"Mud" headlining at Glastonbury!!

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And the forecast for Glastonbury is... very muddy

 

Last updated at 11:52am on 18th June 2007 Comments (1)

Carry on regardless: the festival's founder, Michael Eavis

 

A record 180,000 people will attend Glastonbury this year - and they are all going to get wet.

The forecast for the music festival is rain, more rain and thunderstorms.

As the gates open at the Somerset site on Wednesday, fans can expect light showers, followed by heavy showers the next day.

By Friday - when the festival officially begins -there will be driving rain with thunder and lightning.

And the forecast for those staying home is no better, with deluges expected in London.

Glastonbury is often a mudbath, because of the number of people churning up the fields that are home to thousands of tents.

But the four-day festival is expected to resemble a battlefield more than ever this year -perhaps even topping the chaos of 2005 when 300 tents were washed away in floods 14ft deep after a month's worth of rain fell in two hours.

The organisers think they have the situation under control, however, having spent £750,000 on engineering to improve conditions.

 

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Drainage will be more effective as hundreds of yards of piping has been upgraded, while 6,000 tons of hard core - crushed rock and gravel - were laid to create a coach park.

The area in front of the Pyramid Stage - the festival's main arena - has been dug up, the topsoil removed and thousands more tons of hard core laid down, before replacing the soil again to raise the level.

 

A record 180,000 people will attend Glastonbury this year

 

Michael Eavis, who set up the festival 37 years ago, said: "Deep mud is quite dangerous. It's something I'm always concerned about because it's a huge responsibility. We don't want people slipping and becoming crushed."

In 1997, after some of the worst weather in the festival's history, the Other Stage started to sink into the earth and emergency shelters were bused in.

Festival-goers are being urged to leave behind their tents to be reused in disaster zones around the world.

The Give Me Shelter project hopes more than 1,000 people at Glastonbury will drop off their camping equipment at a dedicated stall to be sent to Botswana and Sri Lanka.

In 2005, 3,000 tents were abandoned at Glastonbury.

[busybeeburns]

Glastonbury 'set to be mudbath'

 

We're almost looking forward to the rain, in order to see the pipes working after all this investment - Michael Eavis

 

Revellers at this year's Glastonbury Festival are in for another wet and muddy year, forecasters have warned.

 

Rain is expected before and during the legendary music event, Met Office forecaster Stewart Wortley predicted.

 

"Given that we've got a wet week, I think it's going to be the normal quagmire," he told the BBC.

 

But festival founder Michael Eavis has improved drainage since the floods at the last event in 2005 and said they were used to "the occasional shower".

 

His Somerset farmland opens its gates to campers on Wednesday, with the music running from Friday to Sunday.

 

Two years ago, more than 400 tents were submerged after a storm hit the Somerset site on the festival's opening day. A month's rain fell in less than two hours.

 

"We've probably spent £100,000 on the drainage and the flood relief stuff and everything," Mr Eavis told the BBC News website.

 

"We've got huge concrete pipes that will take the water from A to B and take it to the river and then it goes to Burnham-on-Sea, so it's a great system.

 

"So we're almost looking forward to the rain, in order to see the pipes working after all this investment." He has also promised more covered stages.

 

This year, general showers are expected, rather than the intense downpours of two years ago.

 

The Met Office's Mr Wortley said it would be "quite wet" when the bands kick off on Friday.

 

"It will be cloudy with rain turning showery later in the day," he said. "Some of the showers could be heavy."

 

Much of Saturday would be cooler and "cloudy with light rain, moderate at times", he forecast.

 

"Sunday might start with a little bit of sun but showers developing, and then more general rain at the end of the day. So typical Glastonbury I think."

 

The Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and The Who will headline the event.

 

Festival-goers will be given the option of leaving their wet tents behind so they can be dried out and reused in impoverished countries.

 

The Give Me Shelter project, launched by charity Global Hand, hopes more than 1,000 people will leave their camping equipment for countries such as Botswana and Sri Lanka.

 

Glastonbury Festival director Melvin Benn said the environmental impact of tents being left behind was "immense", adding that it could be used to help other parts of the world.

