Glastonbury and big data

[mouserat]

Slightly inspired by conversations in one of the other threads about using the app to track which areas of the site are busy:

 

It does feel like the next big innovation for the festival is to be a bit more data-led. I suspect the app already helps give them an idea of potential crowd management issues. The question is: are you happy with having your movements tracked all weekend if it makes for a better experience overall with clearer comms over busy areas and bottlenecks?

[Skip997]

I don’t use the app, phone is too old.

 

But would using it to track which areas are busy make any difference?

 

There’s already CCTV and personal on the ground. The simple reasons for overcrowding are far too many on site and poor scheduling choices.

[dotdash79]

People liking an act in the app will indicate where it could be busy, but most people will have multiple acts selected at the same time.

 

I wonder if that's what happened with Groove Armada on the Thursday.

[LoraMaze]

I also had this idea recently too, I think they do need to utilise a kind of voting system for ticket holders to at least get some idea of how many people are likely to turn up. 
 

Clearly the organisation is a science and needs a bit of innovation. I know it’s nice and quirky to have big names on small stages, but it isn’t safe. 

[HotChipWillBreakYourLegs]

23 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

I don’t use the app, phone is too old.

 

But would using it to track which areas are busy make any difference?

 

There’s already CCTV and personal on the ground. The simple reasons for overcrowding are far too many on site and poor scheduling choices.

 

And crowd monitoring drones.

[Dave_c]

9 hours ago, HotChipWillBreakYourLegs said:

 

And crowd monitoring drones.

Yeah, there were drones up there frequently all weekend monitoring the crowds. Not seen that in previous years.

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

I'm on the fence about it. On one hand, it could be useful, on the other hand, I'd feel like I was at Legoland again...

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

You don't need an app or a drone to know that Sugababes (again) and Avril Lavigne were terribly scheduled and putting Bicep on Levels on a Thursday was going to be chaos, etc, etc (we could list out similar instances from the past 3 or 4 festivals). I'd like to think that the organisers are experienced enough to know better, much of what transpired has been discussed and predicted on here and elsewhere in depth.

 

Technological innovation is useful but get the basics right first. 

[Skip997]

4 minutes ago, Supernintendo Chalmers said:Technological innovation is useful but get the basics right first. 

The simple truth is; too many people on site. Until that’s addressed nothing will change 

[kalifire]

2 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

The simple truth is; too many people on site. Until that’s addressed nothing will change 

 

Every fourth person seemed to have a crew wristband on this year. Is the festival a victim of its own size now?

[Supernintendo Chalmers]

4 minutes ago, Skip997 said:

The simple truth is; too many people on site. Until that’s addressed nothing will change 

 

Yeah, definitely that too

[Skip997]

1 minute ago, kalifire said:

 

Every fourth person seemed to have a crew wristband on this year. Is the festival a victim of its own size now?

Quite simply yes.

 

It’s way too big, but can’t really be “reeled in”, too big a thing for the country and especially the local area 

[Suprefan]

18 hours ago, LoraMaze said:

I also had this idea recently too, I think they do need to utilise a kind of voting system for ticket holders to at least get some idea of how many people are likely to turn up. 
 

Clearly the organisation is a science and needs a bit of innovation. I know it’s nice and quirky to have big names on small stages, but it isn’t safe. 

 

Coachella used to have this sort of thing. So on the app before the schedule was even released you could make a template of acts you were interested in seeing and see how many people added them to their schedule. Made it very clear data wise how popular something was ahead of time. 
 

I think their fear of using more data analytics is whats hampered them and now you just are feeling the repercussions. Although a lot of this doesnt take science to figure out. Audiences at this point are going to swarm like zombies to anything mildy interesting on thursday cause theres nothing happening. Theyre losing their touch on artist placements clearly and theyre still fortunate nothing major headline grabbing has happened. Imagine if they end up with an artist that gets the crowd going more than normal and the field is unsafely full? 

 

6 hours ago, kalifire said:

 

Every fourth person seemed to have a crew wristband on this year. Is the festival a victim of its own size now?

Well yeah. There have been expansions and changes which make total sense to the festival over the years. But then theres ones which make you scratch your head and you wonder who made the choice. Theyve spent their money in the wrong places which isnt good too.

 

As Ive rambled on in the past, the ticket price going up is to keep the lights on, its not cause of the talent costs. Theyre barely treading water and thats pretty dangerous. 
 

Didnt Michael say in one of the docs it costs £150 mil to put it on every year? So youre spending that, and what are you generating to just end up donating about £4 million to the charities? I know thats not chump change either but still. All this for that. 
 

The scariest thing is that Melvin Benn is back in the fold in some capacity and thats going to be worrisome that Live Nation can get their claws on the operation and truly f**k it all up cause they always do.

Edited July 6 by Suprefan

[Mrbish82]

I was thinking while using the app to navigate, and being redirected by stewards, that some sort of route system in the app would be useful, not sure if the technology is there to use just GPS, or if they would have to use some kind of Bluetooth beacons or something, but it could help prevent dangerous situations maybe? 

 

Won't help with stage overcrowding, but might help with diverting people through quieter routes instead of all following the same route.

[kemosabe]

They can track us all the want, it isn't removing 50k from the site is it. Absolutely papering over the cracks. 

