Glasto.biz

Apologies that there are no pictures, they have been moved with program upgrades and are not available at present.
The Official Glastonbury reviews can be found here

Well hello and welcome to glasto.biz’s 3rd glasto experience and this year our experience started all the way back in February.

Anti-tout measures took to an all new level this year, you had to pre-register in during February with a photo, which would give you a registration code, then when tickets went on sale, you put in the reg codes and it knew your details. The photo’s are to be printed on the tickets – the ultimate form of ID, you can’t pass the ticket on.

Over 400,000 people registered for tickets, and so I did some thinking, how many more people didn’t register? With the codes, that could speed up ticket buying (then glastonbury festivals up’d the amount of tickets you could buy from 2 to 4), how quickly would they sell out?

Ticket day arrives soon enough on April 1st, the group of us going got together just in time for the 9am kick off – normally we’re militant about it, but we just settled into it, some on the phone, me on the net. 9am came and went – didn’t we get tickets in 10 mins in 05?

The dreaded screens seen so much in 04 were back “The server is currently busy”. NOOOOOOOOOO, not what we want to see (excuse the pun).
After 40 mins though, we got through, booked the 2 lots that we needed, booked another for a friend, and then started helping people on one of the website I use – I think I saw 7 booking pages in total.

Tickets sell out in just over an hour and a half, not that much quicker than in 05, but I think the database access for reg codes slowed it down, could of been even faster sell out.

Than the wait for the tickets to arrive began – God, please bless SMS and get the to deliver tickets without a hitch!

With only week to go before the festival, everyone is beginning to panic a bit, even me and I’ve done this before – where are the tickets, some have been delivered, including the last one for our group and the middle one, that’s not right.
Have to go away for a few days, call home and the postman has left a card for something to be signed for…..Postman…? Ticket are delivered via SMS courier, the worlds worst courier……nope apparently, they can’t meet the demand of all tickets, so SEE start sending tickets out that SMS can’t do via Royal Mail Special Delivery – YES!!!! Please let SEE drop SMS for good over this as it’s shown a new level of bad service up.

Ticket’s in hand, we set out at 6am Wednesday morning and had a very easy drive to site, stopped for breakfast and got to site at 10.30, straight into car park, no problems.
Unpacked the car and loaded most things onto new sack truck I had bought, which meant anything that was being carried was light. 100m into the trip down to the gate, the tyres flattened – we’d over loaded the trolley! Too late to take anything off, as it would mean someone sitting with kit for ages while others went in we kept pulling, and didn’t do badly at all.

Tickets checked(did they actually look at the photo?), wristbands on, into the festival we go.

And it feels like nothing has changed at all, almost everything in exactly the same place (only shops had moved around a bit), I was back at home.

We had 2 virgins with us this year, so off around the site we went again, seeing as much as we could, got a bit sunburnt (again) and then settled down with a good fire.

Back off to meet friends before hitting the cinema for the year and we’re doing 2 films in a row. The second of the 2 was Blues Brothers and I really need to watch it again when I’m more awake.
The first though, absolute classic and had the entire audience singing the theme tune……If there’s something strange, in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call?

“GHOST BUSTERS”

Brilliant (and it was the special edition version too – I like that)
Another fire, then off to bed.

Friday, and the day starts with rain again….this is not good, ground is already rather muddy now and can only see it getting worse as people move around.
Today, started for me with The Automatic (well some of) before moving onto the new Park area to see Chas & Dave (I saw Amy Macdonald too, and she was rather good) who packed the field and everyone had a good old sing song.

Break for lunch (and missed The Magic Numbers) and then listened to Bloc Party, The Fratellis & Kasabian (good songs but lead singer I don’t like at all) ready for Arctic Monkeys.

Why did the organisers change the main sound system? They were promised so much and it wasn’t delivered, sound on the pyramid stage was worse than ever, top end dropped after 20m, no bottom mid and bass could only be heard away from the field – and it was a louder system!
Made the Arctic Monkeys a bit of a disappointment for me, but I’m sure they had fun.

Saturday, and rain yet again….and the ground was just starting to be hard again!
Today, the day starts with a good wander and into the Circus Big Top, where I saw a man trying (badly) to juggle ping pong balls from his mouth. When he got to 5 balls, enough was enough and I left, and wandered back down to catch CSS in the other stage – who, although were great, only did a 30min slot – should of been longer.

Back to the tent before going back to pyramid to see Paul Weller, during which one of our group fell ill, so caught The Kooks and The Killers from back at the tent. Was going to see Madness play in the Lost Vaugeness Ballroom, but they started at midnight and wanted to catch the end of The Killers, shame though – would have been a blast!
Another fire then off to bed.

Sunday, rudely awakened by pyramid sound check and……yep, more rain (today was the wettest day of all).
Today starts with a “catch whatever” morning, with The Holloways (cool band, will get their album), then The Waterboys (Classic rock). Back to the tent and listen to The Marley Bothers Present: The 30th anniversary of Exodus – FANTASTIC!!!

Quick bite to eat and catch Dame Shirley Bassey from the side of the markets, She packs out the Pyramid field – What a sunday!

Now it starts to get hard core, push into middle for Manic Street Preachers – Their new album is a must buy, they were great and would love to see them again.
Back out and catch Kaiser Chiefs before heading to the other stage…….

A quick dash over to the Dance & Fire Stage to catch what should of been the act the summed it all up and completed the weekend perfectly. Bill Bailey!!! Poor sound though, could only just hear him and thought, hey, I’m seeing him at Wembley in november, and it won’t be wet and I’ll be able to hear him, time for bed ready for drive home.

And you thought this experience ended there! People can be so messy, but this time took the piss. Hundreds of tents, chairs and gazeebos left abandoned. Seriously, do people have no respect? I have never seen it so bad and it makes me so sad to see such a wonderful site ruined by people who cannot be bothered to clear up after themselves.

Leave car park at 4pm, but get stuck in traffic for over 2 hours so we get back to London 7 hours after we left, but it’s all been worth it. Roll on 2008!!!

But wait, there is more to tell, drainage. After 2005, drainage was improved down the back of the old railway line to stop the floods that had happened. 2007 saw more rain overall than in 2005 and the system worked, just not in all areas, flooding happened again, especially down the pyramid field and the surrounding fields, the car parks and the paths to them, cars had to be towed out. I’m sure that some people will again say that they are not going back because of the rain and mud. What do you expect from a farm at the end of June! It’s going to rain and even with the smallest amount, the amount of people churn up the mud – it’s what happens, deal with it!!

So, I hope you enjoyed your festival and I can’t wait to get back!