Reduction of attendees vs cost of ticket

[Johnnyseven]

9 hours ago, Pinhead said:

No, not if it's more competitively tendered. Trouble is with Glasto is they have suppliers that are now too cosy and used to this arrangement. New suppliers would happily bid competitively to get a foot in the door of the event I would imagine, even if it helps drive prices down for existing suppliers.

 

Sounds like a race to the bottom, worked well for rail operators.

Edited Thursday at 07:18 AM by Johnnyseven

[Johnnyseven]

10 hours ago, Pinhead said:

They won't. They've got far too much stake invested in their operations now - it's not like it was over ten years ago when they all played hardball over their land rents. Some have glamping and don't actually even contribute land to parking now. They're all hooked and they can't stop. They'd still get their money anyway - the sort who can pay those prices for a yurt etc can easily absorb another 100 for the ticket part without blinking.

 

The Holt Farm / Stinklinch parking situation shows landowners will do as they please with their land. Plus do you not think tickets are given to landowners instead of cash and the landowners sell them on to the glamping companies?

[-TLR-]

i know a couple of others have already basically said this, but...

 

i think this is basically a moot point - its going to be £400 next year anyway - so the question is, would you be happy to pay £400 to go to Glastonbury.

 

(someone said they don't think it will reach that point by next year, i don't agree and can see it being £395 / £400 for 2025 festival).

 

 

[Thunderstruck]

I'm not sure it's the answer - it did feel very busy at certain points on site this year but most of it was due to really poor planning from the festival.

 

My one concern is that the festival is at a stage where we are just waiting for an unusual event to cause a crush. We frequently have these bottle necks where it's quite scary and i just worry it will eventually turn into something catastrophic.

 

Also shout out to the festival security for being knobs and not letting people having panic attacks/pregnant women safe passage out of the Other field during Avril through restricted areas because they didn't have the right bands. That is really poor.

 

[Memory Man]

11 hours ago, Pinhead said:

Rising ticket price may not be necessary though (see other threads on this). It just needs them to stop using tickets for payment for services and consider an improved competitive tender bidding process for services in the future.

That assumes they can afford closer to market price which it feels clear they cant, otherwise they wouldnt have done the huge increases in non public tickets to pay for stuff in the first place

 

Eg it feels like vodafone have control of an insane number of tickets. I would guess in the high hundreds or maybe even 1000

[gigpusher]

I don't think the numbers are the problem but people's behaviour is what needs to change so many people go to busiest acts because of fomo rather than because they really love an act. Even with 15000 less if everyone still goes to a stage like The Park or West Holts they will still be over crowded.

 

I'm not sure how you solve it but I am certain that everyone's desire to whinge and complain after every festival will be to the detriment of the festival eventually. People just need to be more chill and go to one of the numerous less busy stages if they can't time it right.

[Memory Man]

And yes tickets will be 380 quid next year anyway

 

public tickets should never be reduced. They could / should cut from sponsors, competitions, etc

[Memory Man]

11 hours ago, august1 said:

its not about reducing absolute numbers you need more people who will spend all their time in T+C, Green futures, healing fields, avalon, chilling at stone circle and less people chasing nostalgia and dance acts around the site 

I think the horse has long since bolted on that im afraid

 

the old guard gradually leave to be replaced by a new generation who probably dont even know these areas exist

[clarkete]

1 minute ago, gigpusher said:

I don't think the numbers are the problem but people's behaviour is what needs to change so many people go to busiest acts because of fomo rather than because they really love an act. 

 

Yes, I didn't go to either of those two acts, and was always prepared to find a route less travelled so didn't encounter any issues worse than previous year's.  My only observation is that the urinal from other to leftfield clearly was too small for the number of users. 

[Memory Man]

At the end of the day there is unfortunately now no way the capacity is going to be reduced, in any scenario

 

i think the best they can do is better scheduling and doing even more to prevent fence jumpers and spin ins

[gooner1990]

I'm sure someone will tell me why, but I'm not sure why they have so many 'non' punter tickets? 

