so to address some points:
bus said:
sure
Just general observations really
I have to say that any individual marshalls I ran across were pretty helpful - they just seems a bit swamped, and to not know where the issues were, which seemed unusual, as they're normally pretty good.
it was unfortunate that oxfam started off the weekend with unfilled stewards places - it was even more unfortunate that despite the fact the public camping was on a hill the crew camping was at the bottom of it and many many stewards were flooded when the stream burst its banks on friday morning. some left, meaning we were even shorter.
bus said:
Friday night we were in queues for 3 hours 2 miles from the site. One gate (in the village) was shut, with literally crowds of folks with no idea what the hell was going on. Folks were being turned away from that gate, but not told that there was another a mile or two down the road. There were quite a few seriously grumpy people, with it appeared, no idea what to do or where to go.
the gate staff were different to oxfam and were up against it somewhat due to the weather, it took a while after the rains for it to be worked out what was flooded and what wasnt and to communicate this.
bus said:
Once we got in, our wristbands wern't checked moving from the campervan fields, to the site once. Also the access to the site from the campervan fields had a river going through it, that was kind of dark, fast moving and pretty close to welly top height. it was a bit hairy, and a couple of folks went over..no one mentioned of course that 20 yards away was another entrance that was river free...
because the second entrance was severely flooded further up. also, for some unknown reason they ran out of orange wristbands on saturday afternoon (how
) so they couldnt issue them and the stewards were told just to remember who was ok to come in.
bus said:
the toilets were a fecking nightmare - and weren't cleaned enough. They were also very helpfully locked around 10am monday, which considering how much peeps were struggling to get off site, wasn't that helpful.
the sludge gulpers were unable to get around site after it rained on friday and a massive backlog occurred, and then they were re-deployed to try to suck up water. site office just got more and more fed up with us reporting the toilets and water
bus said:
The site turned into a bit of a health and safety nightmare by Sunday. Bogs had formed in some areas to almost knee height. These should have been cordoned off really, and weren't.
they ran out of bark and then they bought the supplier out of bark. also simply by driving a tractor to distribute bark in the arena they would have made even bigger trenches.
bus said:
The car parks had SO few stewards in on monday. The ones that were there really seemed to be trying to help, but were just overwhelmed by the number of people trying to get out.
like i said most people just wanted to get off site and a lot of the stewards left.
i'm surprised you didn't mention the fact that once again, and despite the fact they promised they would sort the water out, there were no public taps all along the bottom of the arena. once it got very muddy people had to slip slide all the way to the top of the hill.
the organisation was bad, i agree, and the stewards were overworked and very tired, i did two double shifts because there simply wasnt anybody to take over.
in terms of infrastructure the organisers team didnt seem to have thought about things- why were no tractors arranged? why was there no huge store of wood chippings? knowing it was going to be wet why didnt they prevent all but essential heavy vehicles driving on the grass in the days leading up to the festival? why wasnt more metal tracking put down? why did they allow the water tankers to run completely empty before changing them over rather than having one waiting next door?
on the other hand i've never been to a festival where the fire brigade had to rescue people using life jackets before.
but were you there? Did you see a 4 foot nothing girl face down in the mud with some cunts knee in her back? Did any your friends get taken to the woods and worked over with extendible batons and who'll probably be pissing blood for a month? Do you still think I'm an idiot for getting upset about this? 
It was parked at the bottom of the hill and water was well over the bonnet on it after the heavy rain - you can see the water line. I really didn't need this hassle! No way to get to work or anything now. I am annoyed at the organisers, as they knew there were severe weather warnings, but they continued to park people in risky places. I am thinking about maybe claiming off the festival organisers, but don't really want to take their money! Will they be insured at all???
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