 Part 1Introduction Hello and welcome to this pictorial guide to the Glastonbury Festival which I have combined with answers to the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) that regularly pop up on various festival related internet message boards. I hope you find it informative and useful. It's something I first dreamt up a good few years ago now in order to show new visitors (or Glastovirgins as we affectionately call them) what the festival is all about, rather than continually describing all the various attractions and facilities that make Glastonbury stand out as the greatest festival in the world and the premier performing arts event in the UK. Newcomers make up an estimated 30% of the Glastonbury population each year but there might be a few useful tips in here for experienced festival goers too and I often get positive feedback from Glastonbury regulars who enjoy reading this to get them in the mood in the build up to the festival.
Although I have previously worked voluntarily on one of the Information Points, I'm not employed by the Festival or involved in any way in its organisation and the contents of this piece of work are based entirely on my own punter's perspective. I've been to the last eleven Glastonburys but I have friends who have attended more than double that number so I’m still barely reaching the point where I can really consider myself to be a genuine veteran. However I have clocked up a total of well over 100 festivals over the past thirty years and so I hope that the advice that I give here can be considered useful, sound and based on experience.
There is plenty more in the way of excellent advice to be found within the Information section on the Official Website and especially in the "Fine Guide", which is available for download from the website. The 2011 Fine Guide can be found HERE. Please take time to read and digest this fully before you arrive at the festival.
If you have any additional questions, comments or suggestions for improvements to these pages then I'd be delighted to hear from you. Please email me at faq@glastoearth.com and I’ll do my best to assist, or at least point you in the direction of somebody who can.
When is it?  Firstly let’s get the bad news out of the way. THERE WILL BE NO GLASTONBURY FESTIVAL IN 2012! The festival is always held on the first full weekend after the Summer Solstice, which generally coincides with the last full weekend in June. The dates of the next festival will therefore be from Wednesday 26th to Sunday 30th June 2013. There is no entertainment on the main stages until the Friday but the pedestrian gates officially open to ticket holders at 8am on the Wednesday and as far as I’m concerned the festival starts then and doesn't finish until I head for home on the following Monday.
 In the past Glastonbury had to apply for its license annually and we would be on the edges of our seats every year, waiting to hear whether the license had been granted. But nowadays most of the issues for objection have been ironed out and the festival organisers have a much better relationship with the local council. The festival also generates a considerable income for the local economy and as a result in 2007 the festival was licensed to take place for each of the following 4 years, taking us through to 2010. Traditionally there is a "fallow" year every fifth year so it would have been fair to have assumed that there would have been no festival in 2011. However the anticipated year off was postponed until 2012 as the timing of the festival would have fallen very close to the London Olympics, with which it would otherwise have had to share a lot of its logistics. The license has already been granted for the festival to take place annually from 2013 through to 2016 so at this stage it would be fair to expect that there will be another fallow year in 2017.
Where is it?
It's in Glastonbury surely! Well not quite. Anybody who hasn't been to the festival before would be excused for assuming that it is held either in or very close to the Somerset town from which it takes its name but this isn't strictly true. The site is on Worthy Farm, which is situated some 6 miles to the east of Glastonbury and 3 miles south west of Shepton Mallet, just off the A361 in the small rural village of Pilton. In fact a few of the locals still quaintly refer to it as the “Pilton Pop Festival” which was the original name of the first event held on the farm way back in 1970.
How big is the site?Even if you've been to some of the larger and more commercial UK music festivals before, nothing will prepare you for the sheer vastness of Glastonbury. It's a mile and a half from the farmhouse at the northern end to the stone circle in the south and it will take you a good hour to walk from one end to the other when there are nearly 180,000 people on site. It is also a mile across from east to west plus at least an additional mile in each direction from the pedestrian gates to the furthest extremities of the car parks.  I would have included a copy of the site map. However I'm afraid I would have had to reduce it to such an extent that it would have been illegible. Instead, can I suggest you check out the fantastic GlastoEarth Map available elsewhere on this website.
