Hello! New comer here!

I have bought my ticket and am ready to lose my festival virginity to glade.

As it is my first festival, I'm really not sure what to expect.

I've been told a fair few horror stories about tent slashers/tent stealers.

What's the likelyhood of that happening?

I'm preparing to take the bare minimum but I still don't wanna be distracted by the worry that someone might be making off with my tent.

Cheers!

Hi missmorbid, first off welcome to the board!

I'm just back from a gig, my ears are still ringing and I'm a bit monged so I can't guarantee this'll still be sensible advice in the cold light of day.

The good news is you couldn't have picked a better event than Glade to pop your festival cherry.

It has a lovely chilled vibe and very friendly, up-for-it, open-minded people. Ignore all the "my genre is better than yours" posts, it's only banter, everyone mingles and has a good time really.

But it is true that there were a few gatecrashers last year. I should know, several of our group had our tents rifled through but I don't think anything was actually stolen from any of our tents. I didn't hear of any tents being slashed open at Glade. That used to happen at Glastonbury before the "superfence" (a 12ft high fence made of steel sheeting) went up in 2002.

Last year's Glade fence was a bit of a joke but the organisers have taken on board what happened last year and really beefed up security, including a Glasto-style fence. That's the main reason why the tickets have gone up so much, these measures don't come cheap. So you can breathe a bit easy about security.

A few general tips you can do to improve your own security as well:

1) Don't bring anything you can't afford to lose.
2) Don't bring anything you can't afford to lose.
3) Bring some combat trousers/shorts. All those extra pockets come in handy for carrying essential stuff aorund with you.
4) Use the property lock-ups. There will be places where you can leave valuables safely, use those if you don;t want to carry stuff around with you.

But above all, don't worry too much. The amount of crime last year was no worse than any town on a Friday/Saturday night and the few crimes that did happen were mainly thefts rather than crimes against the person.

Some sound advice there, folks.

But all the usual caveates about meeting people from the internet apply. Trust me on this Ive had bad experiances on meeting people from chat boards so avoid it as a pretty certain rule these days.

I've actually been dreading someone suggesting we hold a board meet and maybe even have a GladeTalk camp, as I'm fairly shy. But a lot of people do join boards to make a few friends at festivals, so it's natural enough that some people will want a meet and maybe there'll be a Camp GladeTalk too if people want one.

I think some people will be expecting the usual kind of meet, so there's bound to be one of some sorts. Nobody'll be offended if you stay away from it if you don't like that sort of thing though.

But yeah, what you're saying about a camp is pretty much the kind of thing I had in mind anyway. In fact, it's pretty much what the group I stayed with last year was like.

They are mostly off another board but we really gelled as a group and have been on a few real life outings throughout the year. I was thinking if we have a camp we'd be near to them anyway. Mingling is good. We're all part of the same festival community when all is said and done.

Good place to link people is at the ID spiral, or any small cafe (if you can remember where it is), should anyone get lost or whatever..

items i'll take;

ball of string. everyone needs that.

and a pillow.

boom box for after hours

fischer price drum kit.

free wetwipes from KFC.

bare minimum really, i'm pretty lazy though and take as little as possible. its only 3 nights, aint a trek through tibet although a rave up there would be sweeet.

might not even need a tent - last year i think i slept in the origin cafe more than i did in my tent. V comfy with pillows everywhere.

Hopefully something like the great flood won't be happen again, anywhere, Ever. Our tents were camped, literally, inches away from the great river that flowed through the middle of pennard hill thus feeding the mach-eye build up on the side (as the pics show). A special sight to see people surf their tents first thing in the morning.

I was gonna ask, whats the rule's on fires this year? Last year it was frowned upon, although a few bright sparks used elevated fires, or those cast iron victorian garden oven/mini chimney things which weigh like a tonne.

razorruck wrote:I was gonna ask, whats the rule's on fires this year? Last year it was frowned upon, although a few bright sparks used elevated fires, or those cast iron victorian garden oven/mini chimney things which weigh like a tonne.

I'm 99% certain fires won't be allowed.

Glastonbury has the advantage that Mr Eavis actually owns the land it's held on, so he's in a position to allow fires. Most other festival promoters aren't so lucky.

I was in the Nu skool breaks camping area last year and didnt see any trouble all weekend.