Glastonbury 2022 - overcrowding rumours & thoughts

[Quark]

Didn't notice it being any worse than previous years tbh. I didn't go to the Park or Avalon but those crushes feel a bit predictable given the acts. Diana didn't feel as busy as Kylie. I didn't have any stupidly long queues for food, toilets, water points or lockups.

Can only speak from personal experience of course, but....yeah.

[Gnomicide]

Having to join the SE corner queue to get to Avalon is still a pain in the arse. Being expected to high five some cheery volunteer added to the pain.

[Quark]

Just now, Gnomicide said:

Having to join the SE corner queue to get to Avalon is still a pain in the arse. Being expected to high five some cheery volunteer added to the pain.

Were you heading for Iicon or Temple Gnom?

[Gnomicide]

Just now, Quark said:

Were you heading for Iicon or Temple Gnom?

Quick right before IICON, the younger Gnom missed the turn and arrived at Beans 15 minutes later than necessary having taken a detour past the weird shit.

[Quark]

Just now, Gnomicide said:

Quick right before IICON, the younger Gnom missed the turn and arrived at Beans 15 minutes later than necessary having taken a detour past the weird shit.

Bloody kids

[Boomtowner]

42 minutes ago, philipsteak said:

Got to agree with this. I know it's possible to have a completely different experience from others but I just didn't encounter the issues that so many seem to be taking about. 

+1, the only queues that I had were accessing the festival from the campervan field. Never queued more than 5-10 minutes for food, when there was a queue at the toilets you could be assured that there were others nearby that weren't. Easiest access I've seen to SE corner I've had in years. None of my group of 6, combined total of 56 Glastonbury's, thought that it was any busier than 2019. Tried numerous times to tell people queueing for toilets that there were toilets a short walk away with no queues. There were huge queues for the toilets in SE corner, yet there were complete banks of toilets empty further in. 

[mattiloy]

19 minutes ago, blutarsky said:

 

 

 

Agree with those saying food queues seemed worse. I barely ate as a result -couldn't be fucked spending more than 10 minutes in a queue. 

 

I ended up just having everything the wrong way round all the time, just going with stalls with tolerable queues. Chow mein brekky, sausage and bacon barm for tea kind of thing.

Actually, I think that more or less sums up my experience of the crowds - I think most of the time, watching stuff, crowds were not massively different to previous years (save the aforementioned acts who outgrew their stages since their booking- wet leg etc).

But the rest of the time on site, I can’t remember previously having to make so many compromises based on dense, static queues everywhere (be that for toilets, food stalls and so on, or just moving around the site between acts - I’m a fast walker and quite enjoy weaving between a crowd to get to where I need to but oftentimes there was just a total bottleneck, no gaps, not a single weave to be had - not completely unique to this year in fairness, but more seldom in others).

[morph100]

57 minutes ago, mufcok said:

Can you elaborate on that?..

Not really, could be a real tunnel that was being ran by Scousers, could be a nick name for a way in on staff tickets. Could be completely made up nonsense but I saw it mentioned more than once.

there is a tunnel / stream / sewer pipe that runs into site which I presume has a big gate and lock on it. Now I’m imagining a group of 20,000 people streaming through it as it’s managed by Liverpudlian gangsters 🙂

[Talcroft]

32 minutes ago, Quark said:

Didn't notice it being any worse than previous years tbh. I didn't go to the Park or Avalon but those crushes feel a bit predictable given the acts. Diana didn't feel as busy as Kylie. I didn't have any stupidly long queues for food, toilets, water points or lockups.

Can only speak from personal experience of course, but....yeah.

Another +1 for this. Not sure if it's age, experience, luck or perception - we left Arcadia around the time of the 'crush' and it was no different to the way the queues for the SEC were in previous years, or when the Pyramid field emptied after Coldplay in the 2016 mud trap. Not entirely pleasant, obviously, but not life threatening. 

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

3 hours ago, HyperTechnoHorse said:

Don't buy that there were 20k unaccounted for festival-goers. 

Some of the crowd behaviour I saw this year was utterly bizarre. Loads of times I saw massive queues for certain vendors, and then right next door would be barely any queue for another one. And this was for bog-standard food stalls - nothing to write home about.  Saw similar thing with toilets and longdrops, queues at bars etc. 

 

I do think there definitely felt like more than I've ever seen before (it was also my tenth) but in wondering if there was a huge amount of first timers that didn't know their way around/ tried to catch every act

The toilet thing in particular pissed me off so much, the ones at Williams green always had a massive queue after a decent act, yet 30 seconds over the bridge no queue, or 30 seconds to the right at the acoustic stage, no queue. Just down to stupidity really, and that was the same the site over (other stage, West Holt's etc.)

