What is your arrival strategy ?

[Barneym]

12 minutes ago, p.pete said:

Is there not somewhere else with a big carpark that could work for this?  Twickenham maybe - probably harder on average to get to, but fewer people travelling in the opposite direction to the festival before they get to the bus and the site should be able to cope with crowds...

Yeah I agree Twickenham makes so much more sense to me, set up for coaches and the right side of London, I guess it is a pain to get to especially for me but I’d take that pain for the easier journey. Thankfully I’m on a GA ticket this year so on the coach from Victoria which is a much better experience than the see coaches 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

16 minutes ago, neil93 said:

Travelling down from Scotland by Car for the first time, which gate will be steered towards, and is it possible to make your way to Gate A which I believe is for the buses?

looking to Camp in Kidney mead again no doubt, is there a better gate to enter through?

hopefully get to the festival site for 8/9am.

If you're aiming for Kidney Mead you'll want to make sure your approach takes you to one of the east car parks and according to the website you'll just be ushered into whichever closest car park and field needs filling up, so make sure you approach from the dark blue or brown routes and aim for Ped Gate B - that's closest to Kidney Mead. Or purple I suppose if you fancy a detour, but then your nearest entrance might be Ped Gate C.

Edited April 12, 2023 by MEGATRONICMEATWAGON

[balti-pie]

Twickenham has excellent access to the A316 and getting on the M3 and a303 - it would make a lot of sense. Bit of a twat to get to on public transport, but a taxi from richmond tube station would be easy, or walking up from twickenham overland station would be fine. It makes so much more sense than the 02, which is only really better on tube access alone: get it changed seetickets! 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

1 hour ago, Breeze said:

We were caught in that - we were waiting in queue for shuttle bus from B&W. The buses stopped for ~2 hours sadly due to a fatal RTA according to Worthy FM - fatal RTA typically means road is closed by police for minimum 1 hour while they sort everything out, gather evidence etc. I think it was someone walking by the side of the road on bits of road with no footpath.  Moral of story: drive *very* carefully near the festival.

Wow, never knew that after all these years. Very sad.

[incident]

23 minutes ago, p.pete said:

Is there not somewhere else with a big carpark that could work for this?  Twickenham maybe - probably harder on average to get to, but fewer people travelling in the opposite direction to the festival before they get to the bus and the site should be able to cope with crowds...

I know it's almost traditional to complain about getting to and from Wembley, but it is well served by public transport and does have a large dedicated purpose built coach station that sits idle 300+ days a year. Without event day traffic it wouldn't be nearly as bad for coaches heading West.

[Sundance]

52 minutes ago, Barneym said:

I’ve done the see coaches a few times and the problem is from the O2 you will just get stuck in traffic for the first hour especially at that time. I just checked and in 2019 we were on the 6am Wednesday and the first photo I have which is post tent set up first beer in hand by the tent (as always) was 13.51. Obviously on the Thursday you will have no queue to get in and minimal traffic around the site 

Agh thanks for the info...this is what I was afraid of. There's literally nothing we can do about it I suppose, will just have to hope someone sets our tent up for us and then hit the ground running when we get to the fest. Leaving at 5am might mean that we miss some of the london rush hour I guess.

God I can almost taste that first beer... bliss! 

Were the coaches fairly well organized when you got them last time? E.g. was it prompt to leave etc?

[p.pete]

33 minutes ago, incident said:

I know it's almost traditional to complain about getting to and from Wembley, but it is well served by public transport and does have a large dedicated purpose built coach station that sits idle 300+ days a year. Without event day traffic it wouldn't be nearly as bad for coaches heading West.

My assumption is that seetickets have traditionally done more business or have had better contacts with o2 than with the other sites?  They've been selling Glastonbury bus tickets for a long time now, you'd think it'd be worth their while to see if they can find a site with better logistics now that they've had a few years to figure it out.  It must be a pain for the buses to get to o2 arena as well as the cross-town traffic once people are actually on the bus.

[p.pete]

45 minutes ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

If you're aiming for Kidney Mead you'll want to make sure your approach takes you to one of the east car parks and according to the website you'll just be ushered into whichever closest car park and field needs filling up, so make sure you approach from the dark blue or brown routes and aim for Ped Gate B - that's closest to Kidney Mead. Or purple I suppose if you fancy a detour, but then your nearest entrance might be Ped Gate C.

C and B are both reasonably close to Kidney Mead - though I guess for C your car won't actually be anywhere near to the gate (having to walk with all your stuff across the campervan fields).  Mostly when I've come via the purple route we get directed to the top-end (towards B) of the car parks anyway.

Worth bearing in mind, if it's your first time @neil93, that Kidney Mead generally fills very quickly on Wednesday.

