Crowd control issues

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

4 minutes ago, March Hare said:

I was surprised how easy it was to get towards the front of Elbow on Sunday. Just strolled up

Well, yeah, because it's Elbow.

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

On 7/9/2022 at 4:08 PM, March Hare said:

Not much noise about the overcrowding, I don’t think anyone else is making much of it.

Quite a lot of people on here and twitter have reported their own experiences, including Glasto/eFest regulars with nothing to gain from expressing their opinion, that it felt different this year.

Doubt the festival will openly admit there were staffing issues, that a lot of people snuck in through mates or over the fences, or poor scheduling conflicts.

The people who tend to dismiss it were probably lucky not to have experienced what the others had, or were in some other quieter corner, wondering why it was so quiet.

Imagine dismissing other's anxiety, worried for their safety, and panic attacks as, "it was just a normal year, everything's fine, move along, move along".

Edited July 10, 2022 by MEGATRONICMEATWAGON

[March Hare]

2 minutes ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

Quite a lot of people on here and twitter have reported their own experiences, including Glasto/eFest regulars with nothing to gain from expressing their opinion, that it felt different this year.

Doubt the festival will openly admit there were staffing issues, that a lot of people snuck in through mates or over the fences, or poor scheduling conflicts.

The people who tend to dismiss it were probably lucky not to have experienced what the others had, or were in some other quieter corner, wondering why it was so quiet. Imagine dismissing other's anxiety and panic attacks as, "it was just a normal year, everything's fine, move along, move along".

Did you visit the forum post-Lenny Henry? That kind of enlightened thinking isn’t universal 😂

[danmarks]

Vaguely ties in.i was at the fleece and firkin last night seeing a band.the bouncers /door people said ' go to the front mate. There's loads of space there'  it looked rammed. 

There was loads if space but people with daysacks can fuck off. 

[Rufus Gwertigan]

12 minutes ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

Quite a lot of people on here and twitter have reported their own experiences, including Glasto/eFest regulars with nothing to gain from expressing their opinion, that it felt different this year.

Doubt the festival will openly admit there were staffing issues, that a lot of people snuck in through mates or over the fences, or poor scheduling conflicts.

The people who tend to dismiss it were probably lucky not to have experienced what the others had, or were in some other quieter corner, wondering why it was so quiet.

Imagine dismissing other's anxiety, worried for their safety, and panic attacks as, "it was just a normal year, everything's fine, move along, move along".

There seems to be b an atmosphere of not criticising the festival. I first went in 2003 and have worked many festivals including info points security and traffic. I said direct result of the festival over 5 year period I worked at 60 other festivals has had just wanted to give something 2019 when was the first time by when as a punter and I miss this year but I think we all need to be open to criticism. We have the involvement festival Republic for reason. Michael and Emily arasan put the need help. I'll leave that there are as I'm a bit tired

[March Hare]

4 minutes ago, Rufus Gwertigan said:

There seems to be b an atmosphere of not criticising the festival. I first went in 2003 and have worked many festivals including info points security and traffic. I said direct result of the festival over 5 year period I worked at 60 other festivals has had just wanted to give something 2019 when was the first time by when as a punter and I miss this year but I think we all need to be open to criticism. We have the involvement festival Republic for reason. Michael and Emily arasan put the need help. I'll leave that there are as I'm a bit tired

I agree, I think the festival gets the benefit of the doubt so much that it’s holds back constructive criticism 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

15 minutes ago, March Hare said:

Did you visit the forum post-Lenny Henry? That kind of enlightened thinking isn’t universal 😂

I'm sorry, I don't get this reference 😬

7 minutes ago, Rufus Gwertigan said:

There seems to be b an atmosphere of not criticising the festival. I first went in 2003 and have worked many festivals including info points security and traffic. I said direct result of the festival over 5 year period I worked at 60 other festivals has had just wanted to give something 2019 when was the first time by when as a punter and I miss this year but I think we all need to be open to criticism. We have the involvement festival Republic for reason. Michael and Emily arasan put the need help. I'll leave that there are as I'm a bit tired

Totally. A lot of people get quite upset when there's legitimate concerns raised. Reading through this thread, people have talked about all sorts. Panic attacks, large groups of ticketless attendees, fence jumpers, anxiety issues (despite the same people going to other large events), having to climb fences to get out of near crushes etc.

So many people want to turn a blind eye to it and if you raise these issues, you are the one who will draw criticism, not the festival. It also doesn't matter if people were there or not, because some people just want to help out. If you even lend an ear to those who suffered the panic attacks/suffered anxiety, or were worried about being crushed, you also get shot down, because you 'weren't there'. It's embarrassing quite frankly. You don't need to go to the sun, to know it's hot.