How do I get tickets? Details of how you can go about purchasing tickets for the festival have a tendency to change on a regular basis and your best bet is to keep an eye on the official website in order to familiarise yourself with the procedures and dates involved and thereby hopefully avoid disappointment. In the past tickets used to go on sale in early April. Sometimes they would sell out within a matter of hours whereas in other years you could still pick up a ticket a few days before the festival took place. For the last 3 festivals you have been able to pay a £50 deposit early in the preceding October in order to secure your ticket. According to updates which flashed up on the official website at the time, all tickets for the 2011 festival were sold within a little over 4 hours of going on sale and long before a single headlining artist was confirmed. The full price of a ticket in 2011 was £195 plus a £5 booking fee plus a further £5 postage and packing for each order (of up to 8 tickets) placed. The balance was payable during a 1 week window commencing on the 1st April.
 In order to be able to buy a ticket you first have to pre-register and supply a passport style photograph of yourself as well as your name and address. The photograph is printed on your ticket so that the stewards at the gates can identify you as the genuine ticket holder. Make sure you register well in advance of the actual ticket sale date as they close registration a few days beforehand and your photo has to be examined to make sure that it meets the required standard. When you are paying the deposit for your ticket all you generally need are your registration number, which is notified to you by e-mail, and also the post code which was entered at the time of registration. You can buy up to 8 tickets in a single transaction but you must have the registration numbers and post codes for everybody you are buying tickets for. Please note that credit cards are not acceptable for UK residents so make sure you have a debit card handy and enough funds in your bank account to cover the £50 deposits for everybody you are buying tickets on behalf of.  Tickets are only ever sold through one official outlet. This has been See Tickets for the last few years. There are however "agencies" (or "touts" to you and me) who sometimes claim to have tickets for sale. They will not receive any official allocation so if you give your money to these people then the chances are you will lose it. Whatever you do, do not buy tickets on eBay or from any other private source. Tickets are personally identifiable and if you are not the person whose name and photograph is on the ticket you run a very high risk of not getting in and you will have wasted your money. There are usually a limited number of re-sales of any tickets which have been cancelled. If you are trying to pick up a ticket in one of these sales it pays to keep an eye on the various website forums and festival news as they often happen with little or no advance warning. In 2011 an official resale of approximately 10,000 tickets took place on Sunday 17th April with a further tiny allocation of returned tickets being resold on 17th May, after the final date for refunds had passed.
 Tickets are non-transferable although you are able to change the delivery address if you move or if the details are incorrect. If you have to cancel your tickets for any reason you can get your money back, less a £10 administration charge, and you have until approximately 6 or 7 weeks before the festival to do so (6th May in 2011). There is no refund available after this date as the tickets will have already been printed with your photograph and personal details. If you can't attend due to illness or any other unforeseen circumstances then I'm afraid your only way of getting your money back after this date is by claiming on any insurance you may have which covers such eventualities. For the last couple of years See Tickets have offered cancellation insurance for an optional premium of £4:50 which is payable when you buy your tickets.
  In the past tickets were normally sent out during the first half of June and many people didn't receive theirs until a matter of a few days before they were due to leave for the festival. Thankfully for the last couple of years they have started appearing through people’s letter boxes a week or two earlier and in 2011 the first ones were received as early as 12th May. Anybody who orders their tickets online will receive a reference number and may use this to check on the progress of the distribution of their tickets via an order tracking facility on the See Tickets website. You’ll need to enter details of the last 4 digits of the debit card you used to order your tickets and your post code or email address to do this. Tickets are delivered to most parts of the UK by a courier service. You’ll usually receive an email advising you that the tickets are on the way the day before they are due to be delivered. If you are not at home when the courier tries to deliver the tickets you are able to arrange an alternative delivery date or address.
Can I buy day tickets? Unless you live very close to the festival site then no I'm afraid you can't. There are usually a few thousand one day tickets for the Sunday alone but these are only made available to people living in Pilton and the surrounding towns and villages and details on how to obtain them are only ever published in the local press. When is the line up released?It varies year on year. According to Glastonbury folklore the festival never used to release the line up in advance at all and you would have very little idea who was appearing until you opened your programme when you got there. I'm not altogether sure how true this is but nowadays the headliners are often announced several months before the festival takes place and for the last couple of years the remainder of the line up for the major stages has been published mid April.
