oh, look we hired all these women to represent you, because you’re also a woman. So go and watch the women, woman!” How bloody sexist/patronising.

Again, if you make a decision purely based on if they’re male or female – that is the definition of sexism. Just like if I hire a white man just because he’s white, or a black person because they’re black, that’s right, you’ve got it; racism. If I (as a man) was to hire a man because he was a man, would that be sexist? Yes, yes it would be. So, what’s the difference? Oh, historical sexism. Again, adding more of -ism, doesn’t help the situation, it just further divides people.

Whereas people are actually advocating for splitting us all into groups of attributes we can’t change and making decisions based off of things like race, sex, sexuality. Why not add disability, broken homes, class status, financial status, history of crime, etc onto the list and really shake things up? How many white middle class go to Glasto? How many Muslims, or lesbians? If you’re part of the champions of quotas and you’re one of the majority of the ‘usual’ punter, may I suggest you off load your ticket and give it to a minority who is underrepresented. No, I didn’t think many of you would be doing that.

Like I said to one poster, why not take the physical attributes of everyone, including height, weight, skin colour, gender, and all the others at the point of sale on SeeTickets, and divide everyone up into tables, and formulate the most PERFECT and most REPRESENTATIVE crowd ever. How invasive, how terrible that we reduce our quality to our physical attributes.

If you’re for quotas, you obviously think women are weak, are historical victims, and are unable to make it on their own.

I prefer to see women as capable, strong-willed, and good musicians, not just a box to tick.

Anyway, I don't know if I can make it clearer than that, apologies for the long post 😛 

well said mate, I think you were taken out of context too tbf, and you have seriously made the effort to be reasonable throughout! big ups to ya, if I had any upvotes I would, and I hope you have a GF blinder🙌

[SouthbanKen]

4 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

 

Okay, I’m unable to reply to all these messages (10 notifications!). I knew it would be controversial to say what I said, but I thought what the heck, it’s the name of the thread 😛 But I thought I would just summarise my opinion here one last time because I think my views have been wildly misunderstood. 

For clarity one last time: I’m not against women, or women in music, or I want less women on the bill. I said to one poster, that if the best musicians were 80% women and the festival punters was 80% women, I wouldn’t give a hoot. I’ve seen loads of female artists or female-led bands at Glastonbury – because believe it or not, I don’t judge a song on whether it’s sung by a man or a woman, I just want good music. Counter to that, some of the worst performances have been by men as well. That doesn't mean I now hate men either btw.

All I’m against is hiring someone just because they’ve got the correct chromosomes/skin tone/physical attribute. I don’t think it sets out at beating sexism, by swinging the pendulum in the other direction and being more sexist. It’s pretty much sexism/racism to hire someone for the festival/in real life, just because they’re “ticking a box”. Talk about tokenism instead of merit.

Yes, I know that there’s a lot of great female artists on the bill this year at Glastonbury, but it just shouldn’t really matter. What happened to enjoying music because of the music, the character of the singer, and the good vibes? Why is everyone so predisposed with what’s underneath the clothes, things that people can’t change?

And no, I can’t pinpoint who I would change off the bill, because I’m not Emily Eavis and I don’t know who she chose ahead of a male group to fulfil the quota. I’m sure a lot of the female artists are great and I’ve been listening to a few, but if it’s just done for the quotas, it’s just kind of sad how far our society has come that people think it’s actually a good idea to go around choosing individuals because of what’s between their legs, instead of their talent.

One thing I keep hearing about is representation, getting more women in to music etc, but for example, since I’ve been going to Glastonbury, the crowd has been more or less equal between men and women. And women are not these delicate little creatures who need to see themselves in the mirror or who need female artists or bands to see more artists or bands or need extra support – talk about being patronising to women. You really think they’re so weak and lame they can’t go out and earn their spot on the bill?

Women are also allowed to like whoever they want, that’s the whole point. Women can watch any artist if they’re black, brown, green, white, man, woman or whatever. Women don’t need quotas to have a good time. Women can go and watch male bands all weekend long if they want to and not give a shit about it because they like the music. Would it upset people if a woman went to Glasto and never saw any of the female artists who were supposedly there for her? “Oh, look we hired all these women to represent you, because you’re also a woman. So go and watch the women, woman!” How bloody sexist/patronising.

Again, if you make a decision purely based on if they’re male or female – that is the definition of sexism. Just like if I hire a white man just because he’s white, or a black person because they’re black, that’s right, you’ve got it; racism. If I (as a man) was to hire a man because he was a man, would that be sexist? Yes, yes it would be. So, what’s the difference? Oh, historical sexism. Again, adding more of -ism, doesn’t help the situation, it just further divides people.

Whereas people are actually advocating for splitting us all into groups of attributes we can’t change and making decisions based off of things like race, sex, sexuality. Why not add disability, broken homes, class status, financial status, history of crime, etc onto the list and really shake things up? How many white middle class go to Glasto? How many Muslims, or lesbians? If you’re part of the champions of quotas and you’re one of the majority of the ‘usual’ punter, may I suggest you off load your ticket and give it to a minority who is underrepresented. No, I didn’t think many of you would be doing that.

Like I said to one poster, why not take the physical attributes of everyone, including height, weight, skin colour, gender, and all the others at the point of sale on SeeTickets, and divide everyone up into tables, and formulate the most PERFECT and most REPRESENTATIVE crowd ever. How invasive, how terrible that we reduce our quality to our physical attributes.