 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6766245.stm

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First revellers arrive at Glastonbury Festival

 

Last updated at 18:55pm on 20th June 2007 Comments

The Glastonbury Festival has opened its gates to 170,000 revellers as weather forecasters predicted another mudbath because of heavy rain.

 

Music fans began to trickle in, carry backpacks and supplies - including cases of alcohol - in preparation for the days ahead.

 

More than three inches of rain are expected to fall on the site by the weekend, threatening a repeat of the famous washouts of 1997, 1998 and 2005.

 

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The first of the Glastonbury festival goers trickle in

 

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Festival organiser Michael Eavis has ploughed an extra £750,000 into drainage work to prevent the 1,000-acre site turning into a quagmire.

Hundreds of meters of drainage pipes have been replaced with 1.2m wide concrete tunnels to funnel rainwater away and tonnes of hardcore have used to shore up roads and stage areas.

 

But Stephen Davenport, senior meteorologist for Metrogroup, said the expensive work may all be in vain.

 

He said: "With the amount of rain that is about to fall in Somerset, it will be a mudfest.

 

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Thirsty work: one festival goer arrives carting boxes of beer

 

"We could be looking at a total of 2.4 to 3.1 inches of rain between now and the weekend - that's quite a deluge, so mudbath ahoy."

 

However, Mr Eavis was in bullish mood and dismissed fears of another 'Mudfest'.

 

He said: "We have had a lot of work done to the site and are fully prepared.

 

"There are so many more covered stages and if we get the occasional shower, we are used to it."

 

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This year's festival line up includes Arctic Monkeys, The Killers and Lily Allen

 

Festival organisers have had crews on site since March 1 - employing three times the amount of heavy lifting equipment normally used.

Spokesman Jason Holmes said: "Every year more and more work has gone into improving the drainage.

 

"But people must remember that although it is a great party, it is taking place outdoors and they must come prepared to live outdoors for three days for most of the time.

 

"It gets cold at night and can get wet so people need to bring warm clothes."

 

 

A total of 177,500 people will attend the event including 137,500 full weekend public ticket-holders, 35,000 staff and performers and 5,000 Sunday only ticket-holders.

 

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The arrivals came prepared for bad weather, which is expected this weekend

 

There will be about 2,000 performances across 35 different stages during the five-day event.

 

For the first time, 25,000 tickets have been sold linked to coach travel from major cities around the UK.

 

It is estimated that this will avoid the arrival of 7,000 cars.

 

There are over 2,500 toilets and 15,000 waste bins on site.

 

Organisers are hoping to recycle 50 per cent of all waste this year.

 

 

A festival trader sells pairs of wellies

 

Sewage tanks with a 47,000-litre capacity have been installed, including one enormous container that can hold 25,000 litres alone.

The site, ringed with over five miles of fencing, also boasts a new area for 2007 called 'The Park' named after the Eavis family's first farm and designed by Michael Eavis's daughter Emily.

 

It will feature a disco and camp fire areas designed to "relax and entertain" in a more traditional festival manner away from the glare of the main stages.

 

There will be over 800 stalls on site selling everything from hammocks to hats, including over 300 food stalls.

 

Now in its 37th year, the 2007 festival is aiming to donate up to £2million to good causes, the largest beneficiaries being Greenpeace, WaterAid and Oxfam.

 

Crime has steadily reduced in recent years at the festival, falling by 90 per cent between 2000 and 2005, according to Avon and Somerset Constabulary.

 

Two dedicated medical centres, including an accident and emergency department with full resuscitation facilities, are open 24 hours a day from Wednesday till Monday.

 

But when the fun is over revellers face a nightmare journey home - traffic queues of up to eight hours are expected as local roads are swamped by 50,000 vehicles on Monday.

[mc_squared]

Glastonbury, your name is mud for another year

 

By JANE FRYER - More by this author » Last updated at 00:58am on 23rd June 2007 Comments

This is a nightmare. I am wading through miles of mud, carrying a rucksack, sleeping bag, camp bed, pillow, and a trail of loo roll, bin bags and waterproofs.

