Orange Parking - exit balls-up

[airwaves]

Really surprised no thread yet about the horrors of exiting Orange car park on Monday. 

Parked in Orange 36, nearest car park to Gate D, with just O37 between it and the road. Got car packed and joined "queue" at mid-day. Later on found that those towards front of q had been there for at least 1 1/2 hours before me. 

In the following 2.5 hours 1 - I repeat, One - car left O36 into the adjoining field, but not O37, rather into the next along Bronze 32, and was then static, because I could see it. 1 - I  repeat ONE more - followed in the next 2 hours. The exit to O37 remained closed. 

It was 4.30pm ie 4.5 hours for me, 6 hours for those up front, before O36 was properly opened into O37 and real movement occurred. 

In 4 or 5 shuffles over the next 30 mins or so, ended up most of the way across O37 towards the road, and then sat... and sat... for another 35 minutes watching cars streaming past on the road and stewards occasionally allowing a cheaters q on other side of field O37 to join the road. 

Basically there seemed to be no attempt whatsoever to let anything exit O36 for several hours from late morning. 

Someone on Twitter claimed to know "the reason" but wouldn't elaborate. 

Anyone with inside knowledge out there? 

[Mark E. Spliff]

57 minutes ago, airwaves said:

Really surprised no thread yet about the horrors of exiting Orange car park on Monday. 

Parked in Orange 36, nearest car park to Gate D, with just O37 between it and the road. Got car packed and joined "queue" at mid-day. Later on found that those towards front of q had been there for at least 1 1/2 hours before me. 

In the following 2.5 hours 1 - I repeat, One - car left O36 into the adjoining field, but not O37, rather into the next along Bronze 32, and was then static, because I could see it. 1 - I  repeat ONE more - followed in the next 2 hours. The exit to O37 remained closed. 

It was 4.30pm ie 4.5 hours for me, 6 hours for those up front, before O36 was properly opened into O37 and real movement occurred. 

In 4 or 5 shuffles over the next 30 mins or so, ended up most of the way across O37 towards the road, and then sat... and sat... for another 35 minutes watching cars streaming past on the road and stewards occasionally allowing a cheaters q on other side of field O37 to join the road. 

Basically there seemed to be no attempt whatsoever to let anything exit O36 for several hours from late morning. 

Someone on Twitter claimed to know "the reason" but wouldn't elaborate. 

Anyone with inside knowledge out there? 

We got back to our van in Orange 32 around 3pm, but we'd been getting reports from friends who'd been stuck getting out for hours.  So we didn't even think about joining the queue - we just loaded the van up and then set up a tarp shade and chairs, and started making food and having a sleep etc.  All this while we could see the bloke who'd got to his car at the same time as us sitting in the same place in the 'queue' at the far end of the field. We did a few trips back onto site to look for abandoned tents etc (nowhere near as many to choose from as previous years, which is good)  and by the time we could see traffic moving on the routes, it was nearly 6pm.  We then drove straight out with no hold-ups.  The people that had joined the queue will have got away a bit quicker than us, but I just don't think that's worth sitting in a hot car for more than 3 hours, and words fail me for the surprising amount of prats that kept their engines running...

Unless there's a very good reason, never join a queue at Glastonbury.  It would be nice if Worthy FM actually broadcast useful info. about traffic from Sunday night onwards - they could either ask punters to WhatsApp them with updates, or ask the car park stewards to provide official updates.  But every year, they're completely useless on this front, despite it being the one time during the festival when a high percentage of punters are likely to be tuned in to them and in need of info.

Edit: apologies: can't shine much light on what may have caused the hold-up, although I did have a look at the Google Maps traffic layer, and that was showing two traffic incidents on the A361 close to the festival in both East and West directions - but this could have just been indicating the usual festival one-ways/no-right-turns/traffic jams.  And after people have been sat in their car for over an hour, I expect the same abandoned vehicles problem may arise as happens when motorways are at a standstill for hours in heavy snow or after accidents.

Edited July 2, 2023 by Mark E. Spliff

[kerplunk]

I'm guessing you arrived pretty early on tuesday to be parked in the field closest to Gate d?

