Glastonbury 2022 - overcrowding rumours & thoughts

[Harebell]

3 hours ago, flave said:

I personally saw 3 coming in over the fence at the back of South Park 2 and was aware of more in the trees when around the tent on the Friday morning - essentially where the fence intersects with the trees (and possibly stream, not sure) at the back - got the feeling that was probably a known place to come over

I saw three people jump the fence into Tom's Field in the middle of the day, security ran after them but I don't think they caught them.

 

It did seem very busy to me at times (I've previously been in 2003, 2007, 2016) so I just tried to keep to quieter areas.

[clarkete]

5 hours ago, blutarsky said:

Bowie 2000 would like a word. 

Certainly didn't seem that way to me

[blutarsky]

1 hour ago, clarkete said:

Certainly didn't seem that way to me

To be fair, you would know far, far better than me! 

[briddj]

On 7/4/2022 at 9:38 PM, Badlands said:

The food vans are the litmus test for me. Not that it spoilt my festival but there were queues everywhere for everything, even those off the beaten track 

Didn't queue for food once all weekend. 

[waltere]

 

4 hours ago, HyperTechnoHorse said:

Anecdotal but my mate up in Bootle says the place was like a ghost town during the festival. Says his local was closed for the week with a sign out front saying "gone fence jumping". 

Also only anecdotal, but was speaking to someone (not scouse) at one point who'd apparently bunked in overnight Thursday into Friday, and I quote, "in the back of a van with 15 scousers"

[morph100]

35 minutes ago, waltere said:

 

Also only anecdotal, but was speaking to someone (not scouse) at one point who'd apparently bunked in overnight Thursday into Friday, and I quote, "in the back of a van with 15 scousers"

I suspect the scouse tunnel is more a network of insiders who scousers and others with less prominent accents work with to get in. We have a mole or multiple moles on the inside, causing food queues and pathway closures!

[clarkete]

2 hours ago, blutarsky said:

To be fair, you would know far, far better than me! 

Certainly don't dispute the site was busy back then, but stones was the first one where even near the back I thought "we're here for the set". 

I had a friend nearer the front and he said if anyone needed to go to the loo they were pretty much crowd surfed our 😊

[sime]

I noticed how busy it was on Wednesday. Found Thursday even busier and was reminded of 2000 to a degree. Because of this I changed some of my lineup plans, sacrificed some bands in The Park, Avalon etc, spent all of Thursday evening at the Pilton Palais (where Tilda Swinton did a live Orlando Q&A and Michael Cumming did the same with Oxide - The Brass Eye Tapes, which was so good!) and over the weekend used some shortcuts to avoid getting caught in crushes as best I could. And ended up having a really great time. Certainly felt different to me people numbers wise this year to previous Glastonbury's.

[Neil]

17 hours ago, blutarsky said:

Bowie 2000 would like a word. 

the site was far busier during macca than it was during bowie, the stones and bruce.

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

11 hours ago, briddj said:

Didn't queue for food once all weekend. 

Literally no queue once? You just walked up to food stalls 3 x per day for 5 days and they were just waiting to serve you?

Can I ask what times you ate and at which stalls?

[Havors]

10 hours ago, morph100 said:

I suspect the scouse tunnel is more a network of insiders who scousers and others with less prominent accents work with to get in. We have a mole or multiple moles on the inside, causing food queues and pathway closures!

You are not wrong. I could get spun in if I needed to but i wouldn't feel comfortable personally doing it. I think its detrimental to the festival as a whole and if it continues on mass the festival could be in danger from licensing. 
 

[Havors]

44 minutes ago, sime said:

I noticed how busy it was on Wednesday. Found Thursday even busier and was reminded of 2000 to a degree. Because of this I changed some of my lineup plans, sacrificed some bands in The Park, Avalon etc, spent all of Thursday evening at the Pilton Palais (where Tilda Swinton did a live Orlando Q&A and Michael Cumming did the same with Oxide - The Brass Eye Tapes, which was so good!) and over the weekend used some shortcuts to avoid getting caught in crushes as best I could. And ended up having a really great time. Certainly felt different to me people numbers wise this year to previous Glastonbury's.

From all accounts working the gates way way way more people turned up on the wed and thursday than usually does, this did make the Thursday feel ridiculously overcrowded. When the main stages and other things are not open it forces people to the Glade and other choke points... making it quite horrible. 

[Neil]

16 minutes ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Literally no queue once?

that was me 🙂 

[sime]

2 minutes ago, Havors said:

From all accounts working the gates way way way more people turned up on the wed and thursday than usually does, this did make the Thursday feel ridiculously overcrowded. When the main stages and other things are not open it forces people to the Glade and other choke points... making it quite horrible. 

That's interesting. Getting your perspective from being on the gates. I realised on Wednesday just how busy it was getting which is why I stayed up at Pilton Palais all of Thursday evening. Even then I noticed how big the crowds were, even up there. Plus my walk back to Bushy Ground at 2am after The Matrix was really busy too. Was quite eye opening!

[briddj]

1 hour ago, Havors said:

From all accounts working the gates way way way more people turned up on the wed and thursday than usually does, this did make the Thursday feel ridiculously overcrowded. When the main stages and other things are not open it forces people to the Glade and other choke points... making it quite horrible. 

Wednesday was far, far busier. The Park hill was absolutely rammed, which it never usually is.

That'll be down to the train strike I guess.

