Campervan Queues

[Meself]

Hi all... I managed to get campervan (general) tickets. I'm looking at ferry times for the Wednesday. One will get us on site at 3pm, later sailing gets us on site around 5pm. Will we likely encounter queues to get in around 3pm ? 

 

Thanks a mil

[Crazyfool01]

11 minutes ago, Meself said:

Hi all... I managed to get campervan (general) tickets. I'm looking at ferry times for the Wednesday. One will get us on site at 3pm, later sailing gets us on site around 5pm. Will we likely encounter queues to get in around 3pm ? 

 

Thanks a mil

Campervan fields open Tue … by wed there should be no queues 

[BlueDaze]

This marvellous knowledge provided by @StoneCircle tells you the order that fields are filled..

arriving Wednesday in General I would expect you to be in 14 (which is not too bad a walk) or they will be trying to fill random spaces (if you are in a small van)

Edited December 4, 2022 by BlueDaze
added map

[JMB01]

How are queues generally on a Tuesday mid afternoon?

im guessing a bit busier than Wednesday? 

[BlueDaze]

You should be parked up 30-40 minutes after turning off the A37

[BlueDaze]

15 hours ago, BlueDaze said:

You should be parked up 30-40 minutes after turning off the A37

I should caveat… the only time (in 10 festivals) that it hasn’t been fairly painless getting in was after the pre-fest deluges of 2016… and that was 6 hours queueing on local roads 

 

[BlueDaze]

If you are interested in the actual route in from A37…? I posted this elsewhere :

 

 

[Blisterpack]

I take it people are queuing in the early hours on Wednesday morning to get in through gate C…? Those looking to set up tents for mates etc…..

[BlueDaze]

2 hours ago, Blisterpack said:

I take it people are queuing in the early hours on Wednesday morning to get in through gate C…? Those looking to set up tents for mates etc…..

yes.. in previous years (I wasnt there this year) they have let people through from the car parks about 7am, so you need to be queueing before that ..

There are always people that queue all night to get in first of course 

[Poo]

On 12/6/2022 at 4:27 PM, Blisterpack said:

I take it people are queuing in the early hours on Wednesday morning to get in through gate C…? Those looking to set up tents for mates etc…..

I was in the quiet east camper van fields last year. I helped my mates take in their camping stuff. We started queuing at 0530 and it took us around 5 hours to get to the pyramid stage area. Needless to say, i wont be doing that again this year!! 

[Blisterpack]

On 12/14/2022 at 1:27 PM, Poo said:

We started queuing at 0530 and it took us around 5 hours to get to the pyramid stage area. 

So even though you had like an hour and a half head start on the car park queue guys, it still took five hours to get in? Mad that. 

[Lycra]

2 hours ago, Blisterpack said:

So even though you had like an hour and a half head start on the car park queue guys, it still took five hours to get in? Mad that. 

Not really. Queuing by those arriving by car begins Tuesday evening. 

[Poo]

On 12/16/2022 at 3:08 PM, Blisterpack said:

So even though you had like an hour and a half head start on the car park queue guys, it still took five hours to get in? Mad that. 

Yep, sure did. The last 9 times ive been ive always been in the West camper field, obviously there wasn't any West camping last year. When we went and looked at the queue on the Tuesday night there were about 30 people who were going to spend the night there. Then when we got up it was chaos. As someone has mentioned, the car parks are behind the camper van fields so everyone was just piling in. Slow moving as everyone had their kit. Worst thing was that i was just helping my mates as my stuff was in my camper, pooped me out for the first day TBH. The queue to get into the festival during popular times was a bit of a nightmare. About an hour on average and i was camped a 10 min hungover walk from gate C.

[flyguy]

Wow! 5 hours, is it like that every day from the Campervan fields or just the on the first day or two? 

[BlueDaze]

1 hour ago, flyguy said:

Wow! 5 hours, is it like that every day from the Campervan fields or just the on the first day or two? 

