Secret Sets. Best way to hear about them on site?

[august1]

6 hours ago, Crazyfool01 said:

Possibly an unpopular opinion but given the issues last year and the festivals obvious attempts to try and deal with them I’m not sure the secret glasto thing should be a thing now 

Nothing Secret Glasto tweeted last year became dangerous if anything telling people to stay away from busy areas. Nothing was tweeted about the Paolo Nutini..

Bad programming was to blame.

In fact nothing SG has tweeted has become dangerous, deliberately timed tweets to inform people in the area with 15 minute warnings than the whole farm hours in advance has worked well.

[Nduja]

6 hours ago, uscore said:

sadly?  truly secret gigs are a thing of the past now.   These days everyone knows who it's going to be, and they'll definitely be on a stage suitable for purpose.

It's probably better that way.  Long gone are the days when you would wait patiently at the front of a busy crowd waiting to see who the special guests might be, only to hear the dreaded words, "ladies and gentlemen, please welcome The Kooks!"

I remember at my first glasto, some neighbours hot footing it down to Other Stage because they were convinced on an Outkast secret set to open the festival. This caused quite a lot of panic as I was nowhere near ready. When the sounds of "I Predict A Riot" rolled over the fields, it was quite some relief.

[RichardWaller]

4 hours ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

According to the Clashfinder, it was as "Special Guests". 2011 though because I remember my mate went to see Morrissey instead. Wish I'd done the same. Instead I was stuck way at the back of a muddy slope with 2k other people.

 

Aaah didn’t think it was 2010, read a comment on another thread saying it was.. I didn’t make 2011, but don’t remember it being 2010..

Yeah that’ll be a general rule of the thumb then eh, aim for “special guests”. I’ve not seen a secret set, actually. Fair few guest appearances like.

Edited May 26, 2023 by RichardWaller
Forgot

[Crazyfool01]

6 minutes ago, august1 said:

Nothing Secret Glasto tweeted last year became dangerous if anything telling people to stay away from busy areas. Nothing was tweeted about the Paolo Nutini..

Bad programming was to blame.

In fact nothing SG has tweeted has become dangerous, deliberately timed tweets to inform people in the area with 15 minute warnings than the whole farm hours in advance has worked well.

No blame with you guys whatsoever for any of last years programming and busyness . 

[CaledonianGonzo]

It is a conundrum. It's a trusted resource but is now too well kent.  So if it was spiked and started again for a more discerning clientele (I.e. users on here) some c**t would spin up his own version and cause havoc with it.

[august1]

3 hours ago, Crazyfool01 said:

No blame with you guys whatsoever for any of last years programming and busyness . 

I know you're not!

Tbh I think SG should explode into nothingness but I fear what would pop up to replace it within 2-3 years 

[Crazyfool01]

3 minutes ago, august1 said:

I know you're not!

Tbh I think SG should explode into nothingness but I fear what would pop up to replace it within 2-3 years 

yeah thats the real balance  .... the demand for this stuff is always going to be there .... will be interesting to see when the lineup drops ... how many actual gaps remain and if the festival take the need for it away somewhat 

Edited May 26, 2023 by Crazyfool01

[Drinky]

You’re never going to get back the buzz of the pre-smartphone-era secret sets - Franz Ferdinand on the Park Stage in 2008, with then flyering for it themselves in the afternoon (the rumour had been they were filling in for Babyshambles at midnight, which turned out to be wrong when Pete turned up on his own claiming that the rest of the band thought they were playing the following day and he’d come up on his own with his guitar)

[squirrelarmy]

Is it really a secret set if people know whose going to be filling the slot? 

[CaledonianGonzo]

1 minute ago, squirrelarmy said:

Is it really a secret set if people know whose going to be filling the slot? 

Yes?

Even pre secret Glasto it was all over social media.

Before I bothered hauling ass up to the Park to see Pulp in 2011 I called my wife and asked her to Google Pulp Secret Set Park and she was like yes it's all over the Guardian's homepage.

The secret squirrel era that some folk hanker for never really existed.

[Leyrulion]

8 hours ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

After social media (including people on this site) mobilised a complaints campaign to the festival and the council after last year it was inevitable there would be some blowback.

This comes across as a negative but I think it's a good thing. If people have genuinely experienced a bad situation they're entitled to complain about safety concerns and the festival need to react, which they have done. 

 

[phillyfaddle]

TBH I had virtually no data signal on site last year (O2), so Twitter and Facebook were redundant. Relied on other festival goers. Just like the old days. 

[mr flow]

9 hours ago, CaledonianGonzo said:

Have the Secret Glasto team got volunteers running it this year?

