Here are some of my main plus points and minus points for this year's Somerset Shanty Town Megashow :
Positives
The magic of wandering all around the site and discovering all the new and old stuff is still very very much there IMO -- even on my 16th festival, which this one was.
Green Fields -- impressive levels of loving work and dedication goes into the layout and decoration and sculpture and creation. The spectacular sights of the SE Corner, with even harder work and even more dedication, can make people forget the more understated wonders of the Green Fields, but I never tire of the GF area.
The Weather -- not
nearly as bad as 2007, the yardstick of ultimate permanent-mudbath miserable shiteness. In that year, it got worse, from a bad start, the further into the festival you got, and on the Sunday, it rained hard for many hours. This time, admittedly I'm thinking of the
whole festival period which is longer for us, there was as much pleasant sunshine as rain/mud, and by the last day, the Sun Team beat the Mud Crew hands down.
People being friendly. We talked to so many people, random strangers as much as friends and fellow festival workers.
We love our job -- Info Crew work is pretty rewarding, knowing that you're helping people, and that you're giving something back. Shifts are kind too -- we work hard during them, but get plenty of time off.
Top two Info Anecdotes --
(a) bloke walks in about 7 pm Sunday, tanked up to the eyeballs, and requests a vodka and tonic, not being able to work out or even fucking
see that there's no barrels or bottles behind us nor that the nearest bar is two tents to his right!
(b) Normal-looking, non drunk bloke approaches and wants to make a complaint about Worthy FM. Why? He's convinced that Worthy have concealed microphones set up in his (ordinary) camping field, recording and broadcasting his and his friends' conversations without his permission. I referred him up the hill to Worthy FM -- sort it out gerry!!!!!! (it's not far from the main Medical Centre though, nor from Waggonshed Welfare, tbf!)
Meeting Andrew Kerr -- organiser of the 1971 Glastonbury Fayre and having a nice chat. I had bought his new book mind -- looking forward to reading it. Got him to dedicate my copy for me -- he was there for signing, but I still felt chuffed. He's lovely.
Seeing Michael Eavis twice -- he opened the (excellent) new Spirit of 71 Stage on Thursday, but I saw him again on Saturday in his Landrover, following behind the Arcadia Sound System vehicle on that day's circuit.
Laminate Whoring -- we worked very hard at this and were able to visit several additional bars in consequence. Two of the laminates were only wristbands though -- fail!
Laminate Non Whoring -- thanks to a certain friendly Urban poster who was as nice and welcoming to us into that area as ever.
Our own camp -- shared with Property Lock Up volunteers mostly, plus a few other fellow Info workers. Near permanant bonfire!
Being on site for a VERY long time --we really felt like we'd properly moved in ...
Excellent array of great live in vehicles as always.
Maybe it's just me, but I liked the
Official Programme
Views from up the hill. Even a city of 180,000 people can't spoil how lovely the valley is** -- and in fact the festival while in full dyatime or nighttime swing, and when viewed from a hilltop distance,
enhances the view massively IMO
**(Not altogether anyway -- but see negatives below).
Musical highlights
Pulp's special guest slot, Park (see Views point above) ; last part of BB King's set, Pyramid (we were working at the start of it) ; Crazy World of Arthur Brown, Spirit of 71 ; Jimmy Cliff, West Holts ; Bellowhead, West Holts ; start of Neville Staples' set, Croissant Neuf ; Raghu Dixit, John Peel ; 3 Daft Monkeys, Glade ; last bit of Chemical Brothers, Other.
I was also impressed by Melanie -- or more to the point I respected her for her uncompromising honesty. She was headlining the Spirit of 71 stage straight after Arthur Brown. She was always going to be a (big) highlight for festivaldeb more than for me as her songs are not really my cuppa ... But deb had never seen her and was desparate to go, and it was raining too hard then for me to go elsewhere, so I decided to enjoy it! Which I did.
I'm sure I've left a few musical highlights out, though this was a far less prolific year for us music wise than last time, for obvious reasons.
Negatives
Missing Aracadia fireshow, and missing everything in the SE Corner. No real excuse, but doing too much else before 11 pm, and the new one way system and attendant queues after 11 pm, put us off, as did fears of serious late crowding. Mud too.
Exhaustion -- it wasn't muddy all the time by any means, but when it was, especially during the Friday night downpours, and on Saturday morning, it was seriously draining and stopped us going to a fair few sights and acts that we otherwise would have done.
Bar prices. Not low, even backstage. Food not cheap either (but at least there were some lovely tastes to be found in some places, especially for us veggies!)
Mental crowds in advance of Beyonce at all points in all directions within a quarter of a mile of the Pyramid stopped us getting anywhere near Imelda May at Acoustic, would you believe-- most of the blame for that lies with our own miscalculations and mistiming -- we tried to be too clever with our route and ended up being worthy of being sacked from Info work by picking a stupid route ... ahem!
That would also have been the best time to cut our losses and head SE Cornerwards, but we didn't ...
Shortages of supplies while we were working. Bastard Guardian didn't supply nearly enough of their mini guides for us to hand out, these were in big demand, and we had to disappoint so many people. Not enough toilet paper, rubbish bags, or ...
Daily Newpapers -- apart from the Mendip Munter bit, which oddly enough I liked as it goes, the 'Glastonbury Firelighter' was pretty shit, and in terms of daily information
severely lacking - why not some basic stage listings, updated?
Not meeting enough people that we know, from here and elsewhere. I should especiailly apologise (a lot) to WBC-WORKER who was based very near to us ....
Truly vile and disgusting state of the public camping areas after the festival was over. Nothing new of course, but still a fucking outrage. OK we tatted a top quality new strong canvas tent bag for our large tent, and chairs to sit around in for the Monday evening were ten a penny, but in the words of Shakespeare in King Lear -- Filths Savour But Themselves. How can those people live like that over the fest? Mud is no excuse -- the state of Pennards wasn't far off as bad after 2010 either.
Musical Lowlights
Missing Duane Eddy, missing Primal Scream, missing Morrissey, missing Imelda May, missing Lee Scratch Perry in the Glade (was he good?).
APART from Celebrate at the end -- win!! -- I thought Kool and the Gang were mostly cheesy and
Missing who knows how many other great acts. I would have caught a fair few of them in a drier year, but mud aside, I can't really complain about the unavoidable act/shift clashes ... we get a very good working deal and them's the breaks. I wish we'd been able to work harder at seeing stuff while not working though!
For all the
mixedness of the above Highs and Lows, I wouldn't miss Glastonbury for anything and have felt like this since 1994. Having to wait well over 700 days til the next one in June 2013 will be a major trial especially as next year will be that of my 50th birthday!
Oh well, more time for more and different half-century-celebrating festivals in 2012, with no onsite work involved to stop me seeing stuff! As in every fallow year since 1996, late June 2012 will
inevitably be a scorcher, just like 1996, 2001, 2006.
Oh well, what Glastonbury misses, Sunrise Celebration -- moved to Glasto weekend just for 2012 -- will gain .... OK in just a few respects, anyway .....
at self >
. Checked out the legendary backstage acoustic ale bar for the first time too, which I'll be going back to I'm sure. 