Thats just on the Wednesday morning..

per the map above the Blue car parks (6-11*) will queue overnight on Tuesday and then early am on Wednesday, they are led thru the CV Fields to Gate C.. This usually (I wasnt there in 2022) happens around 7am wednesday...

The last poster suggested that, because he was staying in the CV fields Tuesday, he had the opportunity to join the (much smaller) queue at Gate C  at any time before 7am, therefore BEFORE the main crowd... but he didnt join until AFTER they were let through..

Once the masses are through, they arent likely going back to their cars until they go home... So from then on in it is really just CV dwellers and car parking latecomers.

 * I have only ever stayed in the CV fields and so never experienced this from the other side of the fence..

[Poo]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:05 PM, BlueDaze said:

Thats just on the Wednesday morning..

per the map above the Blue car parks (6-11*) will queue overnight on Tuesday and then early am on Wednesday, they are led thru the CV Fields to Gate C.. This usually (I wasnt there in 2022) happens around 7am wednesday...

The last poster suggested that, because he was staying in the CV fields Tuesday, he had the opportunity to join the (much smaller) queue at Gate C  at any time before 7am, therefore BEFORE the main crowd... but he didnt join until AFTER they were let through..

Once the masses are through, they arent likely going back to their cars until they go home... So from then on in it is really just CV dwellers and car parking latecomers.

 * I have only ever stayed in the CV fields and so never experienced this from the other side of the fence..

We joined the queue at 0530 (as per my original post) and it was mad. Ive never seen anything like it before. As stated, ive always stayed in West van field but naively didn't think about the car parks behind the van fields. It was very slow moving as its obviously everyone's first time, so there are  proper checks, wrist bands etc.  My opinion is that they could really do with more turnstiles to go through. I think i counted 8 people doing the initial checks where you go through the first bit.

There were also a few issues going in from Gate c during peak times, on other days. Again, probably need to get up and get on with it (but everything takes longer at Glastonbury) or go in later. People were getting frustrated and then the queue jumping started. 

Deffo wont be taking any of my mates stuff in 2023. Lie in for me 🙂

[Poo]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:05 PM, BlueDaze said:

Thats just on the Wednesday morning..

per the map above the Blue car parks (6-11*) will queue overnight on Tuesday and then early am on Wednesday, they are led thru the CV Fields to Gate C.. This usually (I wasnt there in 2022) happens around 7am wednesday...

The last poster suggested that, because he was staying in the CV fields Tuesday, he had the opportunity to join the (much smaller) queue at Gate C  at any time before 7am, therefore BEFORE the main crowd... but he didnt join until AFTER they were let through..

Once the masses are through, they arent likely going back to their cars until they go home... So from then on in it is really just CV dwellers and car parking latecomers.

 * I have only ever stayed in the CV fields and so never experienced this from the other side of the fence..

If you were not there in 2022, what makes you think it was a much smaller queue before 0700? 

[BlueDaze]

1 hour ago, Poo said:

If you were not there in 2022, what makes you think it was a much smaller queue before 0700? 

hadnt seen your earlier post... I stand corrected for 2022.

 

[Popsider75]

No issue with camper vans on a Tuesday 

When I used to camp we used to drive down Wednesday through the night arriving about 4.30am ( first light) . No traffic and no queues. Camped just inside Gate A in Darble. It's out of the way but that's not always a bad thing in my opinion. Plenty of room and not much passing foot traffic. Easy getaway Monday morning.

Thankfully able to do it differently these days 

 

[p.pete]

On 12/19/2022 at 5:05 PM, BlueDaze said:

Thats just on the Wednesday morning..

per the map above the Blue car parks (6-11*) will queue overnight on Tuesday and then early am on Wednesday, they are led thru the CV Fields to Gate C.. This usually (I wasnt there in 2022) happens around 7am wednesday...

The last poster suggested that, because he was staying in the CV fields Tuesday, he had the opportunity to join the (much smaller) queue at Gate C  at any time before 7am, therefore BEFORE the main crowd... but he didnt join until AFTER they were let through..