 

From my maths, its 33% of the total attendance! (142,000 tickets vs 210,000 capacity)

 

Personally, I've found the post-COVID festivals really busy, not sure where its down to bad planning for stages, more people out and about due to good weather (although 2019 and 2017 were good weather too) or too many people on site.

 

And I agree with whoever said they need to address the Weds/ Thurs thing, its clear now that pretty much everyone who can get on site by Weds are there by lunchtime and wanting to party hard.  

 

We tried the SEC on Sat night and even at 4.30-5am there were massive queues to get in all the venues...gave up and went home to bed. 

[gigpusher]

8 minutes ago, Memory Man said:

And yes tickets will be 380 quid next year anyway

 

public tickets should never be reduced. They could / should cut from sponsors, competitions, etc

I think the amount of money these generate probably mean that the amount we pay is vastly cheaper because they exist.

5 minutes ago, clarkete said:

 

Yes, I didn't go to either of those two acts, and was always prepared to find a route less travelled so didn't encounter any issues worse than previous year's.  My only observation is that the urinal from other to leftfield clearly was too small for the number of users. 

 

Yes I always keep my options open and always make sure I have explored the line up sufficiently that I have acts on big and small stages that I can pivot to if it gets more crowded than I am comfortable with.

 

At any time when one act was rammed there was still sufficient space around site. People are complaining also about how small some crowds were so people just need to be prepared to go to a less popular act that generally speaking are also incredibly high quality.

 

[Spindles]

I'm expecting the ticket to be £395 next year, parking passes will go up again as well.  Like many, I'm all for massively reducing the hospitality ticket market.  A disproportionate amount of space is allocated to hospitality within the fence and it is almost impossible to quantify the total volume of onsite and offsite hospitality tickets.  

 

Over the years they've been moving more and more workers and volunteers into camping outside of the fence from what I've been told, and that I am sure helps at least some, but the Melvin Benn era we're in at the moment (2022 onwards) seems to point to fewer 'attractions' like small stages, walkabout performers and smaller traders and more towards lots of space to move about, larger capacity venues and capacity traders who can afford multiple pitches.  In many ways this is a safer, more controlled glastonbury that does reap rewards as far as crowd control goes but in others I feel is eroding some of what makes the festival special.

 

If they moved the crew camping which is currently on the west side of the festival offsite that would restore camping space equivalent to adding another pennard hill as far as the volume of tents it could hold.  As it stands I don't expect any camping in the Park within a few years, quieter fields like Darble were full this year because the reconfiguration of camping means that there's perhaps 1/3 of the space to camp there than used to be the case.  Pennard hill has thankfully returned to a full camping field after a bit of crew/pre-pitched tent encroachment previously but the park has also shrunk to about 1/3 of it's previous capacity.

[stuie]

11 hours ago, Pinhead said:

Rising ticket price may not be necessary though (see other threads on this). It just needs them to stop using tickets for payment for services and consider an improved competitive tender bidding process for services in the future.

 

The whole show relies on people doing things for tickets.  If you remove that, you're looking at a massive ticket price increase or financial failure. 

 

Medical staff, doctors, bar staff, gate staff, stewards, site decorators, bands, DJ's, circus performers, street artists, bin painters, litter pickers, recycling centre ops and so on. 

 

The event relies on goodwill to function.  

 

 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

51 minutes ago, Memory Man said:

That assumes they can afford closer to market price which it feels clear they cant, otherwise they wouldnt have done the huge increases in non public tickets to pay for stuff in the first place

 

Eg it feels like vodafone have control of an insane number of tickets. I would guess in the high hundreds or maybe even 1000

 

Yeah, I thought this as well. Vodafone seem to be running competitions and promos all the time for tickets.

 

Do they pay the festival prices over the usual amount and consider it as marketing money?

