Changes from 2023>2024

[bob323]

1 hour ago, mjfromthelane said:

I reckon if they removed all dance music now it would struggle to sell out.

Make the whole fest veggie/vegan and it would still sell out on ticket day imo.

i very seriously doubt it - I really think the majority of people just tollerate it,

any way, most ppl don't want to get rid of dance music,, but lets reduce it after the headliner acts (and beyond 3am)  from say 95% to about 30% and have a lot more diversity? is that a bad thing?

 

Edited August 31, 2023 by bob323

[Monty Pythagoras]

I really don't get the dance acts distain. There's a lot more on after site than just dance music for one. And if it is "dance" music you're not into, have you tried finding a specific genre you may like? There's a lot of seriously good sets online that aren't too heavy and sneak in some classic tunes that you'll be fully aware of.

[Skip997]

8 minutes ago, bob323 said:

i very seriously doubt it - I really think the majority of people just tollerate it,

any way, most ppl don't want to get rid of dance music,, but lets reduce it after the headliner acts (and beyond 3am)  from say 95% to about 30% and have a lot more diversity? is that a bad thing?

 

Really!

If that was the case then getting into NYC Downlow/The Temple/Stonebridge etc would be easy, which is clearly not the case.

If I accept the myth that post headliner dance music is 95% (clearly nonsense) and then accept your theory that "the majority" just tolerate it, then why is the SE corner absolutely packed post midnight.

There's plenty of diversity in the music post midnight. I suggest you check out the following: Truth Stage, Strummer Ville, Bimble Inn, Rabbit Hole, Small World and other venues in Green Futures/Tipi Field, Rum Shack and the music venue next to the Diner. There are probably more I've forgotten.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, moogster said:

The great thing about the festival is that is caters (sorry...) to everyone, music wise, food wise etc. Nevertheless they do want to for example push some new artists, or a wider range of artists. So maybe some kind of push food wise for stalls to at least offer more vegetarian options. I am sometimes saddened that some meat dishes would work as vegetarian but are not offered (I never dare to ask for it though).

Part of that is certain vegans/vegetarians won't eat anything produced on the same grill because of contamination. So it has to all be prepped and served separately.

1 hour ago, gfa said:

Removing meat from the festival is clearly not going to happen but theres no way it would effect sales

I'm sure some people would complain and some drop out even, but honestly if you (not aimed at you) can't go 5 days without meat thats pretty mad

The food is part of the appeal of the festival, and the festival acknowledge this with the past few festivals actually publishing a food stalls "line-up" - street food is a huge industry these days, including having festivals dedicated solely to it, and dining clubs that many people attend on a regular basis. It absolutely is a selling point, and some people wouldn't go if that changed. Not enough that it wouldn't sell out, but then that goes for many parts of the festival.

Just now, Monty Pythagoras said:

I really don't get the dance acts distain. There's a lot more on after site than just dance music for one. And if it is "dance" music you're not into, have you tried finding a specific genre you may like? 

Same for veggies isn't it - maybe they need to try some more obscure meats? 😄 I just used dance music as it was the best comparison I could think of to the meat/veggie thing. It's not like getting rid of "Italian" food - it's dropping a huge swathe of things at once.

[DeanoL]

4 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

There's plenty of diversity in the music post midnight. I suggest you check out the following: Truth Stage, Strummer Ville, Bimble Inn, Rabbit Hole, Small World and other venues in Green Futures/Tipi Field, Rum Shack and the music venue next to the Diner. There are probably more I've forgotten.

Rabbit Hole, Rum Shack and Strummerville are all DJs after midnight these days. No idea what sort of music they play and if it counts as "dance" though - but then that itself is part of the problem. Like most I see a DJ and assume it's dancy stuff. I've no easy way of knowing if DJ Neptizzle actually plays mostly 90s indie.

[Skip997]

Just now, DeanoL said:

Rabbit Hole, Rum Shack and Strummerville are all DJs after midnight these days. No idea what sort of music they play and if it counts as "dance" though - but then that itself is part of the problem. Like most I see a DJ and assume it's dancy stuff. I've no easy way of knowing if DJ Neptizzle actually plays mostly 90s indie.

This is a good point.

Last time I was in the Rum Shack (last year IIRC) Eva Lazurus (sp) was on, so not all DJ's

[DeanoL]

I'd also assume the reason it's dance music and then louder/heavier bands after midnight is that they're only allowed amplified music in certain areas - the SE corner being one of them. As much as I could say "can't we just have one venue out of the 20 in the SE corner that's just folk bands all night?" - well no, you can't because you wouldn't be able to hear them because of noise bleed. They're not loud enough. (Hence Strummerville moved)

(Though I do think it was a shame that when they did whatever licensing magic they did at some point in the past ten years to allow Silver Hayes to run until 3am, that they didn't repurpose that part of the site to have bands on after midnight instead - but could also see the need to spread the crowd out from the SE corner and yeah, it's the chicken and egg thing - is the SE corner popular because of the dance music or because it's the "late night" area - certainly it got *loads* more popular the year they declared it the naughty corner and instituted the one-way system)

[Leyrulion]

42 minutes ago, Crazyfool01 said:

I don’t spend masses on food but every meal I have at the festival is meat based … I can go without but that’s actually part of what I enjoy . Purely vegetarian wouldn’t solely be a reason not to attend but a contributing factor 

I find this fascinating! 