Once the masses are through, they arent likely going back to their cars until they go home... So from then on in it is really just CV dwellers and car parking latecomers.

 * I have only ever stayed in the CV fields and so never experienced this from the other side of the fence..

Except the poster above said they started queuing at 05:30, and you are saying (without knowledge of 2022, and I wasn't there last year either so only basing things on previous years for myself) the car park people get marched through to join the gate C queue at about 07:00.  My experience (2017 & 19) has been that you can walk freely between carpark 8 and campervan field E17 - that's on Tuesday evening - so does anyone know does that entry point suddenly get closed at any point in the night, to start accumulating the '7am carpark queue'?

Or does the carpark queue start gathering at some other point outside the campervan fields?  I vaguely remember my route from Carpark into campervan fields in 2011 being closed later in the morning (that was confusing!)

Has anyone seen the car park queue being marched to the back of the gate C queue in recent years?

The reason I'm asking is that I feel like maybe these things happened for a few years, maybe 5+ years ago, but I'm trying to figure out if they still happen and if they do how are they coordinated.  When they first started letting cars park up overnight (to get traffic off the roads Wednesday morning) I feel like they said people needed to stay in their cars until the morning - but presumably that was unpoliceable...

[Poo]

On 1/17/2023 at 9:51 AM, p.pete said:

Except the poster above said they started queuing at 05:30, and you are saying (without knowledge of 2022, and I wasn't there last year either so only basing things on previous years for myself) the car park people get marched through to join the gate C queue at about 07:00.  My experience (2017 & 19) has been that you can walk freely between carpark 8 and campervan field E17 - that's on Tuesday evening - so does anyone know does that entry point suddenly get closed at any point in the night, to start accumulating the '7am carpark queue'?

Or does the carpark queue start gathering at some other point outside the campervan fields?  I vaguely remember my route from Carpark into campervan fields in 2011 being closed later in the morning (that was confusing!)

Has anyone seen the car park queue being marched to the back of the gate C queue in recent years?

The reason I'm asking is that I feel like maybe these things happened for a few years, maybe 5+ years ago, but I'm trying to figure out if they still happen and if they do how are they coordinated.  When they first started letting cars park up overnight (to get traffic off the roads Wednesday morning) I feel like they said people needed to stay in their cars until the morning - but presumably that was unpoliceable...

Hi, all i can add from my original post is that when when we woke around 0500 on the Wednesday morning there was a huge amount of people in the queue to enter at PGC. Obviously the majority of these would have been people who had parked their cars the night before. I have no idea what time they started arriving or queuing but we did walk down towards PGC on the Tuesday night and there were already people that were clearly in the queue to get in once the gates opened on Wednesday morning. I can only assume that all the PGs are the same with the queues at the same time but maybe the line is more narrow so stretches back further?  

[p.pete]

3 minutes ago, Poo said:

Hi, all i can add from my original post is that when when we woke around 0500 on the Wednesday morning there was a huge amount of people in the queue to enter at PGC. Obviously the majority of these would have been people who had parked their cars the night before. I have no idea what time they started arriving or queuing but we did walk down towards PGC on the Tuesday night and there were already people that were clearly in the queue to get in once the gates opened on Wednesday morning. I can only assume that all the PGs are the same with the queues at the same time but maybe the line is more narrow so stretches back further?  

I think Feststaff organise the 'volunteers' to wristband people as they arrive.  It would be interesting to know how many people they allocate to each gate.  I've never really heard of any specific gate being bigger or smaller than the others.  Thinking about it though, Gates B and C on the east side of the festival, if you assume people arriving to the East car parks split themselves (relatively) equally between those two gates, gate C then has almost all (esp. if no West campervan) of the festivals campervan allocation aiming for it as well.  

