Crowd control issues

[Levitz]

On 6/28/2022 at 6:44 PM, Madyaker said:

It's not about queues it's about dangerous crowd control issues. Lots of volunteering options for people who can't afford a ticket. But nice of you to have a go all the same.

this is not a progressive take. 'the proles can work it' ffs

[Levitz]

On 6/28/2022 at 7:07 PM, clarkete said:

Bit concerned about the prevalence of people saying they're OK with the festival putting the ticket price up to control numbers -

A) if GFL wanted to do that they could have many moons ago

B) I thought most of us wanted to ensure as broad a demographic as possible could attend?   (I don't want it to be full of entitled gits like me) 

Also suggesting Michael should ditch one of his charities?  Seemed pretty clear in the 50th documentary that a significant part of the justification to himself of having a festival is the 2m quid to charity. 

this

[Levitz]

57 minutes ago, Dennis22 said:

Put Carmegeddon in the bin. 

We have the palais to watch movies, area is nothing short of a vanity project.

I do think it's a bit pointless, could have something else up there more food/toilets, silent disco or just reinstate the camping

[4AssedMonkey]

8 hours ago, Dennis22 said:

Put Carmegeddon in the bin. 

We have the palais to watch movies, area is nothing short of a vanity project.

Agree with this. Maybe put an actual “new bands” tent there and leave JP as a major stage?

[gooner1990]

Get rid of Glastonbury-on-Sea and Cinemageddon for starters. 

Arcadia needs a complete rework....or find something else to get the crowds in the early hours (that's not SEC)

[jimmillen]

8 hours ago, Dennis22 said:

Put Carmegeddon in the bin. 

We have the palais to watch movies, area is nothing short of a vanity project.

I went nowhere near it - anyone who did, was it busy?

Proof will be in the uptake, if it was full then likely to stay I guess. 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

15 hours ago, Tranquility of Solitude said:

But the thread is about crowd control, and my post was an opinion on my own experience of that. The point regarding sanitisation was clearly vis a vis crowd control.

You’ve replied making points around food prices (which are exaggerated... I ate at least three times a day on site, food was fabulous, and I never paid more than£12.) How does the price of food impact crowd issues? How does the wealth, or cheese preferences of the clientele impact crowds? Showers? Glamping? How does the presence of a co-op impact crowd control?

I tend to agree that there does appear to be a creeping aspect of money/wealth enabling access and small preferential treatments, and I think the festival is worse off as a result, but that’s got nothing to do with crowd control and probably belongs in a different thread.

 

And yet, you didn't say, "Sanitise crowd control..."

You said, "Sanitise the festival..."

And how in the world do you sanitise crowd control? Health and safety is sanitisation as well... From your own gripes about people at the festival, you would also like more people to shape up and get in line and sanitise their behaviour... I'm not following, sorry.

 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

Sent this to the festival along with a link to this thread so they could see some of the thoughts:

 

They gave me this reply. It's your standard non-committal politician's answer:

Apparently, if anyone felt bad or got stuck, it's your own fault that you didn't read the useful tips webpage.

[jimbo_l]

12 minutes ago, jimmillen said:

I went nowhere near it - anyone who did, was it busy?

Proof will be in the uptake, if it was full then likely to stay I guess. 

We camped next door in South Park1. Didn't see it busy. A shame really because it had a nice retro bar there as well along the lines of Deluxe Diner.

There were some films I had pencilled-in, but there was always 'something else' to do instead, & I expect that was the same for many others.

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

10 hours ago, Isaact said:

 

To split the crowds - you want counter-programming across multiple areas of the site to split it so that literally everyone awake doesn't go to the same place.

Silver Hayes needs bigger and better acts to draw more people away from SE Corner (I would argue it needs a Metal/Rock late night live tent too, to draw anybody looking for that kind of music, and a silent disco too), to keep the SE Corner less busy.

In an ideal world you want half the crowd in each area.

Yeah, sorry, I should have made it clearer. I know they want to split the crowds, I meant, why have two areas serving the same product. My point was that, why can't they choose some alternative late night entertainment.

Metal/Rock

Local bands

Jazz/funk

Also, put other big DJs on is a good idea.

 

[gooner1990]

23 minutes ago, jimbo_l said:

We camped next door in South Park1. Didn't see it busy. A shame really because it had a nice retro bar there as well along the lines of Deluxe Diner.

There were some films I had pencilled-in, but there was always 'something else' to do instead, & I expect that was the same for many others.

A friend of mine camped in South Park 1 too and said whenever she went past it seemed quiet. 