Arriving on tuesday evening (about 11.30pm) i was surprised to find Orange was full already and ours was one of the very last cars to get in. We ended up being parked up very close to the hospitality gate (next to the AA compound). I was intially a bit peeved at being so far away from gate D but then realised it would have benefits on monday for getting out. We don't usually bother dropping our tents until late afternoon on monday but because of our parking spot we left pennards about 2.30pm and was out on the road withing 15 minutes of getting back to the car - result!

Downside was this meant our journey home to Leicester coincided with rush hour and it was gnarly drive home compared to usual

[august1]

same happened last year, I went back on site for 4-5 hours, no movement then all of a sudden it opened up, felt like they used a different exit, maybe once sticklinch was empty?

[Troop Dogg]

Took us all day to get out of Campervans east, ready to go at 11am, didn't get out until gone 5. Marshalls said there was a number of broken down vehicles on the narrow lanes causing the tailbacks. 

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

Can't really help, but now thankful we didn't park in orange.  I asked a steward if we could park there so we could have a shorter walk with the baby but they said no and put us in pink.  Parked in Pink 48.

In hindsight it was better.  We were straight out of the car park with barely any queuing.  Heading towards Wells though, the opposite direction we wanted to go in.

[paulshane]

39 minutes ago, Troop Dogg said:

Took us all day to get out of Campervans east, ready to go at 11am, didn't get out until gone 5. Marshalls said there was a number of broken down vehicles on the narrow lanes causing the tailbacks. 

same here, packed up at 11am, moved about 10m then stopped until 4pm.

I have no concrete evedence of this, but as when I finally got moving, all the other camper fields I went through were empty, it seems like there may have been less trafic control than normal - i.e. last year I set of at the same time and was out on the main road by 12pm, but who knows - I had a book to read and snacks, and nowhere particular to be in a hurry 🙂

[Sheffield Steve]

20 hours ago, kerplunk said:

I'm guessing you arrived pretty early on tuesday to be parked in the field closest to Gate d?

Arriving on tuesday evening (about 11.30pm) i was surprised to find Orange was full already and ours was one of the very last cars to get in. We ended up being parked up very close to the hospitality gate (next to the AA compound). I was intially a bit peeved at being so far away from gate D but then realised it would have benefits on monday for getting out. We don't usually bother dropping our tents until late afternoon on monday but because of our parking spot we left pennards about 2.30pm and was out on the road withing 15 minutes of getting back to the car - result!

Downside was this meant our journey home to Leicester coincided with rush hour and it was gnarly drive home compared to usual

We arrived on site at 9am on Wednesday and were directed to park in Orange 38 or 39 (can’t remember). The field was just filling up and we parked about half way.  This is the second year in a row that we’ve parked in Orange so we counted ourselves lucky.  The queue to get into Gate D was very slow though and we didn’t move at all for about 45 minutes at one point while people left the queue at the back and pushed in at the front where the gap in the hedge to the zig-zags is…

Anyway, yes the wait to get out after the festival was a shocker.  When we got back to the car at about midday on the Monday I asked the steward how long the cars had been stationary in the Orange queue and she said “about 3 hours”.  We joined the queue to exit about 1pm and didn’t move for another 3 hours before we finally started moving a few cars at a time.  Would hesitate to park in Orange next year if it’s gonna be like this……

[ohmygod]

We had a cheeky one.   Worked for Shelter and got a pass for Blue 6/8/9 on the East side.   However were directed to Blue 13 which was a result and then told by some people in that car park we could park in the long stay car park just at the back of Shelter camping - 5 mins walk to the tent!       Then went to leave on Monday but told we couldn't get out the way we came in so drove down the field to opposite PG C, turned right onto Cockmill Lane and were away - 5 mins.     I think these routes are clear as all of the glamping options are around there.   We were literally the only ones coming out at that point!