 

There must be some benefit for Glastonbury financially, because obviously those tickets would be sold regardless.

[gigpusher]

Just now, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

 

Yeah, I thought this as well. Vodafone seem to be running competitions and promos all the time for tickets.

 

Do they pay the festival prices over the usual amount and consider it as marketing money?

 

There must be some benefit for Glastonbury financially, because obviously those tickets would be sold regardless.

I assume that they are paying more than the cost of each ticket for each ticket that they put in competitions. If you consider how much they raised for charity from the pairs of tickets they put on there as well it's a way of generating much more money from the same thing.

 

One thing they could possibly do is much more promotion of the smaller stage line ups in advance of the festival. Speaking to people around site I am amazed at how little attention some people pay the line up which is why they are all flocking to the more famous names on the big stages.

 

[Ricci's Special Kebabs]

Better scheduling and better act stage placement could have easily resolved this years issues. 

 

If Avril and Sugababes were on Pryamid, Bicep were on a bigger stage and time than IICON, that would have made a huge difference.

 

 

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

5 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I assume that they are paying more than the cost of each ticket for each ticket that they put in competitions. If you consider how much they raised for charity from the pairs of tickets they put on there as well it's a way of generating much more money from the same thing.

 

One thing they could possibly do is much more promotion of the smaller stage line ups in advance of the festival. Speaking to people around site I am amazed at how little attention some people pay the line up which is why they are all flocking to the more famous names on the big stages.

 

 

I think I noticed this way back in 2017. I remember walking though Green Futures, Healing Field, Craft Field etc during the day on Friday and Saturday and both times they were dead. Like, maybe fifty people there. I couldn't believe it, but then again, I only wandered around for an hour and a lot of the massage or healing stuff was booked out already.

 

I don't know how else you'd keep people in those areas as they're primarily either just people making/selling stuff or like I say, the massages etc get booked up and there's no reason to hang around.

 

EDIT: it was also the first time I'd been to Glastonbury and considered the options for music on the main stages to be stacked from top to bottom, so I wasn't that surprised.

Edited Thursday at 08:54 AM by MEGATRONICMEATWAGON

[gigpusher]

1 minute ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

 

I think I noticed this way back in 2017. I remember walking though Green Futures, Healing Field, Craft Field etc during the day on Friday and Saturday and both times they were dead. Like, maybe fifty people there. I couldn't believe it, but then again, I only wandered around for an hour and a lot of the massage or healing stuff was booked out already.

 

I don't know how else you'd keep people in those areas as they're primarily either just people making/selling stuff or like I say, the massages etc get booked up and there's no reason to hang around.

 

I was thinking more about all the theatre and circus acts etc as well. There's some cracking things in those tents but nobody really knows what they are. I follow the theatre and circus accounts so have seen a lot more of their promos but maybe Glastonbury needs to be promoting them more. I said to a few people this year that whenever I don't know what to do I head to theatre and circus and more than one said that they must go there some time and only one of those was a first timer.

[Nice hymer]

7 minutes ago, stuie said:

 

The whole show relies on people doing things for tickets.  If you remove that, you're looking at a massive ticket price increase or financial failure. 

 

Medical staff, doctors, bar staff, gate staff, stewards, site decorators, bands, DJ's, circus performers, street artists, bin painters, litter pickers, recycling centre ops and so on. 

 

The event relies on goodwill to function.  

 

 

In my social circle, our family and a few friends are the only ones still buying tickets (because we still have kids under 18).

Whether it's walkabout performer, other performer, stewarding, car parking, bar worker, trader, driver, medical services, everyone has a role and is working in some capacity. Lots have dropped out as they're expected to do so much (over what could be considered goodwill), but for the moment at least, there's always someone willing to replace them.

Once my youngest is 18, we'll be doing the same. Difficulty in getting tickets is the main reason.

