The good and the bad…

[MilkyJoe]

44 minutes ago, Gnomicide said:

 

 

The queue for Gate A (none bus/coach side). They closed PGD, sent loads to PGA. Later they reopened PGD and people who got there 2 hours after us, got in before us.

 

 

Was there a reason given for closing PGD? Did they open it at 8am and then close it again? Seems a bit mental that they sent everybody round to A.😯

[dulcificum]

  

23 hours ago, The Nal said:

Dribbling morons everywhere. I guess thats ketamine. What a sh*t drug. Loads of people folded up in pissy corners of the site half conscious. Whatever happened to pills and acid?

Hilarious that you think those on ketamine can't behave normally. If you think it turns people into a zombie you obviously haven't taken it or don't know anyone with a clue.

 

And btw, those on ketamine are also on acid and mud. Much more likely to make for a good crowd than the twats on coke and who can't handle their booze.

 

Good:

 

Tree stage was an incredible addition, would just have loved more programming on there. And more classics like Steve Hillage playing there. 

 

First year in ages I didn't have a scary crush.

 

Still the most magical festival on earth.

 

Bad:

 

Food options were utter shite. 20 different Mexican places that were as bad as the dark day of British cuisine in the 90s. Shite 6" pizzas for £15. Tiny portions of bad mac n cheese or miniscule overcooked burgers. Don't get me started on the Asian options or, shudder, the "bbq". Only good vaguely authentic meals I had were from the jerk places.

 

Agree with previous posters that there need to be a lot more long drops. And women need to stop hovering it's 2024 ffs. How thick do you have to be to hover and piss all over the seat or be a bloke and piss all over the seat when there are urinals literally next to the long drops.

 

Traffic on the way in on Wednesday was a disgrace. Yes lots of idiot drivers who have no clue how to behave in that situation, but that didn't explain it at all. Never had traffic like that in years of going.

 

Drone show was obviously shite but we knew that and wood chip is annoying.

 

The Greenpeace shower system is now f**ked. It worked fine when they introduced the ticket system but completely failed to enforce it this year. And it's been shite since they got rid of the communal showers. There are already far too few showers on site for the number of people, reducing it for the sake of prudes is just insane.

 

However my main gripe has been the lack of underground electronic music. They've slowly been chipping away at it over the last decade but the amount of samey mainstream crap they have in comparison is ridiculous. You get about 10-15 stages simultaneously playing dance music and it's all mainstream nonsense, what happened to supporting the incredible grassroots scene we have in this country?

[LowerMead]

The Good

This was my 12th Glastonbury since 2008.  A different experience because I took our 9yo son for the first time. He's a festival veteran at EoTR (every one since he was 6 months old) so knows the drill, but obviously this is on a massive scale. 

 

We decided to camp with out mates (17 tents in total) in Dairy Ground rather than go in family camping. It was great, everyone around us was friendly, quiet at night, and helped each other out with little favours. A wonderful sense of community up in Dairy Ground. 

 

My lad was in awe of it.  We kicked of with The Showhawk Duo on the Bandstand on Thursday, then saw Squeeze, Olivia Dean, Stornoway, Frank Turner (a must see for us), Dexys (amazing, missed the start unfortunately), Haircut 100, Billy Bragg, and Dua Lipa (son's choice, but after 20 mins he agreed with me that it was dull, so home to bed via the last 15 minutes of Idles). 

 

Saturday saw us do The Staves, Cyndi Lauper, Keane (excellent), Bloc Party, The Breeders (bloody brilliant) then t'boy chose Coldplay, against many complaints from me. However we went and I have to say despite long thinking that Chris Martin is a bit of an overly earnest twat, I thoroughly enjoyed it, especially their early stuff.  

 

Sunday was Soft Play (hilariously good), James (our no.1 priority, outstanding), Alvvays, the Avril Lavigne (impossible to get to) followed by a game of football at the Stone Circle before returning home for school on Monday. 

 

The Bad

Other than the massive queues for Avril (foolish to put her on with no competing Pyramid act) not a lot.

 

Only saw one rogue turd in a long drop, ever other khazi was fine.  The composting loos by our camp in Dairy Ground were really well maintained and just worked. It's funny that they've had these at End of the Road for a few years and have just implemented them badly, or more specifically there a lot of attendees there who are unable to piss accurately in a hole, so making them far less pleasant to use.  

 

It's a whole different dynamic going to Glastonbury with a kid, I saw a lot less than I would normally, but the flip side of that was my son just utterly loved it. It's a massive site for 9yo legs to get around all day, he did really well without a wagon. I had to sack off Romy, The National and The Feeling on Sunday night as I got pangs of guilt about bunking him off school "ill" on Monday, and in all honesty my feet were utterly shot to bits by then, so I took a call on ejecting on Sunday evening. 