Anyway the whole veggie thing was done at other festivals because they're trying to really reduce their carbon footprint. 

I don't see it happening in the near future for Glastonbury but I wouldn't be surprised if they expand schemes to track how much carbon is produced making your food. 

There's already a system festival republic use to do this so could see that coming into use next year.

 

[Crazyfool01]

2 minutes ago, Leyrulion said:

I find this fascinating! 

Anyway the whole veggie thing was done at other festivals because they're trying to really reduce their carbon footprint. 

I don't see it happening in the near future for Glastonbury but I wouldn't be surprised if they expand schemes to track how much carbon is produced making your food. 

There's already a system festival republic use to do this so could see that coming into use next year.

 

I do understand the reasons for it absolutely just think my use of carbon is best reduced elsewhere 🙂 ... if it happens it happens  🙂 

[Skip997]

2 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

(Though I do think it was a shame that when they did whatever licensing magic they did at some point in the past ten years to allow Silver Hayes to run until 3am, that they didn't repurpose that part of the site to have bands on after midnight instead - but could also see the need to spread the crowd out from the SE corner and yeah, it's the chicken and egg thing - is the SE corner popular because of the dance music or because it's the "late night" area - certainly it got *loads* more popular the year they declared it the naughty corner and instituted the one-way system)

There used to be a venue (not that long ago) in Silver Hayes, the Gully, which hosted Reggae Bands.

A bit of both. There's certainly a lot of tourists visiting the SE corner due to it's reputation as "the naughty corner".

[bob323]

27 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

Really!

If that was the case then getting into NYC Downlow/The Temple/Stonebridge etc would be easy, which is clearly not the case.

If I accept the myth that post headliner dance music is 95% (clearly nonsense) and then accept your theory that "the majority" just tolerate it, then why is the SE corner absolutely packed post midnight.

There's plenty of diversity in the music post midnight. I suggest you check out the following: Truth Stage, Strummer Ville, Bimble Inn, Rabbit Hole, Small World and other venues in Green Futures/Tipi Field, Rum Shack and the music venue next to the Diner. There are probably more I've forgotten.

SE is packed because it's the defacto after hours place that you can go on after 3am

Stummerville had techno dance playing at 12-1am - checked twice

could not even get close to Rabbit hole

based on your other comments of  "go to download""

I suspect you just don't care about what diversity of what music there is - as long as you're happy

 

[Skip997]

1 minute ago, bob323 said:

based on your other comments of  "go to download""

I suspect you just don't care about what diversity of what music there is - as long as you're happy

 

I'm actually in favour of diversity of music late night, simply because it may free up some space in the SE corner.

Although I doubt it as loads haven't worked out that there are plenty of other venues playing non-dance music and loads more want to see (not participate in) the myth of the "naughty corner".

[DeanoL]

3 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

There used to be a venue (not that long ago) in Silver Hayes, the Gully, which hosted Reggae Bands.

I think that's the thing - a lot of the places you mentioned do have acts on, but also have a lot of DJs, and it's pretty hard to navigate. I'm sure some of that is necessary (for live acts you need switchover time) but it does mean there's no obvious place for people to go - especially when from the programme you often can't tell what's a DJ and what's an act, and what's a DJ that is actually doing a full set versus what's a DJ playing tunes between acts, and what sort of tunes they'll be playing.

(I do think a lot of venues, including Strummerville, have gone more dance over the past years though, so there is presumably a demand for it? Strummerville used to be acoustic campfire acts until dawn back in the day...)

[gfa]

3 hours ago, Skip997 said:

There wouldn't be a site wide ban on meat, people would still be able to bring their own.

Even if there a full ban it wouldn't effect sales enough for it not to sell out

3 hours ago, incident said:

Of course it would affect sales, and it's not simply about people unable to "go 5 days without meat".

For a lot of people, the food is part of the attraction. If you diminish* the food proposition, you reduce how attractive the festival is.

It's exactly the same as if you stopped selling Lager and only offered Real Ale (or vica versa). People will probably still drink it, but pretty soon some of them are just going to think "nah, I'm not enjoying this enough to pay 350 quid for a ticket and bother with that ticket scrum on a Sunday morning when I can go to Festival XYZ more easily and get what I want for a hundred quid less".

*which is subjective of course

Food is really not that big of a part ... not enough to stop it selling out

Nobody I know would not go because of a beef burger not being on sale

2 hours ago, Crazyfool01 said:

I don’t spend masses on food but every meal I have at the festival is meat based … I can go without but that’s actually part of what I enjoy . Purely vegetarian wouldn’t solely be a reason not to attend but a contributing factor 

I'm a meat eater and only ate meat based meals for reference on this

Some people would be put off for sure - but its not going to stop the festival selling out on T-Day

[DeanoL]

Just now, gfa said:

Even if there a full ban it wouldn't effect sales enough for it not to sell out

Food is really not that big of a part ... not enough to stop it selling out

Nobody I know would not go because of a beef burger not being on sale

I'm a meat eater and only ate meat based meals for reference on this

Some people would be put off for sure - but its not going to stop the festival selling out on T-Day

The festival has, at the most conservative numbers, twice as many people trying to get tickets for it as there are tickets available. Some claim it's as high as 5x the amount.

