Best time to arrive?

[drb38]

Hi all! What is the best time to arrive Wednesday morning to be able to still camp in one of the more central campsites. Obviously 'the earlier the better' but is it still realistic to try get a central spot arriving at 5am-ish? How long are the queueing times from 5/6?

[bexj]

Arriving at 5am will put you right at the back of the long overnight queue.  You might be lucky with a central spot, but unlikely.  If that's critical to you, then be there overnight, otherwise arrive after 10 ish and camp  further out! 

[sedra]

5am will be fine - we usually arrive at 7.30am and get in queue and get through gate C about 9.30am and camp ok in central areas. Not sure about gate A or D on west side though 

[drb38]

What sort of time do you think we would need to begin queueing to get into e.g. Row Mead or Big Ground (obviously the latest time possible the better to try and get something like a night's sleep in 😆)

[Lycra]

On 5/8/2023 at 2:26 PM, drb38 said:

What sort of time do you think we would need to begin queueing to get into e.g. Row Mead or Big Ground (obviously the latest time possible the better to try and get something like a night's sleep in 😆)

If you're dead set on these fields then you need to queue overnight as they fill rapidly with the first person  through the gate.

[p.pete]

Any question like this needs to tell us how many people / tents you're trying to squeeze in plus how big the tents are.  If it's one one-man tent, and you look hard enough or talk nicely to people asking if they can shift a bit then there's space most of Wednesday.  Anything more people-/tents-wise and you need to arrive earlier.

Similarly anyone sharing experiences of how easy or hard it was to get into field x arriving at time y, it'd be nice to know how much space you were grabbing too!  

If it's cold or rainy Tuesday evening or night then that'll help too.  5am you'd be quite far back in the queue but most years you would be ahead of most people by arriving at that time (just that the people ahead of you are early because they want a central spot too).  If there's just you then I see no problem getting a good central spot, but lots of tents and ye might be scattered around the field rather than finding one space that ye can all set up together - not too bad a result though.  Any of you bringing larger tents, even just one large tent, and you might struggle.

Wild guess that joining the queue at 5am you might get through the gate by about 10am (other guesses?) - so 5 hours of queueing.  If you arrived at 4am you probably wouldn't get in that much earlier (wild guess, again) as the flow of people arriving probably slows a bit through the night, but then starts to ramp up again after maybe 5am.  Also, your satnav saying you'll arrive at 5am means nothing with regards to when you'll actually join the queue - you have a slow drive through bumpy fields to get parked up, and then a slower walk with your gear to get to the queue.  Unless you're arriving by bus 😄  hope some of that is helpful!

[drb38]

On 5/10/2023 at 1:12 PM, p.pete said:

Any question like this needs to tell us how many people / tents you're trying to squeeze in plus how big the tents are.  If it's one one-man tent, and you look hard enough or talk nicely to people asking if they can shift a bit then there's space most of Wednesday.  Anything more people-/tents-wise and you need to arrive earlier.

Similarly anyone sharing experiences of how easy or hard it was to get into field x arriving at time y, it'd be nice to know how much space you were grabbing too!  

If it's cold or rainy Tuesday evening or night then that'll help too.  5am you'd be quite far back in the queue but most years you would be ahead of most people by arriving at that time (just that the people ahead of you are early because they want a central spot too).  If there's just you then I see no problem getting a good central spot, but lots of tents and ye might be scattered around the field rather than finding one space that ye can all set up together - not too bad a result though.  Any of you bringing larger tents, even just one large tent, and you might struggle.

Wild guess that joining the queue at 5am you might get through the gate by about 10am (other guesses?) - so 5 hours of queueing.  If you arrived at 4am you probably wouldn't get in that much earlier (wild guess, again) as the flow of people arriving probably slows a bit through the night, but then starts to ramp up again after maybe 5am.  Also, your satnav saying you'll arrive at 5am means nothing with regards to when you'll actually join the queue - you have a slow drive through bumpy fields to get parked up, and then a slower walk with your gear to get to the queue.  Unless you're arriving by bus 😄  hope some of that is helpful!

Thanks so much really helpful 😀 we will have two biggish tents so I suppose it's looking likely we will have to start queueing quite a lot earlier