Next year, assuming we get tickets, I will just take any fine on the chin. 

 

One tiny complaint: the "fully stocked Co-Op" is far from it.  They had a lot of supply issues this year, and don't sell basics like a bit of rice. I like to cook a late night chilli back at the tent instead of going to the naughty corner and sit in my chair with a glass of wine listening the hustle and bustle of the festival, alas no bloody rice at the Co-Op.  Uncle Ben will need to come to my aid next year! First world problems and all that.

 

Star Spots

 

Had a wee next to Chris Moyles and a chat and a photo with Romeo Stodart from The Magic Numbers after Frank Turner, he was really nice.  

 

Random unexpected highlight

Doreen Doreen on Thursday on the Sensation Seekers Stage, utterly magnificent. 

[dingbat2]

5 minutes ago, LowerMead said:

Had a wee next to Chris Moyles

 

Did he mind you doing that?

 

[Gnomicide]

2 hours ago, MilkyJoe said:

Was there a reason given for closing PGD? Did they open it at 8am and then close it again? Seems a bit mental that they sent everybody round to A.😯

They said Gate D was full 🤷

[Spindles]

6 minutes ago, Gnomicide said:

They said Gate D was full 🤷

I've seen the same sort of clusterf**k at D before on multiple occasions, and my son got caught up in one there where he didn't get in til early afternoon despite arriving the same time as me (2am), who got through A in about an hour.

 

In 2010 we arrived at 6am, got through D at midday, absolutely frazzled by the sun.  2011 and 13 did the overnight queue there and it wasn't so bad, I've done gate A every year since because honestly it is less prone to delays.

[Suprefan]

8 hours ago, The Nal said:

 

I think it was more for the trucks etc during the setup. Ground was still fairly soft in the build up. 

 

Whole site had tractor wheel marks imbedded into the ground. 

 

Aye.So as much as everyone here is trying to gauge the weather they are at the mercy of making the call way sooner than they wished. Always next year I guess.

 

9 hours ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

Good

 

Livelier, more up-for-it crowds. There was a time a few years back when it felt like the audience was pretty static. Certainly not this year.

 

General atmosphere was on point. Everyone I interacted with was friendly and fun. 

 

Arcadia was a success. I think they have a platform to really expand around the dragonfly. Maybe not the exact same wow factor as the spider's first outing, but still very cool.

 

The Temple still reigns supreme as the best micro venue of any festival I've attended. 

 

Improved, more organised crowd control measures.

 

The weather. Maybe not as warm and sunny throughout but it was dry and comfortable. 

 

 

Bad

 

No lanyards. Been collecting them for years. Would have been happy to pay for one if they produced a limited run.

 

Some of the artist scheduling this year was baffling. Almost as if it was planned by an intern with no previous experience of the festival.

 

The Brothers cider tasted watered down. Grim, actually.

 

It might finally be time for Shangri-La to get the boot and introduce some new ideas there. Overcrowded, style over substance. The same bottlenecks every year. 

 

 

 

  NO LANYARDS?!! I draw the line with that! 
 

2 years ago I had a wonderful interaction while waiting in the queue for the ribbon tower. This  little girl came up to me and wanted to trade lanyards because mine matched her purple butterfly outfit. I quickly obliged and her parents were buzzing. 
 

Oh yeah, how were the rucksacks this year? I dont think I saw anything about them at all come to think of it.

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

8 minutes ago, Suprefan said:

NO LANYARDS?!! I draw the line with that! 

 

Yeah, it's a deal breaker. I'll not be back

[Bike_Like_A_Mum]

It's funny isn't it but lots of the things others have put in the 'bad' were completely the opposite for me! Right place right time I guess...

 

GOOD...

 

The people! Made some truly great connections this year. Loved meeting a few more efesters too including our 100% club lol. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and really made the effort to strike up conversations with people, I guess you get out of something what you put in. Overall crowds seemed to be dancing like crazy and sharing wine shots etc, everyone in queues really friendly. Led to great party atmosphere. Not a single dull crowd moment all weekend. (Top tip...just avoid flag people though, don't mind the actual flags but the people holding them are only interested in getting their own group back together and don't necessarily extend the welcome. Just my experience)

 

Food - top tier as always. I'm more likely to walk to the other side of the festival for the food than the acts. Why am I like this?!?! 

 

Dragonfly - loved it. Thought it was beautiful and great sound where I was

 

Shangri-La at a different time of day - brilliant atmosphere. Only ever been at night will pay closer attention in future.

