Glastonbury Festival goers used record amount of Data

[incident]

Just now, Gnomicide said:

Someone once told me the free program had some sort of tax benefit. I can't remember the specifics but something to do with it being included in the ticket price but having a cash value so it somehow reduces the tax paid? Could be nonsense but it made sense at the time.

 

Magazines are zero rated for VAT. So whatever the nominal price of the programme is (I don't have one to hand, but it should be printed on the front cover), then VAT isn't paid on that part of the ticket price. Probably saving 3-4 quid per person in tax, which presumably is less (or at least, no more) than it costs the festival to hand them out to everyone.

[gooner1990]

Just now, kerplunk said:

It's remarkable really - from dumb phones just a few years ago to being able to stream major football games today.

 

And pretty good camera's these days too - all backed up to the cloud.

 

You have to wonder about the carbon footprint from it all

 

 

 

Funnily enough one of my friends had a good power bank and an iphone back in 2014 and streamed some of the World Cup that year in his tent......was very easy to do back then as hardly anyone else had them so other people using it was minimal!

[Talcroft]

38 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

 

I mentioned this elsewhere...but before TDCC at the Other on the Sunday night I was waiting for a friend up the back near the Sams Pies stall, from just observing pretty much everyone was on their phone, either stood texting/scrolling, talking to someone on it, shouting down the phone where they were on it etc, two people walked into each other right in front of me as they both weren't looking where they were going as they were both texting,  and another girl walked straight into a set of bins as she was texting on hers.

 

 

Having the map on the app is both a blessing and a curse - you could get your own location and follow it to where you wanted to be like Google Maps. But this means you don't have to look up or follow signs.

 

I mostly keep my phone on airplane mode and just use it for the camera. I do take lots of photos/videos, but they're for me and I revisit them regularly. Livestreaming the whole thing via insta stories/tiktok is just not me.

[MindTheLongdrop]

My entire group got Vodafone eSIMs because I warned them that O2 would suck, so I'll take some blame for that. It definitely felt like more people had reliable data, people streaming football or on full Facetime calls in the middle of crowds. 

 

It's also a natural consequence of the app becoming more essential, a few times I found myself uusing it for navigation across site. In future years it could be used more for alerts, closed off areas and so on.

 

As nice as it is to find my friends easily, there is a certain charm about switching off completely and having to be creative in meeting up with people, or making do if you get separated from the group. I hope we don't completely lose that

[gigpusher]

I usually make a conscious effort to use my phone much less at the festival and I'd say bar WhatsApp for friends at the festival and having to use the app I did use it less. I actually stopped me being able to use mobile data for Facebook and Instagram to prevent any doomscrolling. Like a lot of others I would prefer to have the mini guide back rather than having to use my phone for the app.

[kerplunk]

3 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

 

Funnily enough one of my friends had a good power bank and an iphone back in 2014 and streamed some of the World Cup that year in his tent......was very easy to do back then as hardly anyone else had them so other people using it was minimal!

 

I took a motorola brick phone to glastonbury in the early nineties. No need for extra masts or charging. I didn't carry it around - people would've took the piss! I just used it for checking my 'voicemail' - ie calling my answering machine at home 😄

[kerplunk]

 

1 of the 3 charging tables in the Oxfield canteen

[incident]

Just now, kerplunk said:

 

1 of the 3 charging tables in the Oxfield canteen

 

Just wait until some idiot comes along and tries to plug their hair straighteners into that empty socket..

[gooner1990]

15 minutes ago, kerplunk said:

 

I took a motorola brick phone to glastonbury in the early nineties. No need for extra masts or charging. I didn't carry it around - people would've took the piss! I just used it for checking my 'voicemail' - ie calling my answering machine at home 😄

 

I took a  Nokia brick to Reading when I first went in 1999, think me and one other mate were the only ones to have them....

 

It would never happen but it would be interesting if say Glastonbury 2025 was a mobile phone free event - how different would we all behave and interact with each other.

[kerplunk]

3 minutes ago, incident said:

 

Just wait until some idiot comes along and tries to plug their hair straighteners into that empty socket..

 

hmmm yeah that might be why the power in the whole field went down for several hours one day!

[MindTheLongdrop]

10 minutes ago, kerplunk said:

 

1 of the 3 charging tables in the Oxfield canteen

Another consideration: If it's true that the proportion of attendees being staff and hospitality has gone up that means more people with full charge all weekend and therefore more phone usage

 

Unlike attendees in gen pop who are reliant on carrying in enough power banks in or faffing with the mediocre Vodafone ones. I have 2 powerbanks (1 big 1 small) and still had to ration my phone use on Sunday.

Edited July 11 by MindTheLongdrop

[MilkyJoe]

5 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

It would never happen but it would be interesting if say Glastonbury 2025 was a mobile phone free event - how different would we all behave and interact with each other.

This👆🏼 Mobile phones and social media will be what ultimately kills off the Glastonbury vibe…

[MilkyJoe]

Just now, MilkyJoe said:

This👆🏼 Mobile phones and social media will be what ultimately kills off the Glastonbury vibe…

Old man yells at cloud etc.