Not saying all this to be braggy btw 🙂 just to provide some positive stories against the horrible ques other had to face 

[Fred Zepplin]

25 minutes ago, Sheffield Steve said:

We arrived on site at 9am on Wednesday and were directed to park in Orange 38 or 39 (can’t remember). The field was just filling up and we parked about half way.  This is the second year in a row that we’ve parked in Orange so we counted ourselves lucky.  The queue to get into Gate D was very slow though and we didn’t move at all for about 45 minutes at one point while people left the queue at the back and pushed in at the front where the gap in the hedge to the zig-zags is…

Anyway, yes the wait to get out after the festival was a shocker.  When we got back to the car at about midday on the Monday I asked the steward how long the cars had been stationary in the Orange queue and she said “about 3 hours”.  We joined the queue to exit about 1pm and didn’t move for another 3 hours before we finally started moving a few cars at a time.  Would hesitate to park in Orange next year if it’s gonna be like this……

We got onsite about 3 and got put into Orange 39. Got back to the car about 9 Monday morning and didn't move for an hour then moved half way out of the field, after another half an hour got out so not to bad. They say between 8-10am is the worse time to leave but from what I've heard this was the best time this year. Maybe everyone has thought this was a bad time so very few left then. Sunday night looked very bad. As we were going back to the tent past Woodsies thousands of people were heading home so they all would have got in the cars the same time. 3-4 hour queues to get out at that time 

[Cheesey]

This isn't a new thing unfortunately. About 15 years ago I had a pretty horrible experience being stuck in the Orange car parks for over 8 hours. I vowed never ever to get into that situation again. We now always wait until about 3 or 4pm on Monday before even thinking about heading back to the car.

However, nowadays we usually end up in the extreme west Pink car parks which seem to do much better on the Monday - this year ours (W57 I think) was almost empty with no queues at all when we got there, having walked past lots of queues in the Orange car parks on the way. The downsides are that the Pink car parks are are absolutely miles away from the site, and after exiting you get forced to follow a convoluted exit route which unfortunately takes us in completely the wrong direction from home.

The updates on Worthy FM on Monday were completely useless. They basically only mentioned how long it would take to get to various places after exiting the site (e.g. Glastonbury town, Castle Cary etc.), with no mention of the conditions in the car parks. I'm sure they've done a lot better with this in the past, with people on the ground walking about and providing proper updates.

[fullfathom5]

Pink 55 on Sun night didn't move for 2 hours - and then started going. It's like somebody hadn't opened a gate or something. Ridiculous!

[Mark E. Spliff]

1 hour ago, Cheesey said:

The updates on Worthy FM on Monday were completely useless. They basically only mentioned how long it would take to get to various places after exiting the site (e.g. Glastonbury town, Castle Cary etc.), with no mention of the conditions in the car parks. I'm sure they've done a lot better with this in the past, with people on the ground walking about and providing proper updates.

Every Monday I do the same thing: load my car and then head back onto site to collect tents etc. whilst listening to Worthy FM on earphones.  I've been doing this since 2005 and never heard them giving out any useful info. on what's going on in the car parks.  I'm in no rush to get away, but I know it's best to be off site by 6pm as that's when the traders are allowed to drive off the site, which creates an extra wave of traffic.  So I'm just after some indication that the worst of the traffic has gone, but Worthy FM has never given me any help with this, and I've instead relied on messages from mates who've already left or chatting to stewards.

Presumably because the Worthy FM crew are mainly volunteers, they'll all have had a big Sunday night and just want to get their shifts done on Monday, so setting up a line of communication with the car park stewards or with the punters via WhatsApp is probably an extra job which nobody can be arsed to do at that stage of the festival.  In the past, I've mentioned it to them via social media, but if anyone's got any contacts who work for them, it wouldn't hurt to flag this up.

[Skip997]

2 hours ago, fullfathom5 said:

Pink 55 on Sun night didn't move for 2 hours - and then started going. It's like somebody hadn't opened a gate or something. Ridiculous!

Sunday night???!!!!

[BBC7BBCHEAVEN]

This is why I always try and get away early. Got caught in orange for 8hours once (2013 I think) so have never left Monday since.

Until this year, but that was from campervan fields. We set off about 7am, straight out and on the road with only small stops as they switched between fields at the exit point.

Seems we got lucky and missed the Sunday night / Monday afternoon gridlocks

[Fil]

Blue 12 (East) was about 4 1/2 hours to get out of. The que didn't move at all, eventially someone got out of a car and put on a high vis walked up the line of car to goodness knows where and directed the traffic. Then the que jumping really started, as the people that jumped were getting out. The rest of the line didn't move. So 'everyone' jumped. A short while later the offical car park people turned up and directed the traffic, sending the guy in his high vis back to his car. The steward in our field was consantly reporting back. She had no support.

So not as bad as I've had it in orange (about 6 hours), but not a quick exit either. 