I think we are sorted. I'm not running it for the first time in 3 festivals as i'll be in Ibiza for a wedding, but we have a new volunteer, and we will all chip in as and when we need to.

 

Just to echo what @august1 was saying above. We take the health and safety side of things very seriously and usually tweet a more cryptic clue earlier in the day to allow fans of the act to get an early heads up. we follow that with a confirmation which is usually so close to stage time that if you aren't close to the area you would struggle to get there. As mentioned, we didn't tweet about Paulo Nutini last year, as could see the issues it would cause.

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

1 hour ago, squirrelarmy said:

Is it really a secret set if people know whose going to be filling the slot? 

Not really.

It's in the same vein as North Korea calling itself the Democratic People's Republic of North Korea 😆

[Skip997]

14 minutes ago, mr flow said:

I think we are sorted. I'm not running it for the first time in 3 festivals as i'll be in Ibiza for a wedding, but we have a new volunteer, and we will all chip in as and when we need to.

 

Just to echo what @august1 was saying above. We take the health and safety side of things very seriously and usually tweet a more cryptic clue earlier in the day to allow fans of the act to get an early heads up. we follow that with a confirmation which is usually so close to stage time that if you aren't close to the area you would struggle to get there. As mentioned, we didn't tweet about Paulo Nutini last year, as could see the issues it would cause.

Just out of interest why do you feel the need to do this at all?

Wouldn't be even more fun/exciting if "secret sets" were actually secret

[Suprefan]

5 hours ago, Franky said:

PHM 🙏

No. 
 

and with four tet at iicon its gonna be rammed there cause people think itll happen.

[Suprefan]

5 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Just out of interest why do you feel the need to do this at all?

Wouldn't be even more fun/exciting if "secret sets" were actually secret

Well jack white was in the newspaper sunday morning. Huge secret right there.

[Franky]

5 minutes ago, Suprefan said:

No. 
 

and with four tet at iicon its gonna be rammed there cause people think itll happen.

Full of the festival spirit as always 🙂

Are you actually going this year?

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

1 hour ago, Leyrulion said:

This comes across as a negative but I think it's a good thing. If people have genuinely experienced a bad situation they're entitled to complain about safety concerns and the festival need to react, which they have done. 

 

Exactly. It was well documented on here from people who were there and involved in the bad situations - hundreds of posts complaining of dangerous jams, having panic attacks, having to exit overcrowded areas through bushes/hopping fences, having their tents trampled by people entering or exiting overcrowded areas.

There were even workers who did security or stewarding who wrote posts explaining what had gone wrong too.

I can't see the benefit of denying all those testaments, and actually criticising those who contacted GFL because they had safety concerns, at this point.

Edited May 26, 2023 by MEGATRONICMEATWAGON

[mr flow]

12 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Just out of interest why do you feel the need to do this at all?

Wouldn't be even more fun/exciting if "secret sets" were actually secret

In this day and age, secret sets are never secret, so we just thought it would be a good way to try and help fans of acts get an early heads up to try and get to see them. 
 

[Skip997]

2 minutes ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

Exactly. It was well documented on here from people who were there and involved in the bad situations - hundreds of posts complaining of dangerous jams, having panic attacks, having to exit overcrowded areas through bushes/hopping fences, having their tents trampled by people entering or exiting overcrowded areas.

There were even workers who did security or stewarding who wrote posts explaining what had gone wrong too.

I can't see the benefit of denying all those testaments and actually criticising those who contacted GFL because they had safety concerns at this point.

"Secret sets" are only part of the problem.

By far the biggest issue is that are quite simply far too many people on site.

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

2 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

"Secret sets" are only part of the problem.

By far the biggest issue is that are quite simply far too many people on site.

Another sacrilegious thing to suggest 😆

[downtherabbithole]

How feasible would it be for no-one outside of the crew to not know who was gonna perform at a secret set up until the act stepped on stage? Surely it can be done but would require extreme amounts of hush and even diversion

[august1]

3 hours ago, downtherabbithole said:

How feasible would it be for no-one outside of the crew to not know who was gonna perform at a secret set up until the act stepped on stage? Surely it can be done but would require extreme amounts of hush and even diversion

Given the festival is out in the open rather than any secret backstage like an arena, pretty impossible imo 

[rubenz]

I always like to go to a TBC set but I don't think I can recall a single one where the act that came out was different from what I was expecting.

Having said that I did trek up to the park on a rumout of a Secret set as the Cat Power timings seemed to finish earlier than usual.

A big crowd turned up and stood about for a while before realizing nowt was happening!

Managed to catch the end of Mumfords so all round a bad end to the night!