Also, had you something in mind when wanting to aim for gate A?  You can come in through there too, if you aim for west car parks - but as said you'd not be near Kidney Mead.  Also at A they'll prioritise people who've actually arrived by bus, so if you arrive at a busy time you'd be slower getting in than at other gates (at least I think that's how it works)

[gfa]

14 hours ago, socky said:

First timer, fly into Bristol, plan is to stay in Bristol Tuesday(Redhill's) night, get taxi Wednesday morning, stop in wells on way to get sack truck and beer and onwards to queues. good or bad plan?

expensive taxi that i reckon. maybe try get a train to wells then taxi onwards perhaps

1 hour ago, Sundance said:

Ooh can I ask what time you arrived on site with an 8am coach from London? Got a 5am coach from London on Thursday but am pranging out about missing a whole 1.5 days of the festival (not that there's anything I can do about it and it could have been much much worse!)

around midday we were inside the festival i think, reckon you'd be slightly quicker though as far less traffic. we never queued too long though

----

33 minutes ago, balti-pie said:

Twickenham has excellent access to the A316 and getting on the M3 and a303 - it would make a lot of sense. Bit of a twat to get to on public transport, but a taxi from richmond tube station would be easy, or walking up from twickenham overland station would be fine. It makes so much more sense than the 02, which is only really better on tube access alone: get it changed seetickets! 

Twickenham would be miles worse.

Twickenham is closer but its also by Heathrow which can be very congested, the O2 is far but the route is generally quieter.

Its also a 1.2km walk from the station to the Twickenham large car park to the north, not very accessible for disabled people and a trek for those who aren't! The whole point of coaches is to not get a taxi from the station i feel. Would result in many people missing coaches too if that had to be relied on I reckon, uber overwhelmed etc

Using St Pancras as an example, the earliest you can get to Twickenham station is 6:10 - so 6:30 for the coach and thats just a central london station. Can get to greenwich at 5:40am on the other hand. Greenwich is far closer to all the central London main terminuses too (London Bridge, Paddington, Kings Cross, Liverpool St, Waterloo etc) for the suburb dwellers too.

I really don't see the case for Twickenham being better honestly

3 minutes ago, p.pete said:

My assumption is that seetickets have traditionally done more business or have had better contacts with o2 than with the other sites?  They've been selling Glastonbury bus tickets for a long time now, you'd think it'd be worth their while to see if they can find a site with better logistics now that they've had a few years to figure it out.  It must be a pain for the buses to get to o2 arena as well as the cross-town traffic once people are actually on the bus.

The coaches go straight out to the M25 from the O2 on the A102 / A2 rather than through central.

[Fearless_Fish]

Normally travel down from the North East on Wednesday morning. It's about a 7 hour journey so we normally arrive 2-3pm and walk straight in.

However, this year it's our baby's first birthday on the Thursday of the festival. So we're not allowed to set off until we've spent some time with him and then deposited him at his grandparents! So who knows what time I'll arrive? The exact departure time is the subject of fierce debate 😃

My plan is to travel to the West car parks (despite coming from the North East) as there'll be no traffic by then, and the spare camping by this point will be over on the West side of site. The only problem is we'd like to make a quick (but safe) getaway on Monday to get back to the little man but now we'll have to cross from the West of site to the East on Monday morning which could be problematic...

[p.pete]

6 minutes ago, Fearless_Fish said:

The only problem is we'd like to make a quick (but safe) getaway on Monday to get back to the little man but now we'll have to cross from the West of site to the East on Monday morning which could be problematic...

Yeah, it can be a bit of a head spin when you get chucked out of the car parks in some random direction.  They usually open up lots of lanes and force you to drive in some random direction until you can get back to a main road and figure it out.  It might be a few miles of a detour, but not something I think you can plan for too easily (aside from having a plan A or B lined up of the roads you might want to aim for, e.g. maybe you want to aim for glastonbury town and then north on the A39).  East side is usually okay for us, if we get sent southwards that's what we want, and (usually) northwards there's a roundabout half a mile up the road.

[Barneym]

1 hour ago, Sundance said:

Agh thanks for the info...this is what I was afraid of. There's literally nothing we can do about it I suppose, will just have to hope someone sets our tent up for us and then hit the ground running when we get to the fest. Leaving at 5am might mean that we miss some of the london rush hour I guess.

God I can almost taste that first beer... bliss! 

Were the coaches fairly well organized when you got them last time? E.g. was it prompt to leave etc?

It’s always slight chaos and the stewards are just kids without much experience but I’d always say my coach has left within half an hour of when it was scheduled and I’ve done it 3 times since 2013. One year they did manage to forget our tickets on the coach and we had to get replacements when we got to PGA but that actually worked in our favour as we got to skip a big part of the queue to get in, although there was a lot of panic when they announced it on the coach. Also means I have quite a cool ticket without a photo on it. 2016 was chaos getting there as well but that was nothing to do with See and was just the flooding 

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

Can any experienced campervan-ers advise how likely it is to get a spot in E20 or E19? Happy to arrive early Tuesday

We ended up at the far end of E17 last year and it was a bit of a mission taking a baby in and out every day

(I've heard E21 is accessibility only so my dream of parking up and having a view over the festival site is already dead 😢)

[Crazyfool01]

7 minutes ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

Can any experienced campervan-ers advise how likely it is to get a spot in E20 or E19? Happy to arrive early Tuesday

We ended up at the far end of E17 last year and it was a bit of a mission taking a baby in and out every day

(I've heard E21 is accessibility only so my dream of parking up and having a view over the festival site is already dead 😢)