Clearly the cars parks are never going to clear quickly. But there is no attempt to make the exiting 'fair'. This lead to the dangerous mix of que jumping in cars and people self directing the traffic.

I wonder what would of happened if something went wrong.

 

 

[Crazyfool01]

its weird ... somehow we got put in Bronze .... arrival time 9pm on the tue and had the easiest walk to gate A possible . we returned to car at 11.30 am and got out within an hour at peak time .... my only gripe is they seemed to prioritise bronze 31 over 32 and there seemed to be a lot of nice cars coming out of there ( might be my imagination though ) 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Crazyfool01

[mungo57]

We were sat in a queue to get out of E17 for around 90 mins I think, stewards kept letting 1x van from our queue out and then letting others sneak in by driving across the field and the other queue they let around 5/6 vans go at a time. During the 90 mins we advanced around 20m, then after someone from the van in front got out and started talking to the stewards they did the honourable thing and let our queue go.

Comes down to experience and common sense a lot of the time. Very obvious we had a 'new' steward on our queue.

[clarkete]

On 7/2/2023 at 11:02 AM, airwaves said:

Really surprised no thread yet about the horrors of exiting Orange car park on Monday. 

Parked in Orange 36, nearest car park to Gate D, with just O37 between it and the road. Got car packed and joined "queue" at mid-day. Later on found that those towards front of q had been there for at least 1 1/2 hours before me. 

In the following 2.5 hours 1 - I repeat, One - car left O36 into the adjoining field, but not O37, rather into the next along Bronze 32, and was then static, because I could see it. 1 - I  repeat ONE more - followed in the next 2 hours. The exit to O37 remained closed. 

It was 4.30pm ie 4.5 hours for me, 6 hours for those up front, before O36 was properly opened into O37 and real movement occurred. 

In 4 or 5 shuffles over the next 30 mins or so, ended up most of the way across O37 towards the road, and then sat... and sat... for another 35 minutes watching cars streaming past on the road and stewards occasionally allowing a cheaters q on other side of field O37 to join the road. 

Basically there seemed to be no attempt whatsoever to let anything exit O36 for several hours from late morning. 

Someone on Twitter claimed to know "the reason" but wouldn't elaborate. 

Anyone with inside knowledge out there? 

Thread last week

 

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

41 minutes ago, Crazyfool01 said:

its weird ... somehow we got put in Bronze .... arrival time 9pm on the tue and had the easiest walk to gate A possible . we returned to car at 11.30 am and got out within an hour at peak time .... my only gripe is they seemed to prioritise bronze 31 over 32 and there seemed to be a lot of nice cars coming out of there ( might be my imagination though ) 

There's a lot of hospitality and staff in bronze, so maybe it was prioritised.

[Johnnyseven]

21 hours ago, Troop Dogg said:

Took us all day to get out of Campervans east, ready to go at 11am, didn't get out until gone 5. Marshalls said there was a number of broken down vehicles on the narrow lanes causing the tailbacks. 

We drove straight out of CV East Quiet, but then we did leave at 5am.

My experience of leaving car parks or CV fields during peak time has always been queueing for hours, hence why we left very early.

[Chimps]

From a traders point of view, really not sure what happened this year. We’re allowed to leave at 6PM, they msg us when we can go. It took 1hr 50mins to get from Leftfield to the junction of Pylle Road and the A37 this year. It has previously only ever taken 20 minutes for the last 10 years.

We were prevented from going out via Mary’s Gate and up Neat Lane onto the A361. 

 

[clarkete]

3 hours ago, Chimps said:

From a traders point of view, really not sure what happened this year. We’re allowed to leave at 6PM, they msg us when we can go. It took 1hr 50mins to get from Leftfield to the junction of Pylle Road and the A37 this year. It has previously only ever taken 20 minutes for the last 10 years.

We were prevented from going out via Mary’s Gate and up Neat Lane onto the A361. 

 

Wouldn't that just have been due to the non-traders who had already been stuck for hours, such as those above and in the other thread? 

[PiratePete]

Pink West 53 - at the car by 8.30am, took us 10-15 mins to get out. 

[Ell99]

I was in orange 39. Got to the car around 8.30 on Monday morning and was out by around 9.15 I think! Sounds like I got lucky!