Crowd control issues

[CaledonianGonzo]

6 minutes ago, chickenfire said:

the pyramid front section needs a better system 100%. Even T in the Park had a better system 12 or so years ago!

The cages with turnstiles? Christ no.

[The Nal]

8 minutes ago, chickenfire said:

also, the pyramid front section needs a better system 100%. Even T in the Park had a better system 12 or so years ago!

No way man. Spent all of Friday basically in the pit and was great to nip in and out of.

[Kashkin]

1 hour ago, jimmillen said:

Wouldn’t be free, they’d have lost their deposit so effectively have paid. 

I believe there also may be a blacklist for people who do this - not sure if that’s for future volunteering though or general admission too. 

Whichever, still a shitty thing to do. 

As described, they had left the site entirely because they couldn't take the work/hated the camping. These are not volunteers who are doing it for free entry, they are paid staff and were working 12 hour shifts with no day off. So, the festival itself is not a big draw with those hours as you would have little time to enjoy it. Having chatted to many security people, in general they were not festival people, many had never camped before.

[moogster]

Personal experience: it was not that bad for me. Once I realized that it was pointless to fight with crowds as to cross of a bucket list gig, and not hearing/seeing any of it, we just made choices based on that. Going from Pyramid to Other via Silver Hayes, wee-ing when seeing a no queue toilet or walking 5 mn further. Heading to those clashfinder gigs where I'd be pretty sure we'd have a great experience + gig.

So of course that's just me, and it is totally people's right to want to do a George Ezra/Sugababes/Williams green thursday festival. Controlling such big crowds in the complexity of the GLastonbury map is probably not easy. The only thing Glastonbury should do would be to maybe take (more) into consideration the potential crowdedness and balancing. I am thinking that with the corona break this may have been harder to anticipate.

When in crowds crushes, I did find only two things worrying: chairs of course, and people with really young children. Sometimes combined. I caught a guy falling over a chair with a kid sitting behind said chair. Is the fault really fully on the guy?

 

[jimmillen]

1 minute ago, Kashkin said:

As described, they had left the site entirely because they couldn't take the work/hated the camping. These are not volunteers who are doing it for free entry, they are paid staff and were working 12 hour shifts with no day off. So, the festival itself is not a big draw with those hours as you would have little time to enjoy it. Having chatted to many security people, in general they were not festival people, many had never camped before.

Oh right - sorry I’d misunderstood!

Yeah that’s worrying if paid staff are giving up & going home. 🙁 As someone posted upthread defo seems a consequence of big events returning after COVID. 

[kemosabe]

12 hours ago, robin said:

The Wednesday and Thursday were busier than previously, but that has been gradually changing over the last 20 years or so. It was noticeable how few new people were arriving on Thursday and Friday. 

There were more tickets sold than previous years, but in relation to the total numbers it was a tiny amount. 

We camp by Darble and have done for the past five festivals, in my estimation there was probably just as many, if not more, arriving at the gate Thurs-Sun morning as per. Loads and loads were streaming in all morning. In previous year's you'd get barely any on the sat morning, but this year there were absolutely loads. 

Also, with the tickets it's an extra 1 in ten. That's loads. 

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, jimmillen said:

Other than reducing numbers I’m not sure what the festival can do about it. Maybe more use of one way systems… but v difficult to enforce without totally changing the layout. 🤷‍♂️

New stage/area, like when the Park was new. I think we'll see Oxylers dropped or cut in half to make the Other stage higher capacity so the big secret sets can go on there (the new sound system suggests that's possible).

They could also convert Pennard into a stage area, or even make Cineramageddon and South Park 1 it's own actual stage. Or the bit of Pylon and Rivermead that was made staff camping this year. 

Yeah, they'd have to to then add new camping spots around the site edge but they seem able to do that  - we've seen it happen with Sticklinch and associated parking this year.

