more early entertainment recommended for Glastonbury 2011

The Debrief Reports Glastonbury Festival 2010 have been released by Mendip District Council, with the council making recommendations for extra entertainment on the first few days of the Festival to help prevent overcrowding of areas such as the bars and their surrounding areas.

The report says that Glastonbury Festival is a safe event, thanks to the audience it attracts, with The Avon and Somerset Constabulary report declaring the Festival was a well planned and professionally managed event. Some issues are identified particularly the lack of entertainment Thursday (and possibly also Wednesday) leading to overcrowding of areas such as the bars and their surrounding areas, and overcrowding in the late night area of the Festival. The report commends the Festival for it instigating early entry to the car parks on Tuesday night, and reveals that crime at the festival is on the decrease, although like many festivals theft is still a problem on the first few nights. The Festival also receives a very positive environmental report.

The main issue identified this year relates to live entertainment outside the licensed period. Whilst this did not occur on any of the main stages, it reveals live music did take place early on the licensed site on at least 2 separate locations. The report identifies that the early arrival of Festival goers puts more pressure on the smaller venues on the Wednesday and Thursday nights as the main stages do not open until Friday. The council therefore makes recommendations for extra entertainment on these nights to help prevent overcrowding in these areas.

The report does raise a few other concerns about overcrowding at the Festival, although it commends the Festival's competitive scheduling and the huge number and variety of venues and attractions that do go a long way to promoting good crowd movements.

The Festival's well informed friendly easy going mixed age group audience all contribute to the making of a safe festival in terms of crowd movements, although it does warn that with more younger and less Glastonbury Festival wise visitors they could have an impact on future crowd safety.

The report recommends that the layout in terms of circulation space in the south east corner of the site will need to be reviewed. The Shangri La and Block Nine areas, which were popular with festival-goers after the main music stages had closed, were a victim of their own success and cause the worst congestion problems at night. It is also here that attractions in Arcadia and the Unfair Ground take up so much space that free flowing circulation is impossible, and proposes the Festival consider relocating these attractions.

The Council report congratulates the Festival on resolving the traffic issues for those arriving on the Wednesday, which in 2009 caused significant disruption to the surrounding area. This year to prevent a recurrence the gates to the car park and campervan fields opened early on the Tuesday evening. This initiative resulted in significantly less traffic around the site on the Wednesday and significantly lowered the impact on local residents last year.

The report does suggest that if this initiative is repeated Festival organisers shouldn't change the way that is done, keeping to the stringent conditions about the activities available to the public and careful marketing. The Festival is asked to work on getting arrivals through the gates a bit quicker, to alleviate long pedestrian queueing times. The report does point out that routing of festival traffic is still a problem and as with previous years the A39 struggled to cope with the volume of traffic.

The increased provision for camping is commended by the Council although it recommends future planning on the location of the water points and sanitation arrangements. Although the reports do point out that over the last couple of years the footprint of the site has become larger with more and more off-site 'glamping' locations.

There were 509 crimes reported at this year's Festival, a reduction of 31 and a 6% decrease on the levels of 2009. This is similar to the crime levels reported in 2005.

The report also reveals a number of forged wristbands were seized and a significant arrest made, and some people were ejected from the site for not having wristbands. There was also one death at the Festival which appears to have been an adverse reaction related to the taking of a controlled drug. By far the largest amount of crime was theft with the Police report revealing that a strong trend has emerged at this festival and others around the country over the last 3 years regarding the timings of the thefts from tents. The majority of offences occur between the hours of 0200 and 0600 on the first 2 or 3 nights of the festival.

There were also some concerns about the selling of alcohol, with reports that several of the bars were open for the sale of alcohol, and food stalls open for the sale of food. Although the site was not actually open to the public, the sale of alcohol and food to other traders is not permitted without a licence.It also highlights that alcohol sales were made to underage drinkers, and drinks not always sold in correctly measured glasses.

The Festival also gets an excellent environmental report with the Environment Agency saying they very pleased with the way that the Festival reduced any impact on the watercourse significantly.

The Mendip Council reports are available to read (here).

Tickets

Tickets for next year's Glastonbury Festival will go on sale at 9am on Sunday 3rd October priced at £195 + £5 booking fee (plus £4.95 postage). All tickets must be reserved using the deposit scheme at a price of £50 per person. Everyone who plans to the come the Festival next year must be registered.

Registration does not reserve or guarantee you a ticket when they go on sale, but if you don't register you will not be able to buy a weekend ticket for Glastonbury Festival 2011. If you opt to save this information you will be able to use your registration number again in future years. Make sure the e-mail address you provide is one to which you will have long term access.

For more detailed registration and ticket information click here.

Next year's Glastonbury runs for five full days from Wednesday 22nd until Sunday 26th June 2011 across a 1,000 acres of beautiful countryside at Worthy Farm, Somerset. Expect something like 2,000 performances at 50 or so venues including music, cabaret, theatre, circus, a fantastic Kidz area, poetry, green crafts and information and loads, loads more ... much more than just the music, so make sure you check it all out!

No acts are confirmed as yet, but as usual eFestivals will bring you the very best-sourced rumours, allowing festival-goers to see who is playing long before the bands are formally announced - keep your eyes on the Glastonbury 2011 rumours, updated as we receive information.

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