[Crazyfool01]

Don’t the festival have things in place to monitor these things ? Cameras etc and people on the ground ? Emily has already said that wet leg were wrongly placed and that’s an acknowledgment of issues and not them turning a blind eye … ?! It’s not in their interests to ignore such things 

[gfa]

Fence jumping seems to be a much bigger thing now vs pre-pandemic. Calvin Harris's recent stadium shows have been plagued by it, not sure if its just more visible due to tiktok. wireless too although that always seems bad. based off videos it doesn't look remotely difficult either

[Rufus Gwertigan]

3 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

Don’t the festival have things in place to monitor these things ? Cameras etc and people on the ground ? Emily has already said that wet leg were wrongly placed and that’s an acknowledgment of issues and not them turning a blind eye … ?! It’s not in their interests to ignore such things 

From my experience it is always reactive rather than proactive. Hence you see gates getting opened earlier year on year out but like this year was opened on time. Crowd management it's a dynamic thing I've worked at enough festivals to see how it can change minute on minute I I'm no expert but crowd down now lyrics I would dangerous thing I'm with the crowd of 200000 and you really need an expert security in place

[Skip997]

11 minutes ago, crazyfool1 said:

Don’t the festival have things in place to monitor these things ? Cameras etc and people on the ground ? Emily has already said that wet leg were wrongly placed and that’s an acknowledgment of issues and not them turning a blind eye … ?! It’s not in their interests to ignore such things 

There are cameras and people on the ground observing and reporting back. There is a large control centre in one of the barns, staffed by some of the UK's leading experts in crowd movement, control and management.

Contrast this with the early 90's were people were literally driving vans into crowds to sit on top of them to watch bands.

[Leyrulion]

4 hours ago, March Hare said:

I was surprised how easy it was to get towards the front of Elbow on Sunday. Just strolled up

I did find the crowds easier on the Sunday. Not sure if that was a mix of being solo for most of Sunday/getting used to it or shine of the stewarding getting better. 

[Suprefan]

9 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

I'm sorry, I don't get this reference 😬

Totally. A lot of people get quite upset when there's legitimate concerns raised. Reading through this thread, people have talked about all sorts. Panic attacks, large groups of ticketless attendees, fence jumpers, anxiety issues (despite the same people going to other large events), having to climb fences to get out of near crushes etc.

So many people want to turn a blind eye to it and if you raise these issues, you are the one who will draw criticism, not the festival. It also doesn't matter if people were there or not, because some people just want to help out. If you even lend an ear to those who suffered the panic attacks/suffered anxiety, or were worried about being crushed, you also get shot down, because you 'weren't there'. It's embarrassing quite frankly. You don't need to go to the sun, to know it's hot.

The difference is the ones who want to keep defending and dont take the criticism just look the other way because they keep getting a ticket. If youre on the sidelines you likely see things in a different light. And Im sure next year when its 40 every day the festival will need to consult with the sun on what to do in regards to everyone on site.

 

I mean its more or less a rules free weekend and the audience is expected to behave just well enough to not cause incident. Thats the only guidance youre given. When they say "have a great weekend" it just means "dont get too drunk and do something that makes the news". All they care about now is that people get inside the gates and to spend all the money they possibly can, nothing more.
 

They obviously didnt mind the fence jumpers cause it meant a few extra bucks in pockets which was enough to offset the ticket that wasnt bought. At what point do you say the festival really got too big and ends up beyond the organizers control. Theyve been fortunate there hasnt been an audience crushing incident but that should mean they work harder to prevent that and not just entrusting attendees to sort it out. I def would side with the council on not giving them extra years on their livense unless they proved that things would be safer next year and made the correct adjustments.

[Crazyfool01]

3 hours ago, Suprefan said:

They obviously didnt mind the fence jumpers cause it meant a few extra bucks in pockets

You are aware the festival nearly got closed down because of numbers … that’s why they introduced the superfence in the first place … there’s no  extra bucks in pockets for an event that doesn’t happen ?!! 

[blutarsky]

16 hours ago, March Hare said:

I was surprised how easy it was to get towards the front of Elbow on Sunday. Just strolled up

@squirrelarmy alert!

[Skip997]

16 hours ago, March Hare said:

I was surprised how easy it was to get towards the front of Elbow on Sunday. Just strolled up

 

I'm not at all surprised.

But I am surprised anyone was there at all.

[March Hare]

8 hours ago, Skip997 said:

I'm not at all surprised.

But I am surprised anyone was there at all.

Take it back!

[Crazyfool01]

On 7/10/2022 at 8:21 PM, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

poor scheduling conflicts.

they already have ... with wet leg 

[efcfanwirral]

On 7/10/2022 at 8:11 PM, March Hare said:

I was surprised how easy it was to get towards the front of Elbow on Sunday. Just strolled up

 

21 hours ago, Leyrulion said:

I did find the crowds easier on the Sunday. Not sure if that was a mix of being solo for most of Sunday/getting used to it or shine of the stewarding getting better. 