I do actually wonder if that was the original plan. A new area for the 50th anniversary might have been the big exciting thing - makes sense and Sticklinch covers for the camping space that area uses. When it didn't happen (because they could no longer afford the investment) they were able to make part of Pylon staff camping instead.

[autoinflate]

In my group of veterans we all agreed this was the busiest ever, apart from 2000, which was crazy all over the site. This year was similarly busy at the main stages and late night areas.

We didn't get into any bad situations but it was annoying getting around at times, and lots more queueing for food and toliets - but, we found all the food queues moved pretty quickly, and for toilets you just needed to move past the front queues and it was generally OK.

The demographic has certainly changed - we were in the green fields on Sunday and it was so quiet, most people stay by the main stages these days. Maybe they need another big stage on the east side of the site to split the crowds, i dunno.

Overall another great year, and I'll be back for sure. The only thing that really annoyed me was not being able to easily get to the toilet during bands, which meant very little beer and cider consumed from Fri-Sun - had to stick to spirits and wine or I'd have definitely had a Wet Leg.

 

[ROBOTMATT]

I've been a bunch of times, and the extra 7000 punters seemed to make a much bigger difference than I'd have expected.

Considering the size of the festival (and the money it generates) there are a number of very amateurish / dangerous aspects to it that are seemingly saved by the calm British queuing culture.

Narrow pinch points exist at most of the stages, these clearly need widening, and seriously how difficult would that actually be? 

The scheduling is bizarre, its almost as though they are clueless as to how popular some acts are. It's almost done for effect, to create these images of huge crowds spilling out or something.

They've clearly not spent any money on the infrastructure, Ped gate C for instance had 1000's of people queuing up the hill at the the peak time for entering the main site, with literally 4 barcode scanner machines being operated and the bigger wrist band exchange area redundant. A bunch of staff stood around trying to motivate the crowd when they could have been productive, avoiding the ludicrous queue to begin with. The whole process for being off the main site and re-entering needs a re-think. Spend a bit of money and that problem goes away. Easily.

Why don't they build some proper toilet facilities?? The hilarity of disgusting festival toilets and the comradery of shared (harrowing) experience used to be fun, when it was £100 a ticket. It's basically £300 now and they've done nothing to improve them. As a guy I get off easy, peeing in a bit of old guttering. I'd be furious if id spent hours of my festival in a toilet queue. It's truly pathetic.

Obviously there are a bunch of factors that make these problems worse, but there is plenty they could actually do something about.    

edit: there is of course an argument that some of the less desirable aspects of the festival actually add to the experience. Friends made in queues... toilet roll lent... etc etc    
    

Edited June 28, 2022 by ROBOTMATT

[robbie1983]

Genuinely not seen anything that I haven’t in other years. Arcadia and the park have always had issues. 

[Glastov2]

2 hours ago, KPSandwiches said:

As someone who's just had my eighth Glasto, and wasn't in any of the really bad "crushes" (other than maybe TLC) this one was just busier.

Everywhere, all the time, for everything, for reasons that I personally can't just attribute to some bad scheduling.

I'm not intimidated by big crowds, I'm not in a rush to get places, I know how to pre-empt a busy space, choose a quieter route or just be patient, but this year was so obviously overpopulated and multiple people on-site were noticing it. I've never had to put so much time aside to get food, use a urinal (!!) or just move between stages before. Places like the West Holts field which are normally pleasantly buzzing in past years just felt stacked ALL of the time.

I spotted stewards / security staff looking really exasperated trying to manage that many people, and some were taking photos in particularly bad moments to presumably show how bad it was. I asked a couple of staff/ traders if it was just us imagining it and we got the same response each time: "I've never known it to be like this before".

Now either they've oversold and there was a marked increase in the number of people on-site, or they've closed off / removed enough areas that a comparable number of people to past years are just milling around a notably smaller site. Either way, that's a capacity-to-space issue.

It didn't stop me having a blast, but it did mean I decided against certain acts, went for food I didn't particularly want, spent about an hour queuing to get back in after nipping to the car, and spent longer in toilet queues than ever before.