It goes without saying that it's raining, torrentially. Water's going down my face, into my eyes, up my sleeves, down the inside of my jeans and in my new wellies as the camp bed bangs painfully against my right knee.

"Cheer up, love," shouts a fat bearded man in a tight pink dress. "This is the best weekend of the year."

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Mudplay: Revellers Hatty Murray and Lindsey Rose take the plunge

 

Riding high: Lindsey Rose sits it out on Hatty's back

 

Method in their mudness? Kate Eager (left) joins the girls

 

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Welcome to Worthy Farm and Glastonbury 2007.

I am one of the lucky 177,500 people who managed to get tickets for the mother of British music festivals - three days of music, eating, drinking, dancing and a lot of mud on Michael Eavis's 900-acre site.

This is my first Glastonbury and, so far, it hasn't been much fun. Before me is a sea of steaming mud, teeming with tens of thousands of soaking wet festival-goers milling about and trying to remember where they pitched their tent.

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Land ahoy: Some needed a helping hand to get around

 

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The scale is staggering. Glastonbury is like a small city, with 80 stages, countless tents, hundreds of bars, cafes, Japanese restaurants, Moroccan tea houses, massage parlours and discos all splattered in brown mud.

It's also pretty smelly. The Eau-de-Glasto is a not very subtle blend of beer, body odour, fried food, smelly hair, and toilets.

The loos are something else. Already flowing with excrement and despite a plea on the official website not to bring loo roll, no loo roll.

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Giving her Wellies the boot, a Glasto-goer steps out in the mud

 

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Just as we think we could not get any wetter, the rain goes horizontal. There are crying children, snappy parents, rowing couples and an awful lot of people who are completely out of it. They probably won't even remember it was raining.

"Help me will you," pleaded one very well refreshed man who grabbed at my sleeping bag as we traipsed on to find our ready erected tepee. At £270, a snip to avoid the nightmare of flooding tents and sagging guy ropes.

In front of me three girls dressed as elves fall flat on their faces in the mud. But despite the conditions a lot of people are determined to enjoy themselves.

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Damp: already the grounds are beginning to look muddy, and it's only just begun

 

The site: campers have taken over Glastonbury

 

Dave, 23, a student from Bournemouth, entertains one group by running down a hill then hurling himself onto the mud in his pants.

There is, it seems, a sort of bizarre pleasure in the weather, as Peter Stone, 24, a painfully thin man with massive hair tells me, "Unless it rains - we don't really enjoy it."

The Glastonbury crowd are an eclectic bunch. There are hand-holding middle aged couples with neat hair, anoraks and hiking boots; very stoned Nu Age types in top-to-toe tye dye and tattoos.

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Fiddler on the stage: Gogol Bordello impressed the audience with their kooky show

 

Then there are the posh students - arguing loudly and ostentatiously about how much weed they smoked last night before passing out.

And festival fashion? The standard uniform is a combination of wellies, cowboy hats, jeans/flirty skirts/leggings, cleavage (if available) and a can of lager.

But some have made some bigger decisions - not all suited to a British monsoon.

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Flaming June? Tens of thousands of revellers soak up the atmosphere

 

Everything from tutus to go-go girl outfits, three-piece suits, top hats and even five big fat Smurfs - naked but for a couple of litres of blue body paint and a pair of small white briefs, which look suspiciously padded out.

To be fair, the weather isn't anyone's fault and there are thousands of helpful staff. But while the entrance - where we're given programmes, special black bracelets, maps and bin bags (which all fall immediately in the mud) - is beautifully organised, the tepee village (an hour's muddy hike from the car park) is less so.

"Oh sorry," says the tepee manager, "I think we must have given yours away by accident. But there's another tepee place on the other side of the park."

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Beers and cheers: the fans take their position in the pit

 

So we set off again. Finally, after another 40 minutes' tramping, we arrive soaking and caked in mud, just as Chas and Dave start up on the stage nearby.

Suddenly, the rain stops and, for a very fleeting moment, the sun comes out. A huge cheer goes up and there's nothing for it but to dump our stuff and head for the cider tent and to find some decent music.