[gooner1990]

Another point on this is that a lot of people are now going expecting late (all) night entertainment for everyone.

At BoomTown most of the stages run until 4am (apart from the Lions Den I think) so they can handle most of the paying punters being out all night.

I'm not sure how many people out of the 138,000 who pay to go to Glastonbury stay out late but its clear to me its now a lot higher than it was a few years ago and the organisers need to address this with more alternatives.

[jimmillen]

24 minutes ago, jimbo_l said:

We camped next door in South Park1. Didn't see it busy. A shame really because it had a nice retro bar there as well along the lines of Deluxe Diner.

There were some films I had pencilled-in, but there was always 'something else' to do instead, & I expect that was the same for many others.

Thanks for the update - yeah that’s pretty much what I’d guessed. 

I totally think the festival should be exploring weird & wonderful concepts like Cineramageddon - it’s part of what makes it so magical! OTOH if it’s not drawing the punters then no shame in changing things up. 

[kaytee...]

28 minutes ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

Sent this to the festival along with a link to this thread so they could see some of the thoughts:

 

They gave me this reply. It's your standard non-committal politician's answer:

Apparently, if anyone felt bad or got stuck, it's your own fault that you didn't read the useful tips webpage.

Lazy reply that. I've been in plenty big crowds since covid and I've never left thinking it was too overcrowded until Glastonbury. It's obvious too that a lot of people go Glasto and don't get to other gigs and festivals much and therefore don't have the right etiquette in crowded places. I had to leave crowds twice in a panic attack and had people tell me to watch where I'm going or just stand stiff as a board refusing to let me get past. I'd hate to think what this year would've been like in a 2016 situation 

[jimbo_l]

3 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

Another point on this is that a lot of people are now going expecting late (all) night entertainment for everyone.

At BoomTown most of the stages run until 4am (apart from the Lions Den I think) so they can handle most of the paying punters being out all night.

I'm not sure how many people out of the 138,000 who pay to go to Glastonbury stay out late but its clear to me its now a lot higher than it was a few years ago and the organisers need to address this with more alternatives.

In the documentary, the creative directors behind Block-9 said they told ME that the after-dark offering needed to be improved. Those new areas have now had 10-15 years to mature. DJ's that play NYC Downlow have gone on-record saying it's the best nightclub in the world! So they hype is clearly there, and I thought perhaps since my last visit in 2007 there were many more folks there for who the after-dark stuff was the primary attraction.

[gooner1990]

4 minutes ago, kaytee... said:

Lazy reply that. I've been in plenty big crowds since covid and I've never left thinking it was too overcrowded until Glastonbury. It's obvious too that a lot of people go Glasto and don't get to other gigs and festivals much and therefore don't have the right etiquette in crowded places. I had to leave crowds twice in a panic attack and had people tell me to watch where I'm going or just stand stiff as a board refusing to let me get past. I'd hate to think what this year would've been like in a 2016 situation 

Agreed.

I've been to 40+ football matches and Reading Festival for a day since covid and not once have I seen anything like I did last weekend.

[gooner1990]

3 minutes ago, jimbo_l said:

In the documentary, the creative directors behind Block-9 said they told ME that the after-dark offering needed to be improved. Those new areas have now had 10-15 years to mature. DJ's that play NYC Downlow have gone on-record saying it's the best nightclub in the world! So they hype is clearly there, and I thought perhaps since my last visit in 2007 there were many more folks there for who the after-dark stuff was the primary attraction.

Yeh, I think there are lot of people who now just wait about all day for the SEC stuff to kick off and then go for it till 6am each night....fair play to them but if the numbers are increasing for that side of things then more options need to be considered as well.

[faymondo]

Always going to get bog standard replies. We can only hope that they are taking in all feedback and nosing in on places like here to look for improvements for next year. I only expect things to be done quietly in the background and then its see how it goes next year.

If the same happens next year or god forbid worse if it was a muddy one then we do have problems. 

[K2SO]

25 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

Another point on this is that a lot of people are now going expecting late (all) night entertainment for everyone.

At BoomTown most of the stages run until 4am (apart from the Lions Den I think) so they can handle most of the paying punters being out all night.

I'm not sure how many people out of the 138,000 who pay to go to Glastonbury stay out late but its clear to me its now a lot higher than it was a few years ago and the organisers need to address this with more alternatives.