[Spindles]

One thing I've noticed is the capacity of chargers people take, when I see it discussed.  People are taking 22kmah chargers, sometimes multiple, so they must be using their phones a fair amount.  I take a 10k charger and it is more than enough for me, phone is maybe 75-85% at the end of each day, quick charge back at the tent each night and that's me done.

[Pipine]

I had my Apple Watch this year so left that to pick up any emergency calls or messages from the outside world.. and had my iPhone on airplane mode to use as a camera.  I like the minimal connection to the outside world, I come to Glastonbury to escape reality and I love the feeling of being partly off grid. 
 

I’m sad that people rely on their phones so much, I wish people could just be there in the moment enjoying the festival.. it’s only 5 days.  When I’m out at gigs or pubs now you see so many people sat ignoring the friends their with, just staring into their phones, I’m hoping there’s going to be a big backlash against being phone addicted, I’ve signed up to the Smartphone Free Childhood group as I have two young kids and I really don’t want them to be glued to smartphones throughout their teen years,  it’s great technology but needs so much restraint to not get sucked into constantly. 

[kerplunk]

2 minutes ago, Spindles said:

One thing I've noticed is the capacity of chargers people take, when I see it discussed.  People are taking 22kmah chargers, sometimes multiple, so they must be using their phones a fair amount.  I take a 10k charger and it is more than enough for me, phone is maybe 75-85% at the end of each day, quick charge back at the tent each night and that's me done.

 

 

It's an arms race

 

I've got a 22 and and a smaller 10 for the day bag

 

I can't let my portable speaker die!

[Crazyfool01]

I’m a phone drainer , and a multiple power bank user … I use my phone to check blood sugars so don’t risk losing charge and possibly a bit obsessed with keeping it charged . I’ll always have spare but hadn’t quite calculated the power drain on my hat . Wonder how much the Bluetooth drains battery … probably significant 

[Gnomicide]

27 minutes ago, kerplunk said:

 

1 of the 3 charging tables in the Oxfield canteen

 

That's incredible 😁

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, Crazyfool01 said:

The app and removal of the mini guide meant at times I felt forced to take my phone out my pocket when normally I wouldnt . Id like the mini guide back and the programme to be the optional one as I barely look at that during the festival , although I know this is personal to the way we all do the festival differently 

 

Seems I'm different to most, after decades of the mini guide didn't miss it at all and didn't need to, as I could use the same device to take pictures, check and update clashfinder, look on the app for food stalls or water points. 

 

The new programme is a great souvenir and for me they've saved masses of waste from big programme, mini guide, wallet and lanyard. 

 

I use juice and data on site, simply as the culled subset of photos which I choose to keep I upload each day - I've got family and a couple of friends who aren't there that may click on stuff but tbh as much as anything its my photo album. 

 

I have ever lost my copy of some photos but managed to replace with ones I'd uploaded to socials - so these days they go to a cloud or two. 

[Spindles]

I used to turn off bluetooth, lower screen brightness, everything to scrape as much battery as possible, but I quickly realised I really didn't need to bother.

 

I'm actually not bothered at all by people spending more time on their phones, I think it is probably very easy to pass someone who happens to be looking at their phone when it's maybe something they've spent 0.001% of their day doing and conflate that in some way.  Any one of us at any time could be checking the time, the lineup, messages, step counts or whatever and I would argue the energy usage of people's phones is probably less than the environmental cost of producing the guide for 177,500 punters.

[tarw]

2 minutes ago, Spindles said:

I used to turn off bluetooth, lower screen brightness, everything to scrape as much battery as possible, but I quickly realised I really didn't need to bother.

 

I'm actually not bothered at all by people spending more time on their phones, I think it is probably very easy to pass someone who happens to be looking at their phone when it's maybe something they've spent 0.001% of their day doing and conflate that in some way.  Any one of us at any time could be checking the time, the lineup, messages, step counts or whatever and I would argue the energy usage of people's phones is probably less than the environmental cost of producing the guide for 177,500 punters.

I think that the environmental cost isn’t the production of the guides but in 177,500 plastic pouches that will probably eventually end up in landfill. 

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, Talcroft said:

Having the map on the app is both a blessing and a curse - you could get your own location and follow it to where you wanted to be like Google Maps. But this means you don't have to look up or follow signs.

 

I mostly keep my phone on airplane mode and just use it for the camera. I do take lots of photos/videos, but they're for me and I revisit them regularly. Livestreaming the whole thing via insta stories/tiktok is just not me.

Likely the second you take it off airplane mode it'll start backing up all those photos/videos to the cloud though! I suspect that's where a lot of the usage comes from.

[DeanoL]

48 minutes ago, gooner1990 said:

It would never happen but it would be interesting if say Glastonbury 2025 was a mobile phone free event - how different would we all behave and interact with each other.

I think you'd see groups becoming *more* insular as they did everything together because of the difficulty of meeting up again later.

 

One of the interesting things I noticed the past few years is a lot of time you see people on their phone and they are not with their mates, they're on their own. Plenty of them wouldn't have split from the group in the first place if they couldn't get back in touch.

[Gnomicide]

The only thing I used the lanyard for was utilising the plastic pouch to pick out the crap from under my nails.

[Crazyfool01]

12 minutes ago, tarw said:

I think that the environmental cost isn’t the production of the guides but in 177,500 plastic pouches that will probably eventually end up in landfill. 

Did they not remove pouches last year ?