Or maybe I'm the problem 😅

This is a pretty good summary of how I feel (certainly in terms of the improvements required rather than the festival in general) but I think questions definitely need to be asked about some of the scheduling for instance.

Putting TLC on WH at that time was madness when you consider the size of the area, the routes into it and the fact that someone like Herbie Hancock was played the Pyramid before Diana Ross, a slot that would have been ideal for them. They're a Pyramid-sized act any day of the weekend.

[DareToDibble]

I camp close to Silver Hayes (despite spending little time there) but I've never seen that area so packed, it was crazy. Especially at Lonely Hearts Club. 

I was lucky not to be caught up in any of the dangerous crowds but some of my group did tell me about The Park/Arcadia one, they said it looked awful. They did say there were stewards with megaphones telling people to turn around but there were 2 issues. 1 was that it was difficult to do when there are loads of other people coming up behind them and the other was that some people were simply ignoring them and trying to push their way though. Unfortunately there will always be a minority that do that.

Wet Leg was busy but I met people at Ribbon Tower for 1 and then we went in early, my wife left the set about 45 minutes in and said it was a nightmare to get out of the field. In fact the busiest I saw it was when trying to get to the toilet between Wrt Leg & Confidence Man, that was a seriously long queue for the urinals.

One positive, unrelated to crowds, I did see a lot of stewards shouting at people peeing on the land. Especially those peeing up against the outside of the urinals. 

[DeanoL]

10 minutes ago, robbie1983 said:

Genuinely not seen anything that I haven’t in other years. Arcadia and the park have always had issues. 

I think that's fair. I think the point is though that there was more of it!

Yes, I've seen long queues for toilets at the campsites before, but at 9am, not 12pm.

I've seen big queues for food vendors before, but at traditional lunch/dinner times or between acts, not at 4pm in the afternoon.

[swede]

12 hours ago, Jimmyjam1 said:

I'm on the side of most saying it was ridiculously busier at times, worst for crowding /queing over the several times I have been over the past 20 years I've been going. 

 

Calvin Harris at Arcadia entering from the park was just like sardines and dangerous as everyone was at a standstill and no where to go and tempers were fraying with some. 

 

George Ezra at John Peel tent was a mistake, he needed his own stage, couldn't even get into the field there was that many people 

 

Ques for toilets and food just seemed longer than ever before, alot of the compost toilets were full to the brim in the mornings putting them out of action at peak time, where as previously they had crews there changing them around all the time. 

Food stalls were like 30+ people queing for each throughout the day and the prices £12-17 for a small portion meal was just outrageous, I ended up spending over £320 just on food from weds onwards. Never spent no where near that much before. It was £5 just for a tiny portion of rubbish chips. 

The day George Ezra gets his own stage is the day the festival should be burned to the ground !! 

[Tommy Dickfingers]

Too many bodies on site this year. Everywhere had a queue it was madness. This time was my 7th in a row and this was by far and away the busiest it’s ever felt. The obvious solution to me is reduce the number of tickets. Maybe they went for gold this year to try and recoup money lost over the past few years. If so fair play we all made it though it but let’s not have a repeat of this festival. Far too busy at times. 

[gorfield]

This is the main thing that puts me off about glastonbury - its just too much. god only knows how bad this would have been with mud. i was considering taking my children next year - not after reading this thread.

[LoraMaze]

10 minutes ago, gorfield said:

This is the main thing that puts me off about glastonbury - its just too much. god only knows how bad this would have been with mud. i was considering taking my children next year - not after reading this thread.

I have no doubt that if it had ever got muddy there would have been tramplings. At least in 2016 you had to accept the ground was shit on arrival. But this crowd was bigger and different.

[Dave_c]

11 minutes ago, gorfield said:

This is the main thing that puts me off about glastonbury - its just too much. god only knows how bad this would have been with mud. i was considering taking my children next year - not after reading this thread.