So to stop the festival selling out, you'd have to reduce demand by at least half. So yeah, obvious no meat wouldn't put half the attendees. But frankly neither would no dance music (the SE corner capacity is about 10% of the total number on site). If that's the bar they could do a lot.

[Skip997]

6 minutes ago, DeanoL said:

The festival has, at the most conservative numbers, twice as many people trying to get tickets for it as there are tickets available. Some claim it's as high as 5x the amount.

So to stop the festival selling out, you'd have to reduce demand by at least half. So yeah, obvious no meat wouldn't put half the attendees. But frankly neither would no dance music (the SE corner capacity is about 10% of the total number on site). If that's the bar they could do a lot.

Neither would stop the festival selling out, but either MAY significantly alter the demographic.

 

[Leyrulion]

2 hours ago, Crazyfool01 said:

I do understand the reasons for it absolutely just think my use of carbon is best reduced elsewhere 🙂 ... if it happens it happens  🙂 

That last bit wasn't aimed at you sorry.

[Leyrulion]

What have I started. 🤣

I only meant to comment that it would be interesting to see if they went down that route.

[MEGABOWL]

4 hours ago, mjfromthelane said:

I reckon if they removed all dance music now it would struggle to sell out.

Make the whole fest veggie/vegan and it would still sell out on ticket day imo.

Agreed. After the main stages finish it’s a very very dance focussed festival.

Silver Hayes/Arcadia/Glade/the whole SE Corner/San Remo/Stonebridge/Rabbit Hole/Crows Nest/Greenpeace are all Dance dominated.

OTOH you used to have Northern Soul/Motown/Guilty Pleasures in Williams Green which has gone. The Silent Discos have gone, the Reggae stage in Silver Hayes has gone. I know there’s some variety out there if you look for it but the demand for something else is there judging by how wildly oversubscribed Guilty Pleasures and Baggy Mondays were this year in the Park. Just a tent or two in the Park/T&C juggling Pop/Indie/Motown/Soul etc. Maybe they can use Carhenge for that, I dunno.

[Gingerfish79]

6 hours ago, mjfromthelane said:

Hard agree, it's been something I've always wondered and I think the demographic of Glasto would certainly lend itself to a few metal/hardcore bands in the day. It would be cool to see a band like Architects get an early other stage slot or similar - maybe even Woodsies. I think the 'Metallica weren't a popular headliner' and mass appeal of metal points are a completely different argument to the rationale behind more heavy stuff lower on the undercard.
 

A thread about realistic ways to enhance everyone's experience and this is your response? Nice contribution 🤦‍♂️

That’s exactly my point too, whilst I’d love to see Slipknot or Iron Maiden smash the hell out of a headline slot, I know it’s not likely. But there is no reason why there couldn’t be more metal and heavy rock acts across the site/stages. 

[stuie]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

 (the SE corner capacity is about 10% of the total number on site). If that's the bar they could do a lot.

SEC capacity is 40,000 (IICON is 15k on its own) + Silver Hayes + Arcadia + Glade. I understand this is all hypothetical but your numbers are way out - half the festival is electronic music, which I guess what you’re meaning by dance. That’s before you even account for headliners like Chems/Prodigy etc 

[The Red Telephone]

Crazy to think that people wouldn’t consider going if they didn’t serve meat!

Maybe this belongs in the regular “Glastonbury Unpopular Opinions” thread that crop up on here…but the food at the festival isn’t that great, really.

[Skip997]

5 minutes ago, The Red Telephone said:

Crazy to think that people wouldn’t consider going if they didn’t serve meat!

Maybe this belongs in the regular “Glastonbury Unpopular Opinions” thread that crop up on here…but the food at the festival isn’t that great, really.

I find it strange that the food on offer has any bearing at all on people's interest in a festival, or even that there's a festival food topic on here.

All you need is 3 reasonably filling and reasonably healthy meals a day in order to keep going.

[fred quimby]

1 hour ago, Skip997 said:

I find it strange that the food on offer has any bearing at all on people's interest in a festival, or even that there's a festival food topic on here.

All you need is 3 reasonably filling and reasonably healthy meals a day in order to keep going.

All part of the experience, so the interest. A lot of the food stalls put a lot of time and energy into their food and it shows in the taste. So I can see why people are interested. I certainly enjoy a good meal. 

 

1 hour ago, Skip997 said:

I find it strange that the DnB on offer has any bearing at all on people's interest in a festival, or even that there's a festival DnB topic on here.

All you need is 3 reasonably filling sets a day in order to keep going.

Or this ^ 😉

[Skip997]

26 minutes ago, fred quimby said:

Or this ^ 😉

Yea 3 good DnB sets per day is plenty and quite rare