@StoneCircle has posted a filling field schedule somewhere that might help 

[p.pete]

32 minutes ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

Can any experienced campervan-ers advise how likely it is to get a spot in E20 or E19? Happy to arrive early Tuesday

We ended up at the far end of E17 last year and it was a bit of a mission taking a baby in and out every day

(I've heard E21 is accessibility only so my dream of parking up and having a view over the festival site is already dead 😢)

@BlueDaze referencing @StoneCircle in one of the questions threads

[StoneCircle]

41 minutes ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

Can any experienced campervan-ers advise how likely it is to get a spot in E20 or E19? Happy to arrive early Tuesday

We ended up at the far end of E17 last year and it was a bit of a mission taking a baby in and out every day

(I've heard E21 is accessibility only so my dream of parking up and having a view over the festival site is already dead 😢)

Do you have an East Quiet or East General pass? And yes E21 is accessibility, staff or the Eavis's family and friends. I have been using accessibility since 2011 and have been blessed with some amazing views! 🙂

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

4 hours ago, p.pete said:

@BlueDaze referencing @StoneCircle in one of the questions threads

Bit annoying that they go to E23 and E24 before E19, so if you're lucky and arrive late but at the right time you could get a prime spot in E19

[LoveAndTheft]

What a ludicrous question. Strategy is that the earlier you arrive, the earlier you get in and camped up. That's it. Most people's answers are nonsense.

Edited April 12, 2023 by LoveAndTheft

[StoneCircle]

4 hours ago, BBC7BBCHEAVEN said:

Bit annoying that they go to E23 and E24 before E19, so if you're lucky and arrive late but at the right time you could get a prime spot in E19

Better view from E23 or E24 though! 

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

6 hours ago, StoneCircle said:

Better view from E23 or E24 though! 

Ah can you still see the site from them?

 

That makes all the difference then, I thought E20 was the only one with a view

[BambooShanks]

12 hours ago, LoveAndTheft said:

What a ludicrous question. Strategy is that the earlier you arrive, the earlier you get in and camped up. That's it. Most people's answers are nonsense.

Pretty much. Though there's plenty to consider regarding traffic, the weather, time spent awake, time spent queueing etc but the only thing that matters is that the earlier you join the queue, the quicker you'll get through the gates once they open.  The queue is only going to get bigger until 8am (and even then, it's going to be very slow moving at first).

Me and Mrs Shanks are trying to plan our arrival.  She's driving this year and wants to set off from Southport at 8pm to arrive at Gate D as close to the car park opening as possible, immediately join the queue and try and get some sleep at some point before the gates are opened. it's only her third glastonbury but she's got the fever for it and didn't take any convincing at all to set off early.

Only planning to take our tent, camping chair, snacks and tent essentials the first trip in so we can make a beeline to Pennard Hill and get a spot there.

There's a few snags though.  We'll definitely be taking our friend Eric, who is a big disorganised mess so will likely slow our departure down and might also be giving another friend a lift depending on when/where he flies into from Switzerland, so will either be taking him with us from Southport or picking him up on the way.

The remainder of our group will also be arriving at  different times so will take a little bit of organising to get tents off them to set up / bag a space.  One group we should be able to grab the tents before we leave, the other is from Brighton so hopefully they'll arrive before 8am so they can give us their tent while we are in the queue. 

 

Of course, this plan will go completely out of the window if the weather is terrible on the Wednesday or any number of unforeseen events happen, but that's half the fun.

 

[wiremog]

Usually it's an early Weds am coach from London, arriving at lunchtime and me running around Big Ground like a blue arsed fly looking for a pitch (always manage it but it's stressful).

This year we're in Love Fields, first time we've glamped. Staying in Bristol on the Tuesday night and getting a 7am coach the next morning. We planned that before we decided to do Love Fields - for the first time we're actually going to be there in the morning but it's utterly pointless because LV doesn't open until midday! I am really looking forward to not having to run across the site to make sure we get a pitch though. And showers and nice bogs.

[JoeyT]

I respect the hustle but anyone arriving by car on the Tuesday evening and getting in the queue must be fucking insane.

Honestly can't even fathom the mentality this takes.

[gooner1990]

1 minute ago, JoeyT said:

I respect the hustle but anyone arriving by car on the Tuesday evening and getting in the queue must be fucking insane.

Honestly can't even fathom the mentality this takes.

I still refuse to do it.

Some friends do it and that gets us a decent pitch, but I've said I'm now happy to camp further out if they don't want to queue overnight anymore!

[JoeyT]

Just now, gooner1990 said:

I still refuse to do it.

Some friends do it and that gets us a decent pitch, but I've said I'm now happy to camp further out if they don't want to queue overnight anymore!

I honestly think a better idea is to befriend someone in the camperfields and pitch your tent up (with their permission) next to their van for the night then just get up early on the Weds morning and pack it away.

If having to pack up a tent in the early hours is an issue you could kip in a pop up tent, get up early and join the queue leaving the pop up where it is. Get on to site pitch your actual tent then go back to pack up the other one. By doing this you could even split your load over 2 trips etc.

Just my 2 pennies worth...