That'd make for a very long queue on Wednesday morning at gate C - maybe extra long / narrow as you say because there's a natural route for it to flow through down the lanes of campervans?  (often round the edges of fields in other places)

Similarly for gates A and D on the opposite side of the festival, if parking people split equally between gates Gate A then has all the extra people arriving by bus.  Gate A is probably the only one that they need to prioritise to ensure there isn't a long queue, on the bus side of entry at least, so maybe it'd be the only one that'd be bigger than the others...

[Poo]

15 minutes ago, p.pete said:

I think Feststaff organise the 'volunteers' to wristband people as they arrive.  It would be interesting to know how many people they allocate to each gate.  I've never really heard of any specific gate being bigger or smaller than the others.  Thinking about it though, Gates B and C on the east side of the festival, if you assume people arriving to the East car parks split themselves (relatively) equally between those two gates, gate C then has almost all (esp. if no West campervan) of the festivals campervan allocation aiming for it as well.  

That'd make for a very long queue on Wednesday morning at gate C - maybe extra long / narrow as you say because there's a natural route for it to flow through down the lanes of campervans?  (often round the edges of fields in other places)

Similarly for gates A and D on the opposite side of the festival, if parking people split equally between gates Gate A then has all the extra people arriving by bus.  Gate A is probably the only one that they need to prioritise to ensure there isn't a long queue, on the bus side of entry at least, so maybe it'd be the only one that'd be bigger than the others...

I've always been in West camper van field and there has never been a queue into the site on a Wednesday morning because no pedestrians can get in that way. Maybe the odd one or 2 who stay in a a mates camper and then go into the festival that way. Closing the West field means loads more vans in the East and i think people are looking to make things easier. I had 2 mates stay with me on the Tuesday night but we then walked them in on the Wed morning. Maybe lots of people did that or as i have done previously, i walked in and set my mates tents up for when they arrived later on that day. Next year i will be having a lie in as it pooped me out for the rest of the day. 

[p.pete]

3 minutes ago, Poo said:

I've always been in West camper van field and there has never been a queue into the site on a Wednesday morning because no pedestrians can get in that way. Maybe the odd one or 2 who stay in a a mates camper and then go into the festival that way. Closing the West field means loads more vans in the East and i think people are looking to make things easier. I had 2 mates stay with me on the Tuesday night but we then walked them in on the Wed morning. Maybe lots of people did that or as i have done previously, i walked in and set my mates tents up for when they arrived later on that day. Next year i will be having a lie in as it pooped me out for the rest of the day. 

West Campervan must have been a dream - though more of a daily walk once things are up and running.

I've queued overnight a couple of times through gate C - it definitely gets very tiring.  It used to be 'okay' if you arrived by 6/7am but now, similar to your experience, I would expect to be queueing until at least 11/12 if arriving at that time.  I can only assume that it's worse arriving 8-10am, plus if it's warm you're still in the queue if/as it starts to heat up.

This definitely affects the campervan queues.  If I arrive in a car Tuesday evening it's going to be a rubbish nights sleep in the car and then hours in the queue, or else an even more rubbish nights sleep in the queue but get in and set up earlier in the morning.  Anyone in a campervan then has to wait for that to die-down before bothering to try to get into the festival, or face hours in the same queue.  Sensible alternative arriving by car is to not arrive any time before midday - still loads of camping left when you get in, but it's not going to be anywhere central.  Lots of things I'm trying to rationalise before this year's festival - I'm getting old so sleeping in the queue is bad, but the alternative is lots of extra walking from wherever we'd eventually get camped...

[Lycra]

20 hours ago, Poo said:

Hi, all i can add from my original post is that when when we woke around 0500 on the Wednesday morning there was a huge amount of people in the queue to enter at PGC. Obviously the majority of these would have been people who had parked their cars the night before. I have no idea what time they started arriving or queuing but we did walk down towards PGC on the Tuesday night and there were already people that were clearly in the queue to get in once the gates opened on Wednesday morning. I can only assume that all the PGs are the same with the queues at the same time but maybe the line is more narrow so stretches back further?  

I recall people last year posting photos of themselves queuing and it hadn't even reached 9pm on Tuesday evening.