If you’re for quotas, you obviously think women are weak, are historical victims, and are unable to make it on their own.

I prefer to see women as capable, strong-willed, and good musicians, not just a box to tick.

Anyway, I don't know if I can make it clearer than that, apologies for the long post 😛 

Essentially, you are against affirmative action. Personally, I and it feels like lots of people on here, and indeed the festival itself support affirmative action in increasing equality, particularly in terms of female representation but also, in terms of increasing the representation from People of Colour. These are probably the largest under represented groups at the festival and so it makes sense to start there. I would also support it for disabled groups, working class groups, LGBTQ groups and potentially others if they were highlighted to me. 

All of these groups have been historically underrepresented in music, taking positive steps to improve their visibility at one of the worlds major music festivals has positive outcomes for all members of society inside and outside the festival and I for one hope it continues. 

if you are interested then this short article sets out some of the benefits that AA has had in the US college system, whilst it takes a little lateral thinking, I would imagine a study into AA in music would find similar individual and societal benefits derived from Glastonbury’s actions. 

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/07/case-affirmative-action

I don’t take umbrage with much of your post, although the strawman about ticket allocation makes your argument weaker and belittles your overall position, but I do take exception to this point: “If you’re for quotas, you obviously think women are weak, are historical victims, and are unable to make it on their own.”

You are wrong, I don’t think women are weak, but I do know that women are victimised globally. It might not appear so in your nice little world, but here are some facts that prove we still have a long way to go when it comes to equality. 

71% of all human trafficking involves women and girls – mainly for sexual exploitation (source. UNODC, 2016)

Over 2.7 billion women don’t have the same work opportunities as men, with laws restricting the types of jobs they can do (source. World Bank, 2018).

Less than 15% of landholders worldwide are women (source. Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015; World Bank, 2019).

Nearly 82 million women around the world don’t have any legal protection against discrimination in the workplace (source. World Policy Analysis Centre, 2017).

When women are involved in negotiations the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years is increased by 20 per cent, and 15 years by 35 per cent (source. Preventing Conflict, Transforming Justice, and Securing the Peace: A Global Study on Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325, 2015).

Anyone who posts on this forum knows that Glastonbury is a cultural icon, a global event that has the ability to touch people way beyond a field in south west England. Increasing representation isn’t about promoting one decent band over another decent band, it’s about making the world a better place for everyone. 

Edited May 16, 2022 by SouthbanKen

[clarkete]

39 minutes ago, SouthbanKen said:

Essentially, you are against affirmative action. Personally, I and it feels like lots of people on here, and indeed the festival itself support affirmative action in increasing equality, particularly in terms of female representation but also, in terms of increasing the representation from People of Colour. These are probably the largest under represented groups at the festival and so it makes sense to start there. I would also support it for disabled groups, working class groups, LGBTQ groups and potentially others if they were highlighted to me. 

All of these groups have been historically underrepresented in music, taking positive steps to improve their visibility at one of the worlds major music festivals has positive outcomes for all members of society inside and outside the festival and I for one hope it continues. 

if you are interested then this short article sets out some of the benefits that AA has had in the US college system, whilst it takes a little lateral thinking, I would imagine a study into AA in music would find similar individual and societal benefits derived from Glastonbury’s actions. 

https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/18/07/case-affirmative-action

I don’t take umbrage with much of your post, although the strawman about ticket allocation makes your argument weaker and belittles your overall position, but I do take exception to this point: “If you’re for quotas, you obviously think women are weak, are historical victims, and are unable to make it on their own.”

You are wrong, I don’t think women are weak, but I do know that women are victimised globally. It might not appear so in your nice little world, but here are some facts that prove we still have a long way to go when it comes to equality. 

71% of all human trafficking involves women and girls – mainly for sexual exploitation (source. UNODC, 2016)

Over 2.7 billion women don’t have the same work opportunities as men, with laws restricting the types of jobs they can do (source. World Bank, 2018).

Less than 15% of landholders worldwide are women (source. Food and Agriculture Organization, 2015; World Bank, 2019).

Nearly 82 million women around the world don’t have any legal protection against discrimination in the workplace (source. World Policy Analysis Centre, 2017).

When women are involved in negotiations the probability of a peace agreement lasting at least two years is increased by 20 per cent, and 15 years by 35 per cent (source. Preventing Conflict, Transforming Justice, and Securing the Peace: A Global Study on Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325, 2015).

Anyone who posts on this forum knows that Glastonbury is a cultural icon, a global event that has the ability to touch people way beyond a field in south west England. Increasing representation isn’t about promoting one decent band over another decent band, it’s about making the world a better place for everyone. 

A nicely put and thorough response.  

Edited May 16, 2022 by clarkete

[JonnyG]

13 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

I don’t know who she chose ahead of a male group to fulfil the quota

I suppose the obvious question is - do we know that she actually did this?  I always thought that aiming for gender parity was more about balancing against unconscious bias than actively selecting acts on basis of gender alone.

[clarkete]

25 minutes ago, JonnyG said:

I suppose the obvious question is - do we know that she actually did this?  I always thought that aiming for gender parity was more about balancing against unconscious bias than actively selecting acts on basis of gender alone.

No, you're correct she said in the very link he quoted "but the acts are there".