 

Rubbish - really kept on top of this year. Only encountered one overflowing bin the whole time

 

Coldplay - my group was all adamant that was one thing we weren't going to. But guess where we all ended up. So glad we did. The singalong and all the wristbands in the air was magical.

 

Jungle was my favourite set of the weekend.

 

BAD...

 

Drone show was impressive to look at but needed music or poetry or something. Very underwhelming atmosphere. Queues getting out afterwards made it seem like a waste of time. Really surprised how busy it was.

 

Pass-out system on campervan gate...really boring. Must be a better way. 

 

Need more toilets at Block 9

 

The crazy scheduling didn't affect me personally...I got to see everything I wanted to in a spot I was happy with. But just think it's SUCH a shame to see empty fields. I hope they've learned a lesson on this, keep booking new acts but know your audience patterns and place them accordingly. 

 

Nutcases sitting down while thousands of people are trying to exit the stages. Wait for the majority to clear or find a quieter place to sit. Mental.

 

 

[Pinhead]

4 hours ago, Gnomicide said:

They said Gate D was full 🤷

Bbwas full too. They stopped them coming into the snake and had them qing up into the car park.

[Pinhead]

3 hours ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:

 

Yeah, it's a deal breaker. I'll not be back

The app is the lanyard now

[Pinhead]

Getting swiped by backpacks in crowd - still bad.

 

Pricks talking loudly at gigs like stfu if you're not here to listen and just to tick off another band.

[Suprefan]

3 hours ago, Pinhead said:

The app is the lanyard now

still some things that should be sacred. And yeah, they could sell them instead and people would buy it. Theres so many revenue makers they just dont even consider with specialized items. We lost paper schedules at Coachella this year, that was a bummer. I just print out set times. Easier than a mobile.

[CaledonianGonzo]

The programmes are now smaller, so fit in most bags.

[gooner1990]

20 hours ago, Gnomicide said:

The queue for Gate A (none bus/coach side). They closed PGD, sent loads to PGA. Later they reopened PGD and people who got there 2 hours after us, got in before us.

 

 

Ahh!

 

Someone else who got caught up in this as well.

 

I've got to say that really started my festival off on the wrong foot.

 

Left Oxford around 4am, parked up in pink 49 by 6.40am.

 

Crossed the road to the site, and could see that the queue for PGD was nearing towards the road....got part way down and stewards were directing us towards PGA.

 

Sat against the fence in the shade from around 7.15am until about 8.45am...then we started to move....we got into the heras fencing queue outside PGA at 9am...and eventually got wrist banded at 12.10pm......5 1/2 hours after arriving on site.

 

Friends of mine arrived two hours after us, and got in two hours before us. 

 

It was a shitshow of a shambles, and I'm not exactly sure what was going on or who was making the decisions but they were poor.  

 

Why put 1-2000 people into a holding pen then not let them move for hours on end?  Why when the PGD queue had gone did they not direct anyone back in to it as a priority? 

 

The main issues were that aa lot of people started to tire or overheat  after a couple of hours with all their bags on them, there was no communication from anyone from the festival and some people decided they wanted to push in or jump over the fencing (Sorry to say a lot had Scouse accents)

 

It did eventually mean we missed out on the camping spot we wanted in Paines as by the time we'd gone from PGA, back towards PGD and up it was totally full so we ended up in South Park 1....not a total disaster but some sort of queue management needed to be in place if the PGD queue got too big.

 

Its clear to me that most people are now arriving for gates opening and either bigger capacity needs to be provided for each gate, more gates in general or some sort of throttling (more thurs entry tickets) allowing too many people to arrive at once.

[SighMo]

Not bad as such but slightly disappointing. The Merch never arrived for the Park Stage, although I’m thinking it must be somewhere and may show up online. And, I thought the Glastonbury Free Press never made much effort with the posters for sale this year. I went to have a look and ended up not bothering. 

[robahht]

24 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

 

Ahh!

 

Someone else who got caught up in this as well.

 

I've got to say that really started my festival off on the wrong foot.

 

Left Oxford around 4am, parked up in pink 49 by 6.40am.

 

Crossed the road to the site, and could see that the queue for PGD was nearing towards the road....got part way down and stewards were directing us towards PGA.

 

Sat against the fence in the shade from around 7.15am until about 8.45am...then we started to move....we got into the heras fencing queue outside PGA at 9am...and eventually got wrist banded at 12.10pm......5 1/2 hours after arriving on site.

 

Friends of mine arrived two hours after us, and got in two hours before us. 