In my first couple of Glastos, 2014/15, I would go out and enjoy the night life. I've since been in 2017, 2019 and 2022 and I haven't done any of the night life stuff because I find it way too crowded and it just makes it shit for me. This year I never once stepped foot in the SE corner because I just couldn't bear it. I nearly did on Saturday night, but as I walked along the crowded railway line and the signs saying Shangri La was closed started flashing, I started hating the idea of going there. I got to the entrance around Bella's Field and saw just how many people there were. I decided to turn around and go to bed.

[gooner1990]

4 minutes ago, K2SO said:

In my first couple of Glastos, 2014/15, I would go out and enjoy the night life. I've since been in 2017, 2019 and 2022 and I haven't done any of the night life stuff because I find it way too crowded and it just makes it shit for me. This year I never once stepped foot in the SE corner because I just couldn't bear it. I nearly did on Saturday night, but as I walked along the crowded railway line and the signs saying Shangri La was closed started flashing, I started hating the idea of going there. I got to the entrance around Bella's Field and saw just how many people there were. I decided to turn around and go to bed.

The first 3-4 years I went (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) there was only Lost Vagueness down there, but tbh most people just went back to their camp after the headliners and had a fire till the small hours and went to bed.

The last time we had a proper campfire in our group was 2008!  Its a 24-hour party now and this year one night I went back to our camp at 3am to get a jumper and it was a ghost town...everyone was out and about!

I didn't find it overcrowded this year tbh, I found more issues with the stages/bars/food stalls during the day.

[Matt87]

37 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

The first 3-4 years I went (2004, 2005, 2007, 2008) there was only Lost Vagueness down there, but tbh most people just went back to their camp after the headliners and had a fire till the small hours and went to bed.

The last time we had a proper campfire in our group was 2008!  Its a 24-hour party now and this year one night I went back to our camp at 3am to get a jumper and it was a ghost town...everyone was out and about!

I didn't find it overcrowded this year tbh, I found more issues with the stages/bars/food stalls during the day.

Are we still allowed campfires at your tent though? I presume not, since there's no wood put out for them, and to be honest, there's not enough space a lot of the time. Last one I had was in 2013.

[Isaact]

48 minutes ago, K2SO said:

In my first couple of Glastos, 2014/15, I would go out and enjoy the night life. I've since been in 2017, 2019 and 2022 and I haven't done any of the night life stuff because I find it way too crowded and it just makes it shit for me. This year I never once stepped foot in the SE corner because I just couldn't bear it. I nearly did on Saturday night, but as I walked along the crowded railway line and the signs saying Shangri La was closed started flashing, I started hating the idea of going there. I got to the entrance around Bella's Field and saw just how many people there were. I decided to turn around and go to bed.

There are a ton of after hours places that aren't the SE Corner, for next time.

Places like strummerville go until 3am, the Bimble Inn and a few other park stages go until 6am, along with quite a few of the stages in Silver Hayes too.

It is possible to party all night without ever stepping foot in the SE corner now!

[Quark]

1 minute ago, Isaact said:

It is possible to party all night without ever stepping foot in the SE corner now!

True. I was up until at least 2 every night, and I only went to SE corner to see a couple of sets on Truth on Thursday night. Croissant Neuf and Greenpeace were my main ones.

[stuie]

23 hours ago, alanr said:

There are 4 ped gates which deal with huge volumes at peak times, and numerous additional entry points. These would all need to link to a central database to implement any sensible system. The infrastructure to do this is huge, and is not really feasible on a large rural site for 1 week every year.

The infrastructure is already there.

It doesn't need to be RFID.  Scanning codes is quite sufficient.  The system (hosted by Ticketsellers) scanned in and out 50,000 EPO wristbands in 2019 and again this year.  It was expected to be rolled out to everyone in 2020 but it's been delayed.   It's all centrally connected and if you had an EPO you could go out of Gate B and in Gate C, for example.  It worked without any issue this year so expect everyone to have a scannable wristband next year. 

Aside from the size of the database, there's no difference between 50,000 and 200,000 people being processed this way.

 

[4AssedMonkey]

11 minutes ago, Isaact said:

There are a ton of after hours places that aren't the SE Corner, for next time.

Places like strummerville go until 3am, the Bimble Inn and a few other park stages go until 6am, along with quite a few of the stages in Silver Hayes too.

It is possible to party all night without ever stepping foot in the SE corner now!

I'd second this.  Greenpeace, Strummerville, most of the bars, Williams Green, most of Silver Hayes are all open until 2:30-3:00 so there's plenty to do away from SE/Arcadia.  Didn't set foot in either this year and was out until 3-ish every night.  If I'm honest, the best late night I had was dancing my ass off in Greenpeace (but don't tell anyone....our secret, yeah?)