 

Yes, the event heavily relies on goodwill to function and other than the cost of employing replacement workers they'd lose a lot of experience, which seems to be a diminishing resource these days...

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

4 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I was thinking more about all the theatre and circus acts etc as well. There's some cracking things in those tents but nobody really knows what they are. I follow the theatre and circus accounts so have seen a lot more of their promos but maybe Glastonbury needs to be promoting them more. I said to a few people this year that whenever I don't know what to do I head to theatre and circus and more than one said that they must go there some time and only one of those was a first timer.

 

Yeah, I do the same for T&C. It's a great break from soundchecks and booming speakers as well. But I know what you mean. The trouble is with the variety and amount of music, people focus solely on seeing as many bands as possible - not sure if that's a modern phenomena or something in general.

 

Perhaps just need some more drivel on the main stages and people would go exploring more, lol.

[gigpusher]

11 minutes ago, MEGATRONICMEATWAGON said:

 

Yeah, I do the same for T&C. It's a great break from soundchecks and booming speakers as well. But I know what you mean. The trouble is with the variety and amount of music, people focus solely on seeing as many bands as possible - not sure if that's a modern phenomena or something in general.

 

Perhaps just need some more drivel on the main stages and people would go exploring more, lol.

Well to be fair I overheard some people on Sunday morning saying that not finding headliners they liked meant they had the best night doing things they'd normally never get around to. Felt like Glastonbury of old one of them said so obviously not a first timer.

 

I'm guilty myself of spending too much time at the bigger stages but I do always try and catch some acts on smaller stages.

[MEGABOWL]

I wouldn’t be happy with putting ticket prices to balance out reduced numbers.

 

1) It risks pricing people out, and feels a bit entitled of me to go ‘I can afford it, so sod everyone else’

 

2) I don’t think it necessarily solves the problem with some big acts being too busy. Could be all you do is skim thousands off what’s going on over the rest of the site. Going from 138k to 122k doesn’t guarantee you get any less than 60k for the big nostalgia acts.

 

There are other things they need to try first

 

A) clamping down on those getting in for free. Might mean a move to a QR Code solution among other things. This is important.

 

B) A big push to sell the attractions elsewhere on site and take pressure off the SEC-Silver Hayes is now superb, Woodsies is really good, the Park has lots on as does T&C. Probably only a slight gain but more no -dance stuff elsewhere to reduce the numbers who just go to the SEC as tourists

 

C) Any big nostalgia act goes on the Pyramid. Even if it has to be earlier in the day (e.g. Avril Lavigne in Paloma Faiths slot). There are often mitigating reasons for their bookings and they get it right the vast majority of the time but any act that can straddle both younger and older demographics among attendees gets the big field.

 

D) Use the App more. Give us info on how many people have selected acts to go on their Line Up

Edited Thursday at 09:34 AM by MEGABOWL

[gooner1990]

32 minutes ago, gigpusher said:

I was thinking more about all the theatre and circus acts etc as well. There's some cracking things in those tents but nobody really knows what they are. I follow the theatre and circus accounts so have seen a lot more of their promos but maybe Glastonbury needs to be promoting them more. I said to a few people this year that whenever I don't know what to do I head to theatre and circus and more than one said that they must go there some time and only one of those was a first timer.

 

After Cyndi Lauper on the Saturday our small group went to the T&C for a couple of hours....it was VERY quiet, we spent around an hour in the Astrolabe tent and there couldn't have been more than 25 people in there.....

[gigpusher]

15 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

 

After Cyndi Lauper on the Saturday our small group went to the T&C for a couple of hours....it was VERY quiet, we spent around an hour in the Astrolabe tent and there couldn't have been more than 25 people in there.....

Which is my point exactly the site can cope with the number of people if people are willing to spread out. No matter how much you reduce the capacity it will still be busy if everyone goes to one stage. We saw the excellent Mawaan Rizwan play to a one third full tent at best and he's a reasonably famous name and BAFTA award winner.