[briddj]

1 hour ago, Deaf Nobby Burton said:

Literally no queue once? You just walked up to food stalls 3 x per day for 5 days and they were just waiting to serve you?

Can I ask what times you ate and at which stalls?

Yep. Guess it depends when and where you chose to eat really?

Used one of the stands at Sticklinch that never had a queue. (That van was called Burgers but did breakfast, maybe that's why. But one stall in particular at Sticklinch always had a massive queue for some bizarre reason).

I only really tend to have breakfast and one meal at Glasto though, really. Don't have time for anything more! Which is probably one of the reasons why I come back having lost weight despite drinking craft ale in every waking moment!

Got food at the back of the Other stage on Thursday and Sunday [Fish & Chips / Yorkshire pud on the Sunday], and around William's Green on Friday and Saturday (Katsu curry stall one of the days).

Would say that I would never choose a stall with a massive queue. I don't see the point. There will be another selling the same thing in 30 yards.

Obviously a lot will come down to timing, and my "allotted eating window" probably falling well (usually 4-5pm I'd say).

[Superscally]

On 7/4/2022 at 8:34 PM, CaledonianGonzo said:

The more this keeps coming up, the more all I can account for it is: after 3 years away, people simply forgot what it was like.

Nah man. I go to Liverpool matches. Have done for many years Very crowded around the stadium. Have done 14 Glastos, never felt as crowded as I do pre-match. This year at Glasto was different gravy. It was toooooo busy. First time I've abandoned Baggy Mondays as wasn't going to get in tent despite getting there earlier than ever. Slower to get around than some muddy years. Wet Leg was insane. Also look at the crowds for lesser known bands like Gabriels at the park. The size of the Fontaines crowd during the colossal DiRo set...

 

[briddj]

Would say I'm in the gang that really didn't find it any busier than in previous years.

It 100% depends what you went to, and when.

That said, I deliberately didn't bother with WetLeg, Arcadia, Fatboy at Gas Tower (despite being in SE corner at the time) as I knew what would happen.

[Copperface]

Just a little relevant to the general overcrowding perceptions, I was camped in a staff campsite with my 350  volunteers and 135 contracted paid staff. 

Next to my group of tents was a group of 35 paid employees (all from Liverpool)  on zero hours contracts. They created a bit of havoc in the campsite, did about four shifts from the Saturday onwards, then all did a runner into the festival on the Wednesday, leaving tents full of shite and what looked like a landfill site behind. That left the contracted supervisors and remaining employees a major headache in covering all their posts for the remainder of the festival. Ironically, although they lost their £400 deposits, they would still have to be paid by the company for their completed shifts so basically covering their deposit. Bizarre. We had not a single runner. Not sure how others did.

[Talcroft]

I think, as well, lots of the previously more obscure corners everyone knows about now because of social media. I never went to T&C my first time in 2008 coz I didn't know what happened there so we spent time at the tent Wed/Thur. Now everyone tiktoks their entire week there, all the newbies know what to expect. So no-one hangs around their tent any more, they're all out seeing and doing all the time. The whole experience has stepped up a notch.

We need to start telling people it's rubbish, frankly. 

[LoraMaze]

2 hours ago, briddj said:

Wednesday was far, far busier. The Park hill was absolutely rammed, which it never usually is.

That'll be down to the train strike I guess.

When we decided to do our usual walk up to the Glastonbury sign in Wednesday, which is usually busy but not people soup, we were quite surprised to see this.

 

[LoraMaze]

1 hour ago, Talcroft said:

I think, as well, lots of the previously more obscure corners everyone knows about now because of social media. I never went to T&C my first time in 2008 coz I didn't know what happened there so we spent time at the tent Wed/Thur. Now everyone tiktoks their entire week there, all the newbies know what to expect. So no-one hangs around their tent any more, they're all out seeing and doing all the time. The whole experience has stepped up a notch.

We need to start telling people it's rubbish, frankly. 

I’ve already started doing that 🤣

[Leyrulion]

2 hours ago, Copperface said:

Just a little relevant to the general overcrowding perceptions, I was camped in a staff campsite with my 350  volunteers and 135 contracted paid staff. 

Next to my group of tents was a group of 35 paid employees (all from Liverpool)  on zero hours contracts. They created a bit of havoc in the campsite, did about four shifts from the Saturday onwards, then all did a runner into the festival on the Wednesday, leaving tents full of shite and what looked like a landfill site behind. That left the contracted supervisors and remaining employees a major headache in covering all their posts for the remainder of the festival. Ironically, although they lost their £400 deposits, they would still have to be paid by the company for their completed shifts so basically covering their deposit. Bizarre. We had not a single runner. Not sure how others did.

Seem to be a lot of these stories, no idea how they can tighten up on it. Anecdotally it does seem that something needs to change, are too many people working out how to "game" the wristband/volunteer system?

[March Hare]

Fuck me a lot of these posts are tiresome with the scouser accusations. Get a grip of yourselves and stop calling out a region based on your prejudice

[Johnnyseven]

4 hours ago, Havors said:

From all accounts working the gates way way way more people turned up on the wed and thursday than usually does, this did make the Thursday feel ridiculously overcrowded. When the main stages and other things are not open it forces people to the Glade and other choke points... making it quite horrible. 

I think the weather had something to do with this, and the desperation to get back to the farm after Covid. It was forecast to rain from Friday so folk wanted to get there early to enjoy a couple of days of sun.