 

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

All seemed pretty normal to me on my 13th Glasto.

[clarkete]

4 hours ago, Alvoram said:

8. Should probably include wall climbers too, with news spreading around Sticklinch, a tiny section of the wall, that at least 30 people had jumped in one night... If this is true, then around the whole wall, across the whole weekend, the number may have been significant. 

I had quite a different take on that to you.

I arrived in Sticklinch Thursday and was intrigued why they had several security folks at the gate checking bands in and out, rather than just in. It was only when I read the fence story that it made sense that they'd beefed up the route between the two. 

2 hours ago, Gnomicide said:

To me it felt a little busier but only a little. The main noticeable time was heading down the railway track or down West Holts in the early hours against the crowds heading for SE corner. 

I thought the food stall and toilet queues were no worse than normal and it seemed like there was more space in our camping field (Paines) than before but that may have been because more of our group got there earlier this year.

Yes, Wet Leg was mad but it was always going to be, they should have been on later or a bigger stage.

Was DiRo busier than previous Legends? No. Was Macca busier than the Stones? No.

All this is just my own experience but I didn't think it was unsafe at any time. I think the busier feeling was down to bigger acts sometimes being up against little opposition, maybe bigger acts taking earlier slots due to everyone wanting to be there after the pandemic. I spent way more time at the Pyramid than any previous visit and I think a lot of others did the same.

Same perspective on pretty much everything.  I didn't see wet leg as I'd already caught them on tour and they were blooming popular there.

As you say Stones is still the Pyramid act where it's seemed busiest. 

There are certainly some stages which need well experienced and assertive stewards in case capacity is reached. When I arrived at JP whilst a lot of young pups were leaving I just stood next to the folks in tabards until the crowd was quieter. 

For food, after the first meal or two a key criteria for me was queue size and proximity - so if there were a dozen people waiting I'd go elsewhere. I managed to eat a couple of meals/snacks a day and all decent grub, but not the most fun things. 

 

[notjoseph]

3 hours ago, mattiloy said:

Actually, I think that more or less sums up my experience of the crowds - I think most of the time, watching stuff, crowds were not massively different to previous years (save the aforementioned acts who outgrew their stages since their booking- wet leg etc).

I actually heard from a friend working at the Park that Wet Leg were actually supposed to play bigger stage (John Peel/Other Stage) but their manager absolutely insisted that they play the Park stage. Something about remaining indie and having the 'kudos' of a absolutely rammed set. Made the experience of trying to see them a bit miserable to you ask me.

Regarding the overcrowding, I definitely noticed it this year, whether or not there were more people, it must have been poorly managed as I was involved in quite a few crushes. Once on the Thursday(!!) on the railroad between the Avalon and Glade exits, and another trying to get out of Arcadia on the Saturday night.

[Tranquility of Solitude]

6 hours ago, Quark said:

Didn't notice it being any worse than previous years tbh. I didn't go to the Park or Avalon but those crushes feel a bit predictable given the acts. Diana didn't feel as busy as Kylie. I didn't have any stupidly long queues for food, toilets, water points or lockups.

Can only speak from personal experience of course, but....yeah.

Also my experience, I did, however, make a rookie mistake and went for my car keys at the property lock up at Gate C on Sunday night. Had to queue there for around 40 minutes whilst people collected wellies, trollies and all sorts of weird and not very valuable crap.

[Kizzie]

8 hours ago, morph100 said:

Not really, could be a real tunnel that was being ran by Scousers, could be a nick name for a way in on staff tickets. Could be completely made up nonsense but I saw it mentioned more than once.

there is a tunnel / stream / sewer pipe that runs into site which I presume has a big gate and lock on it. Now I’m imagining a group of 20,000 people streaming through it as it’s managed by Liverpudlian gangsters 🙂

My next door neighbour who is Liverpudlian 🙄 didn't have a ticket for this year. He considered going anyway.

He told me on the Tuesday evening just as we were setting off for Pilton that 40 people had gone in through the 'tunnel' the night before, so Monday before the festival. 

I just nodded sagely and thought what a load of bull. 🤔

Can't be true can it?

 

[Suprefan]

It felt really crowded and it wasnt due to not being around a ton of people either personally. i was around 100k a weekend back in April with Coachella so it was a nice warm up to what was going to come last week. Havent read through but did the child factor get brought into the equation? Especially the ones that were over the free age threshold and got exceptions made? Did feel like there were a lot more kids, likely due to lots of parents having a kid during lockdown and now not having a means to have child care for a week.

