Glastonbury urged to improve crowd control for 2023

NME

Glastonbury festival has been urged to improve crowd control at next year’s event.

• READ MORE: Glastonbury Festival 2022 – review: camping, killer tunes and catharsis on Worthy Farm

It comes after concerns were raised of overcrowding at the 2022 event, with festival-goers complaining of crowds being “unsafe”, reports ITV.

Some residents also reportedly complained about the noise levels at a recent scrutiny board meeting with Mendip District Council.

Pilton resident Nick Hall said (via ITV): “Loud amplified music continued until 1am on Friday morning. Over the weekend period, there were multiple complaints about noise going on until 4am.”

Caroline Griffiths, who also lives in the village, added: “On Wednesday evening going into Thursday at 3am, I was so frustrated that I rang the village helpline.

“The same thing happened on Thursday night – I rang and there was no-one there at all. On Saturday night there was very loud bass music. My experience was not a good one – I had a sleepless period and it did affect my work.”

In a report published by the council, which is responsible for granting the licence for Glastonbury, it said the 2022 festival was seen as “well planned and managed” but that “improvements are necessary”.

The authority, which welcomed an additional 7,000 ticket-holders this year, made a series of recommendations for the 2023 edition, calling on the festival to assess whether security can be improved and whether crowd densities could be better distributed across the site.

“There appeared to be an issue with security not being able to prevent people from entering areas which had become crowded,” said the report. “This may be due to lack of experience of working at large scale events.”

Officers also urged organisers to “revise the risk assessment to consider the potential pull of the artist, the size of the stage/arena and the demographic of the attendees”.

“There were a number of artists that appeared to be more popular than was expected, drawing large numbers to venues which were not the principal stages,” the report added.

The council concluded that more work was needed to “address excessive loudness and low-frequency noise” through monitoring and time restrictions.

Glastonbury organisers are set to respond to the observations in writing in the next couple of months.

Meanwhile, general sale tickets for next year’s festival sold out in an hour earlier this month.

The world famous festival returned this summer for the first time in three years after its 2020 and 2021 editions were cancelled due to the COVID pandemic. The 2023 edition will take place from June 21-25 next year at Worthy Farm.

Last month, Emily Eavis spoke out about the Glastonbury ticket price increase in a new post on social media after it was revealed that tickets for next year’s event will cost £335 plus a £5 booking fee – an increase of £55.

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