Some people put together "Clashfinder" timetables so you can work out whether any of your favourite bands are likely to be playing at the same time. The one I use is on Halvin’s excellent “Clashfinder General” website which can be found HERE. You can customise it to your own requirements, highlight the acts you want to see and print it off to take with you to the festival.
How do I get there?Research shows that the vast majority of carbon emissions connected with festivals are released into the atmosphere as a direct result of punters travelling to and from the event. Glastonbury encourages all attendees to use more carbon efficient modes of transport so please consider using bus, train or even your bicycle as a means of getting there rather than simply jumping in the car. My mate Chris has been known to turn up in his Sinclair C5 but for the less eccentric among us there are basically 6 modes of transport for getting to the festival:- By BusNational Express run bus services to the festival from many major towns, cities and airports around the country. More details can be found on the official website as the Festival approaches or from the National Express website.  For the first time in 2007 you could buy a combined coach and festival ticket package. This was to encourage the increased number of ticket holders licensed to attend that year to use greener transportation methods. Anybody choosing this form of transport only gets their festival ticket given to them en route to the festival site in order to discourage them from subsequently changing their minds and arriving by car. Most of the buses arrive on the Wednesday and leave in the early hours of the Monday morning in order to avoid adding to the traffic congestion during peak departure times. Unfortunately there were some pretty serious teething problems with the combined coach arrangements in 2007 but lessons definitely appear to have been learnt and I have heard of nothing but positive experiences in subsequent years.  Buses drop festival goers at the Festival’s own Bus Station, which is close to Pedestrian Gate A in the north-western corner of the site. By TrainThere is no train station at either Glastonbury or Shepton Mallet. The nearest station is at Castle Cary, which is 6 miles from the festival site. Castle Cary is on the main line to the South West out of London Paddington Station. Full details of special train services are released as the festival approaches.  A fleet of double decker buses provide a free shuttle service to all ticket holders from Castle Cary Station to the Festival. This service generally runs into the night for as long as trains arrive so nobody needs to worry about being stranded overnight on a station platform with all their gear. By Car If you are travelling by car then don't forget that you will need to purchase a Car Park sticker (cost £20 in 2011). It's best to order this at the same time as you purchase your festival tickets but it is possible to buy one later if you forgot to do so at the time or if your travel arrangements change. As a last resort you are able to buy a car park sticker when you arrive at the festival, if for any reason you haven’t been able to obtain one in advance. In 2011 the price increased to £25 if you chose this option.  Remember that everybody in your vehicle will need to show the stewards that they have a festival ticket before you will be allowed into the car park. There are 2 main car parking areas and these are situated to either side of the site and are colour coded, blue in the east and red in the west. Apart from that I’m afraid you have very little choice as to which of the many car parking fields you end up in. You’ll just be stewarded into whichever field they happen to be filling when you arrive.
 Few of the main eastern car parks are particularly close to the nearest pedestrian gate and you will also have to scramble down the "Hill of Death", which isn’t as dreadful as it sounds but is nevertheless a rough and fairly steep track. Access to the car parks to the west is comparatively flatter but with the rapid expansion of the site in this area over recent years you may find yourself parked in one of the newer car parks on the northern side of the A361. Each of the car parking fields is numbered so make sure you keep a note of which field you are parked in so you can find your way back to your car when you leave. In the past the car parks haven’t officially opened until the same time as the pedestrian gates, at 8am on the Wednesday morning. But with an unexpectedly large number of people turning up early in 2009, the roads around the site got very congested with traffic at a standstill waiting for the car parks to open.  As a result, an amendment to the license in 2010 allowed the car parks to be opened from 9pm on the Tuesday evening. Many thousands of people have taken advantage of this at the last 2 festivals and have already been in the car parks and queuing to get into the site long before the pedestrian gates opened at 8am. In fact in 2011 some of the gates were opened a little earlier than 8 in order to get the lengthy queues moving. The Festival has its own radio station, Worthy FM (wavelength 87.7FM), which often has traffic updates both before and after the festival so you can get a good idea of how long you are likely to be queuing for.
Later arrivals will find themselves parked anything up to a mile away from the nearest pedestrian gate, so be prepared for a long hike. However you will probably have the advantage of a comparatively quicker getaway at the end of the weekend.
