Glastonbury public meeting

A public meeting was held tonight at Mendip District Council's offices, prior to the actual Public Entertainments Licence hearing on 17th January, when hopefully the licence will be granted. The meeting gave locals a chance to voice concerns and reservations about the proposed 2005 festival, and to say what worked well and what not so well.

First, the Council's Senior Environmental Health Officer, Chris Malcolmson, briefly ran through what was in the licence application for this year, and highlighted a few changes.

He confirmed that the application was again for 150,000, broken down as last year with 112,500 weekend tickets on general sale, 3,500 Sunday tickets for locals, and 34,000 passes for performers, staff, etc. The site will open as last year at 10am on the Wednesday.

The main changes to this year's application are to do with the arrangements for noise control. It's all been overhauled, to minimise the impact of off-site noise. There were violations to the licence last year for which the Festival's licensee and operational director Melvin Benn could have been prosecuted. These were the first since Melvin’s involvement started for the 2002 Festival, and only recently the council decided it wasn't in the public interest to prosecute, confident of improvements for this year.

Melvin said that within this licence application "this year we’ve been very specific about when entertainment starts and finishes". He commented that none of the entertainment was much different than in previous years, they were just giving a greater transparency.

Michael Eavis ... off to a rave?

There's been a re-categorisation, grouping things into principle stages, lesser stages, other areas and markets, and Lost Vagueness, and each group has their own defined operating times.

The main entertainment is again from 10am until 00:30 on Friday and Saturday, and until midnight on Sunday. Included is a period from 1pm until 00:30 on Thursday, when only the Radio 1 stage will be operating.

The Radio 1 and Glade stages will close at 00:30 Friday and Saturday, and midnight on Sunday. All bars and the markets are also noise-restricted to these times, and Leftfield will go ambient from after those times.

The Glade Stage is to move into the new dance area where the New Tent was previously sited. This new dance area will include a big dance tent, and also several small dance tents too (possibly label-themed tents). In the Glade (under the trees) they'll be a late ambient session, operating in a similar way to how it did in 2002 & 2003.

Bar Solar, which was a source of noise problems last year, won't be there this year. And to show they mean business with this, any backstage sound systems will also be monitored.

Thankfully, Lost Vagueness is designated as open 24 hours (until 8am Monday) – although Melvin did say that they would close for a few hours each day, in the mornings. The Festival has had to get undertakings from those living nearest to Lost Vagueness, stating that they have no objections to these arrangements.

Outside the fence, in Pilton Village there's to be noise stewards, to monitor sound through the night – they'll immediately inform the Festival if necessary so that action can be taken.

As to the public using their voice, there wasn't too much said. One man commented on the policing, believing that Avon and Somerset Police weren't impartial – he felt uncomfortable about them being paid by the Festival to police the Festival. But at the same time, he objected to costs being borne by the ratepayer.

A 21 year old female spoke in support of the Festival, commenting how she'd been on her own at last year's Festival, and had felt "incredibly safe" during the whole weekend.

There was also recognition from some traditionally hostile councillors present that "Melvin has cleaned up the act", although said alongside minor criticisms.

There were even fewer objectors present this year than the few last year, and the criticisms of the Festival less harsh. Melvin has succeeded in turning the Festival around in the eyes of the locals and the Council, and for that he should be congratulated.

Of course, there's no guarantee that that the Festival will get its licence on 17th January ... but I think we can start to relax. :-)

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