 

It was a shitshow of a shambles, and I'm not exactly sure what was going on or who was making the decisions but they were poor.  

 

Why put 1-2000 people into a holding pen then not let them move for hours on end?  Why when the PGD queue had gone did they not direct anyone back in to it as a priority? 

 

The main issues were that aa lot of people started to tire or overheat  after a couple of hours with all their bags on them, there was no communication from anyone from the festival and some people decided they wanted to push in or jump over the fencing (Sorry to say a lot had Scouse accents)

 

It did eventually mean we missed out on the camping spot we wanted in Paines as by the time we'd gone from PGA, back towards PGD and up it was totally full so we ended up in South Park 1....not a total disaster but some sort of queue management needed to be in place if the PGD queue got too big.

 

Its clear to me that most people are now arriving for gates opening and either bigger capacity needs to be provided for each gate, more gates in general or some sort of throttling (more thurs entry tickets) allowing too many people to arrive at once.

We wanted to join D but were directed to the A queue at 7:45 and didn’t get wristbanded until 13:15… I knew we were arriving at peak time but 5+ hours of shuffling in the queue in that heat was horrific.

 

It didn’t help that we had lots of first timers with us who I had to keep reassuring it would be over soon and didn’t normally happen! 
 

Then when we finally got to the end of the pen, the steward said they had no idea we had been out there for so long… not great communication in the heat! 

[The Nal]

29 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

Its clear to me that most people are now arriving for gates opening and either bigger capacity needs to be provided for each gate, more gates in general or some sort of throttling (more thurs entry tickets) allowing too many people to arrive at once.

 

Or just wait until the queues go away and then go in. Gate A was empty when we got there in the afternoon. And I had a proper nights kip the night before. Woke up at 8am. 

 

You cant really put the blame on the festival when theres 150,000 f**king maniacs waking up at sh*t O'Clock and all arriving all at the same time. 

Edited Thursday at 11:30 AM by The Nal

[dotdash79]

Gate D was shut off at around 3:45am as I just arrived as they were stopping people and directing to A which I wanted to go to anyway.

 

When I came out for a second trip I could see some people leaving to go to gate D, and the snakes were really fully still.

[gooner1990]

5 minutes ago, robahht said:

We wanted to join D but were directed to the A queue at 7:45 and didn’t get wristbanded until 13:15… I knew we were arriving at peak time but 5+ hours of shuffling in the queue in that heat was horrific.

 

It didn’t help that we had lots of first timers with us who I had to keep reassuring it would be over soon and didn’t normally happen! 
 

Then when we finally got to the end of the pen, the steward said they had no idea we had been out there for so long… not great communication in the heat! 

 

Yep, it nearly finished us off before we got in....sounds like you had the same experience as me but an hour later.

 

When I got wristbanded the guy couldn't understand why we'd been out there for so long....I can't work out what went 'wrong' either.

 

They must have stopped sending people to A not long after as friends of mine who arrived just before 9am got sent straight to D.

[gooner1990]

4 minutes ago, dotdash79 said:

Gate D was shut off at around 3:45am as I just arrived as they were stopping people and directing to A which I wanted to go to anyway.

 

When I came out for a second trip I could see some people leaving to go to gate D, and the snakes were really fully still.

 

What time was that?

[dotdash79]

2 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

 

What time was that?

about 11 am ish

[gooner1990]

Just now, dotdash79 said:

about 11 am ish

 

sigh....I may well contact the festival about it (not just to moan but offer some suggestions) as that was really bad suffering in that heat. (although i'm also glad it wasn't raining!)

[efcfanwirral]

6 minutes ago, dotdash79 said:

Gate D was shut off at around 3:45am as I just arrived as they were stopping people and directing to A which I wanted to go to anyway.

 

When I came out for a second trip I could see some people leaving to go to gate D, and the snakes were really fully still.

Slightly different to what you guys are talking about, but as it was our first time volunteering it was also our first Tuesday. I couldn't believe the people queueing at Gate B from mid afternoon. We saw them at around 6pm and someone said they'd been there since at least 2! They were on the beers in the sun and in great spirits. Fair to say they were not as bouncy when we walked past at 5.30am Weds on the way to our shift...

 

[dotdash79]

1 minute ago, gooner1990 said:

 

sigh....I may well contact the festival about it (not just to moan but offer some suggestions) as that was really bad suffering in that heat. (although i'm also glad it wasn't raining!)

Yea they could have had a staff member telling people towards the back that gate D would be quicker.

 

I was lucky and was in the 5th row of gate A when I arrived but was shuffled down to the 3rd row and was in by 8:20 so it was moving.