 Warning - Although the actual festival site is cleared of the resident cows some weeks before the festival, this isn't necessarily the case in the car parks so mind where you are putting your feet as you skip barefoot in excitement from your car! If you are being given a lift to the festival by a friend or relative who isn't staying then please note that vehicles will not usually be allowed to stop on the road close to the festival site. The Drop-Off Point is at the Bath and West Showground, which is sign-posted to the south of Shepton Mallet, from where you are able to get a free shuttle bus to the Festival Bus Station.  If you are hitch hiking then please be very careful. The roads are narrow with high banks and few footpaths and the traffic can be very heavy. By Campervan or with a CaravanThe majority of campervan drivers and people bringing a caravan approach via the "Blue Route" in order to access the fields specifically reserved for them to the east of the festival site. However, 2010 saw the introduction of 2 campervan fields in a new area to the west which benefited from having its own pedestrian access gate into the main site. Approach the festival via the "Red Route" from the direction of Glastonbury and enter at the “White” gate in order to use these.  You will need to buy a permit in advance. These cost £75 in 2011 and are limited in numbers so make sure that you buy yours at the same time as you pay the balance on the cost of your tickets. Please note that security will not allow you to sleep in your vehicle if you park it in the ordinary car parks. You need to decide whether you want to be parked in the East or West Campervan Fields at the time you buy your permit. There are at least 4,500 campervan pitches in the fields on the Eastern side but only about 1,000 to the West. The rules as to what does and doesn't constitute a campervan seem to change every year so check out the Campervan Information on the Official Website and keep an eye out for last minute changes in arrangements which invariably seem to happen. As a general rule of thumb you must have permanent cooking or washing facilities in order for your van to be allowed entry so an old transit van with a mattress in the back won’t cut the mustard I’m afraid.
 Friends can usually camp with you. Officially they are only able to pitch their tents behind your vehicle and within the allotted space but this never seems to be enforced particularly rigidly. Awnings are allowed provided they are reasonably sized although a friend of mine reckons that he gets away with erecting one which is so large that security are often concerned that he plans to start up his own dance tent! The Campervan Fields are one of the few parts of the festival that are positioned outside of the main fence. However the fields are still secure and are protected from possible intruders by some of the fencing which used to surround the main site before the “ring of steel” superfence was introduced in 2002. You will have to queue and run the gauntlet of security searches each time you enter the festival and it can be a bit of a hike so it's as well to take everything you need for the whole day and use the Property Lock Ups to store anything that you don't want to carry around with you. Some people actually go as far as pitching a small tent inside the festival so that they have somewhere more convenient to store warm clothes and other gear.
 There are toilet, water and minimal catering facilities in the Campervan Fields although it is often felt that these could do with being more widely available and better maintained. Unfortunately the organisers of many festivals appear to be under the impression that all campervans have the luxury of an onboard toilet and the sanitation provisions in these fields can often be somewhat inadequate as a result. Also please note that the "No Glass" rule applies as much in the Campervan Fields as it does in the rest of the festival site and your van may be searched to ensure that you have no bottles or glasses when you arrive. It's as well to leave any sharp knives that could be perceived as weapons at home as well. This always seems a bit daft to me as you can stab somebody with a tent peg but you can't slice a tomato with one. Rules is rules however!
 The Campervan Fields are open to punters from the Tuesday lunchtime nowadays although you won’t be able to access the main site until the pedestrian gates open at 8am on the Wednesday. In fact I was in the West Campervan Fields in 2011 and the dedicated Gate E for access from those fields didn’t open until 8:40. The photograph above was taken on the Tuesday evening looking north across the western portion of the festival site, before it filled with tents and cars.
By Motorbike
There is secure parking for motorbikes near to Gate A in the north western corner of the site. See the official site's guide on taking a bike to Glasto. By Bicycle If you cycle you will be allowed to take your bike into the festival and use the Property Lock Ups to store it safely. Some people actually use their bikes to get around the site although this does become difficult and rather dangerous once the paths and trackways become congested with pedestrian traffic. In 2011 the festival introduced an initiative to get more people to cycle to the festival. Cyclists had the use of their own designated camping space in the Darble camping field close to Pedestrian Gate A, with private showers and lock up facilities. They also received discounts on meals and festival merchandise. An unofficial cycle route from Castle Cary Station to the festival site can be found on the GlastoEarth map.