It really wasn't that bad at all, this thread makes it sound horrendous, it wasnt. When it's muddy it's actually not as bad because people don't move about as much and there are much less people sitting on the ground near stages etc.

[Keithy]

Crowd control issues not helped by there being less places to go and some of the newer stuff that has come in (Glastonbury on Sea, Cinermamamamageadon) just don’t attract the numbers. 

Silver Hayes was a massive improvement, I never really had any crowd issues there on my way to John Peel and was a much nice area with the redesign. Again a few venues lost which means what’s left gets busier but a much nicer place.

Definitely felt busier overall to previous years by a substantial degree. More numbers and less venues in the main areas probably exacerbates that feeling. The normal quieter areas like Toad Hall, etc didn’t feel that much busier.

 

[Helsbels]

On 6/25/2022 at 8:51 AM, Ashl said:

Bizarrely Wet Leg was fine down the front not a crush in sight probably the best crowd I've been in!

I was at the very front for TLC and it was also absolutely fine there. Often the way I find. Crowds were dangerous though this year. We were trying to meet mates in Shangri-la for Fatboy Slim and it was shockingly rammed. I had to get myself out as soon as I got there. Diana Ross was also understandably rammed but they need to look at the programming to spread the crowd a bit more.Didn't seem to be any crowd control whatsoever and this really needs to be addressed.Still had probably my best Glasto ever though 

[Helsbels]

9 minutes ago, Dave_c said:

It really wasn't that bad at all, this thread makes it sound horrendous, it wasnt. When it's muddy it's actually not as bad because people don't move about as much and there are much less people sitting on the ground near stages etc.

It really really was extremely bad in parts. I guess it all depends where you went

[CaledonianGonzo]

Yeah - front left of TLC was fine.

[CaledonianGonzo]

10 minutes ago, Dave_c said:

It really wasn't that bad at all, this thread makes it sound horrendous, it wasnt. When it's muddy it's actually not as bad because people don't move about as much and there are much less people sitting on the ground near stages etc.

Agree with this. Or sheltering in tents.

[Trunks1993]

it was objectively busier this year. toilets que’s in the s e corner were like an hour long. didn’t que for anything in 2019. didn’t get near Arcadia until Sunday at 1am haha. still had the best time ever 

[Sky_Fly]

I was lucky enough not to be caught in any of the crushes but echo the observations of many on this thread. 
 

- site felt noticeably busier this year

- Thursday needs some more music on, crowds at the park listening to Stonebridge being on of the few places with music on was mental

- longer queues for toilets and food, felt like fewer toilets and urinals as well. Sometimes the urinal queues were longer than the long drop queues. 

- pinch points need addressing 

- whenever we were early for a set and got a good spot near the front, we had loads of room. The ‘crowd crust’ further back with an outer layer of packed-ness that people can’t get through is defo a thing. 
 

- chair and picnic blanket w*nkers need to do one. So many people with huge encampments of chairs near us for Macca and DiRo which stop flows of people through the crowd. And they never even collapsed the chairs! Just stood up and left the chairs and blankets in place. So annoying. One girl sitting on a blanket a few mins before Macca was getting really pissed off with people trying to step over to move though. It was literally 5 mins before he was about to start, in the middle of the pyramid field, get up!  People do need to be able to move in and out of the stages and those impermeable barriers of chairs/people sitting on blankets is an issue. 
 

- generally encountered less knobbish behaviour re people pushing through aggressively than last times I have been, think this one is just luck re who you are near. 
 

- felt under marshalled 

I got to Arcadia super early on Friday night before it opened so had an amazing spot under the DJ for the entire night. Was pretty packed but now awful. Tried to go to the toilet and get some water during Carl Cox and it was a MISSION! So hard getting out and back in. People were pretty good about letting be through but the outer layer was ramo. 
 

WTF with half the bars being cash only. Total joke.

 

Food prices were insane. London restaurant prices for tiny street food portions.