 

I never felt the crush in SE Corner both nights I went in there either. Although I got in there at decent times and left when it was potentially going to start to peak at 2am ish.

Edited July 5, 2022 by Suprefan

[Chubby Dude in a Tiny Car]

i've been to every one since '94 and the only time i've felt anything like those crowds before was in 2000 - that year the crowds were fanning out through campsites from stages as there was simply nowhere else to go, it was a great festival but felt scary at times.

my favourite place on the whole site this year was the little cafe in the acoustic field next to Cockmill bar - for some weird reason it was a little oasis of calm and everytime i went there, no matter the time, there was sofas and cushions and space to chill and i lost count of the number of kimchi & sriracha toasties i had there!

next year is the first time ever that i actually DO NOT even want to go on the Wednesday - it was so bad on the Wednesday this year that it just destroyed the magic and i felt there was no real point in being there.

i have no idea what the solution is, i have nothing of any value to add to this i'm afraid.

its just gotten too big, too successful (that doesn't sound right? but i think i know what i mean..) and theres no way back.

this just sounds like me moaning again, i know, but i do truly love the festival more than any place on earth.

[JoeyT]

I know of someone who got in via tunnel pre-festival this year.

It's clearly a thing although I have no idea where said tunnel is!

[gigpusher]

10 hours ago, Splonk said:

Tried to drop off a kids buggy at the lock ups nearest the kids camping on the Friday and they had no room.

Apparently this was the first time this had ever happened at the lock ups.

Because kids are free, I wonder if they are accounted for in the official attendance?

 

I did wonder if there were a lot more kids than normal. Maybe people not wanting to leave kids at home as not much chance for kids to get acclimatised to being with other people for such a long time in recent years. No problem with it. I like kids around the festival but it there were significantly more than usual it could affect numbers. 

The food queues were the main things I noticed being worse than normal. Before we went down I went to a bakery and bought a load of brookies and my husband said I had gone well over the top. By the second day of the festival he was declaring me a genius as a mid morning brookie stopped us needing to eat until a little later most days. 

[Neil]

11 hours ago, WheresMyTent said:

I have lots of Glasto knowledge.

stop talking yourself up, why was melvin brought in as licencee in the early 2000's?

who was licencee after melvin?

[Chubby Dude in a Tiny Car]

Just now, gigpusher said:

I did wonder if there were a lot more kids than normal.

i have never seen so many young families and kids at the festival before - and thats a good thing!

the down side i guess is it all adds to the numbers.

on friday i ended up in the arcadia field early evening, there was nothing going on except some dj playing on the back of the bug lorry thing and a bunch of kids dancing round having a great time which i thought was pretty cool.

most of my crew from back in the day stopped going after they had kids, i'm trying to get them to come back again as i know they (the kids) would love it.

(i am not a parent, i can barely look after myself at the festival so i am in admiration of those of you that do it with kids in tow).

[Cleoclaptrap]

16 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I did wonder if there were a lot more kids than normal. Maybe people not wanting to leave kids at home as not much chance for kids to get acclimatised to being with other people for such a long time in recent years. No problem with it. I like kids around the festival but it there were significantly more than usual it could affect numbers. 

The food queues were the main things I noticed being worse than normal. Before we went down I went to a bakery and bought a load of brookies and my husband said I had gone well over the top. By the second day of the festival he was declaring me a genius as a mid morning brookie stopped us needing to eat until a little later most days. 

Had to look up Brookie. 👍

[mattiloy]

56 minutes ago, JoeyT said:

I know of someone who got in via tunnel pre-festival this year.

It's clearly a thing although I have no idea where said tunnel is!

Have heard of people crawling up the whitelake river at night in the past. Can be something to do with that route in?

[CaledonianGonzo]

1 hour ago, Chubby Dude in a Tiny Car said:

next year is the first time ever that i actually DO NOT even want to go on the Wednesday - it was so bad on the Wednesday this year that it just destroyed the magic and i felt there was no real point in being there.

Now this doesn't make sense to me.

The Thursday is objectively the busiest day as that's the day the other 35%* of people who don't come on the Wednesday hit the site - but the main stages aren't open to act as people reservoirs.

 

 

 

* Guesstimate

[gigpusher]

12 minutes ago, Cleoclaptrap said:

Had to look up Brookie. 👍

Nom!