What should I take with me?There is a fairly comprehensive recommended kit list on the Official Website. Wet wipes might sound an odd item to include but they are an absolute godsend if you don't fancy slopping water round your tent or baring your dangly bits for a wash in full view of nearly 180,000 fellow campers.  Don't forget sunscreen and a hat. The festival is held on the weekend immediately following the summer solstice so the sun is at its strongest and, apart from the obvious health issues, sleeping on rough ground with sunburn is no fun at all. We had an unusually hot Glastonbury in 2010 and literally thousands of people ignored the advice to slip, slap and slop and had to be treated for sun stroke and heat exhaustion as a result. On the other hand it can also get very cold at night so a good warm jumper or fleece is essential for those night time shenanigans in Arcadia and up at the Stone Circle. Avoid denim jeans as they take a long time to dry if they get wet. You're much better off with cargo pants made of cotton or technical synthetic materials which are lighter and will dry quickly and they also have plenty of big, secure pockets for all your essentials. Always remember the age old festival goers' saying that "there is no such thing as bad weather - just inappropriate clothing!" As long as you have clothes that keep you shaded when it's sunny, warm when it's cold and dry when it's wet then you will be fine. There are dozens of stalls selling all manner of clothing if you need to add to your festival wardrobe.
 Personally I also enjoy a few creature comforts and would add things like a tent light and a camping chair but these are by no means essential if you are travelling light. Another handy addition is an empty fabric conditioner bottle which, because of the wide neck, makes a very adequate unisex in-tent toilet for when you get caught short and don't fancy having to get dressed to go marching in the rain to the nearest loo. Lads with reliable aim can usually make do with a plastic milk bottle. Alternatively, “Travel Johns” are also available from camping stockists. These contain a gel similar to that found in disposable nappies. But having said all that, the most restricting factor on how much gear you take is whether or not you will be able to carry it, which, in a seamless piece of journalism, brings me on to:-
How do I carry my gear? I really can't emphasise enough just how BIG Glastonbury is. Remember that you could have to carry all of your gear a very long way up and down hills and over rough (and sometimes muddy) terrain. Possibly as much as two miles in each direction. So make sure that you have the means to transport your gear safely without bags splitting or you or your trolley collapsing. If you have a car then it is always better to make two or more trips than to end up stranded in the rain halfway between car and camp site with your gear strewn all over the ground. I use an 80 litre rucksack which I have used in the past for travelling round Asia and is therefore easily big enough to carry my sleeping bag and more than enough clothes for a week. My rucksack has a waterproof cover which I can just slip over the top if it starts to rain. If you don't have one of these then make sure you pack everything into sealed plastic bags before they go into your rucksack so that if you get a soaking between the car park and the camp site (as many people did in 2011) you will at least be assured of having dry clothes and bedding when you've got your tent up.  Note the large inflatable tyres and sturdy tubular steel construction which are essential in order to deal with the rough ground. I got it from my local garden centre for the princely sum of £17.99. I have used this to carry a five-man tent, a double airbed, a collapsible chair, all my other camping gear and 48 cans of beer with room to spare. It can also double up as a three-seater bench or even a Heath Robinson shower if you strap a water carrier to it and squat underneath the tap.
 Other successful means of transporting gear are wheelbarrows, wheelie bins or basically anything else that is sturdily constructed and has large wheels, but make sure you have plenty of rope or strong bungee cords in order to hold everything in place over the humps and bumps. Sledges also seem to work well in wet conditions. Definitely out are suitcases and wheelie bags, shopping trolleys, or lightweight collapsible trolleys, which I know from personal experience tend to collapse of their own accord just when you least expect or want them to. What if I forget to bring something?
Apart from the village store in Pilton, I'm afraid that there aren't any shopping facilities within easy walking distance of the festival. But don’t worry! There are several General Purpose stalls on site. They might be a little more pricy than your local Tescos but they are extremely useful for replacing those everyday commodities that you somehow managed to leave at home or run out of during your stay. |
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Tort's Glastonbury FAQ Part 1 |