[BluesManP]

On 7/5/2024 at 9:23 PM, mouserat said:

Slightly inspired by conversations in one of the other threads about using the app to track which areas of the site are busy:

 

It does feel like the next big innovation for the festival is to be a bit more data-led. I suspect the app already helps give them an idea of potential crowd management issues. The question is: are you happy with having your movements tracked all weekend if it makes for a better experience overall with clearer comms over busy areas and bottlenecks?

 

Pretty sure there is CCTV already so they are already tracking you

[BluesManP]

On 7/6/2024 at 9:50 AM, kalifire said:

 

Every fourth person seemed to have a crew wristband on this year. Is the festival a victim of its own size now?

 

More customers require more staff

[tazbang]

On 7/6/2024 at 9:50 AM, kalifire said:

 

Every fourth person seemed to have a crew wristband on this year. Is the festival a victim of its own size now?

https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/25/many-people-will-attend-glastonbury-festival-2024-21098834/amp/

 

This suggests it's every third person who is crew.
 

I'm one of them, but can't get rid of me due to licensing requirements. Who could go? Food traders? Bar staff? Performers? Litter pickers? Security?

[efcfanwirral]

Just now, tazbang said:

https://metro.co.uk/2024/06/25/many-people-will-attend-glastonbury-festival-2024-21098834/amp/

 

This suggests it's every third person who is crew.
 

I'm one of them, but can't get rid of me due to licensing requirements. Who could go? Food traders? Bar staff? Performers? Litter pickers? Security?

Certainly can't be volunteers because there's no way they could afford to pay people to do that job. 

[efcfanwirral]

Avril on the Other was silly straight after Shania, Barry Cant Swim on the Park was predictable, Sugababes on West Holts after TLC previously got so busy was also predictable. Charli XCX at Levels after Dua Lipa has finished, not at the same time, is madness. 

 

you can probably get away with a Kasbian type thing on Woodsies each year due to the location if you've got security on hand, which it sounds like they did. And they did seem to think about it a bit by scheduling Bloc Party and Keane at a similar time to split the crowd.

 

These are all things that probably could be avoided by being a bit more in touch with whats popular with the audience, not the critics or 6 music. (Avri Lavigne vs Janelle Monae, it was always going to be like that but i think the mass movement was the big issue, if Avril had been when Two Door were on maybe it would've been calmer, if still busy)

 

The app schedules would probably help, but it'd need some flexibility to change things nearer the time. Barry Can't Swim on the Park should've been moved for example. 

 

The big issue though is the electronic stuff, the stages are too small and it's too unpredictable.

Edited July 7 by efcfanwirral

[incident]

1 minute ago, efcfanwirral said:

Certainly can't be volunteers because there's no way they could afford to pay people to do that job. 

 

Don't think that's the case tbh.

 

The festival does pay something approximating minimum wage for most of the volunteers on site, distributed as charity "donations" to whoever recruited+organised them - Oxfam, WaterAid, various community groups, etc. They don't use the charity volunteer model because it's cheap but rather because it's effective.

 

I'm absolutely certain it'd be possible for commercial operators to effectively undercut that by asking for a similar or even slightly higher financial package, but asking for far fewer wristbands.

 

For example Oxfam have ~2,400 stewards* on the Gates each working 3 shifts of 8 hours - I suspect that if replaced wih paid staff each working more hours and on a more flexible pattern across the festival (ie gates staffed moreso to meet demand) a commercial operator could do the same job with about 1,000 wristbands needed.

 

Then the "spare" 1,400 wristbands could be sold at 800 quid a pop as Hospitality tickets generating over a million quid. Not that the festival would, or should, ever consider doing this.

 

*old number, it may have gone up or down since.

[GordonMcG]

11 hours ago, efcfanwirral said:

Avril on the Other was silly straight after Shania, Barry Cant Swim on the Park was predictable, Sugababes on West Holts after TLC previously got so busy was also predictable. Charli XCX at Levels after Dua Lipa has finished, not at the same time, is madness. 

 

you can probably get away with a Kasbian type thing on Woodsies each year due to the location if you've got security on hand, which it sounds like they did. And they did seem to think about it a bit by scheduling Bloc Party and Keane at a similar time to split the crowd.

 

These are all things that probably could be avoided by being a bit more in touch with whats popular with the audience, not the critics or 6 music. (Avri Lavigne vs Janelle Monae, it was always going to be like that but i think the mass movement was the big issue, if Avril had been when Two Door were on maybe it would've been calmer, if still busy)

 

The app schedules would probably help, but it'd need some flexibility to change things nearer the time. Barry Can't Swim on the Park should've been moved for example. 

 

The big issue though is the electronic stuff, the stages are too small and it's too unpredictable.

 

Yes to all of this. With the reality that the festival is very unlikely to reduce the number of tickets, it's really important that they get this other stuff right. For Avril, she should have been on the Pyramid after Shania, or Other after Two Door Cinema Club.

 

I know we all hate people knowing too much about us data wise, but I wouldn't really have an issue marking the acts I am most likely to be going to see in the app (did it anyway this year) and the festival adjusting the schedule based on it. With the Groove Armada decision on Thursday, I suspect they are doing this somewhat already, but just need to lean into it a bit more.