I noticed it too - did those crowds go off elsewhere or did a lot go home? Was so quiet for Elbow (no great surprise they're a lot smaller now) and Lorde was surprisingly quiet. 

[CaledonianGonzo]

I was in the Diana Ross pit and as it finished as one everyone seemed to be heading to The Park to see Jack White.

[Neil]

On 7/2/2022 at 12:26 AM, ProperTea said:

: something's clearly gone seriously wrong this year

no it hasn't. if it had there'd be crush injuries.

[jannybruck]

47 minutes ago, Neil said:

no it hasn't. if it had there'd be crush injuries.

Multiple people coming back to literally post on your forum saying they were scared for their life at certain points means yes, something went wrong.

This sort of "well nobody died, did they?" attitude some people have here gives the festival a free pass to never address the root causes that eventually leads up to something like that. The ingredients were there for it at certain points this year and plenty of festivalgoers recognised it.

[Alvoram]

37 minutes ago, jannybruck said:

Multiple people coming back to literally post on your forum saying they were scared for their life at certain points means yes, something went wrong.

This sort of "well nobody died, did they?" attitude some people have here gives the festival a free pass to never address the root causes that eventually leads up to something like that. The ingredients were there for it at certain points this year and plenty of festivalgoers recognised it.

I very much agree with you here. The mere fact that nobody died, or got injured, does not in itself mean that everything was safe. The whole point of health and safety, risk assessments and action plans is to identify risks and take action to prevent them before something like that happens, not after. 

That being said, I was in some of the 'crushes' and yes they were extremely uncomfortable. But as I alluded to at the time, in an earlier post, I was uneasy with us calling them 'crushes' because they weren't. They were just very busy bottlenecks at narrowing points of the site. I think it's almost an insult to the victims of real crush events to call them such. I've been in much worse crowd surge events that felt a lot scarier. I've had worse experiences exiting Wembley towards the tube station, and that seems to be a regular occurance. 

That being said, it wouldn't take much for these situations to become much worse, and the festival should learn from them and take steps to reduce the risk in the future if reasonably possible.

One of the ones I was in was exiting the Pyramid. It was caused by the fact that they narrow the exit route too early, before the paths fork off in different directions, and before the toilets. People queueing for the toilets and stalls were adding to the problems already caused by the narrowing of the path too early. If they'd moved the toilets back, and kept the path a little wider until it splits into multiple directions, this wouldn't have happened.

I'd consider doing the following...

1) remove some of the hedgeline.

2) clear space behind the toilets. If this camping is still there (no idea, didn't venture there) then remove it. 

3) Push the toilets further back.

4) Keep the path as wide as possible until it forks. (May have to rearrange the urinals.) 

 

It's interesting to note that even in 2019, this bottleneck is visible. just look at how much denser the crowd is on that side compared to everywhere else, and that's when the field is pretty much empty. 

 

Edited July 12, 2022 by Alvoram

[gizmoman]

8 minutes ago, OverlyComplicated said:

Multiple people saying they were scared in the busiest pinch points happens every year so it isn't actually that indicative of something having gone wrong that is what normal looks like.

This year I was only caught in one of the situations that have been mentioned Arcadia/Bottom of the Park Friday night and it was certainly unpleasant but from my position of being in the middle of disorientating crowd after a day at a festival I have absolutely no idea how close it was to being actually dangerous and I don't believe anyone else in the crowd does either. It would be interesting to find out what on site crowd control thought of the "issues" this year but they wouldn't make that public.

The festival does listen to issues with crowd control hence the late night entrance to the South East Corner, the general move to book more post-headline stuff away from the SEC, no more headliner sized secret acts on The Park after Pulp/Radiohead in 2011, etc, etc but with 200,000 people on site there will be times when it gets unpleasantly busy and in those pinches people will feel scared, that doesn't mean they were anywhere near a dangerous situation. They might have been and the festival will be monitoring it and reviewing CCTV footage and probably regretting putting Wet Leg on The Park but some people posting they were scared isn't great evidence unless they also happen to be experts in crowd control.

"Propertea" posted in the other thread,

"I've been going to events for 25 years and have been to Glastonbury for 16 years and it's the worst crowd incident I've  been in. I was being physically crushed at one point and wasn't able to control the direction my body was going, I guess this is a 'surge'? "

This is absolutely a dangerous situation, any time you have a crowd density that packed you have the potential for disaster, I suggest you read this article,

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/03/hajj-crush-how-crowd-disasters-happen-and-how-they-can-be-avoided

 

 

[CaledonianGonzo]

There's two separate things here though.

1) Crowd gridlocks, crushes and surges are unsafe and should be avoided.

2) Glastonbury 2022 was worse for this than previous years 

I don't think anyone would dispute point 1), but it's point 2) that's more contentious. 

I've been in bad crowd situations in previous years - some years you get caught up in them and sometimes you avoid them completely.