fletcher wrote:its just a shame that a few sets were spoilt by the apparent sound problems (although i must point out that i didnt notice any all weekend).
This is the whole problem, fletcher. It only seems to have happened during certain sets, despite what some people are saying about it beng applied uniformly across the site.
Complaints
were received from residents about noise and the organisers have to establish what is causing the problem and to deal with it
immediately, otherwise the West Berks Council guys can pull the plug. I was told by Rik on Saturday that there had been a particular problem with the wind blowing the sound towards a residential area (I assume this to be Thatcham, although I wasn't told specifically where the problem was). I think this was around the time that the Bang Face set went quiet. The six-stack noise-cancelling rigs do help "a bit" but they're not much use against a strong wind blowing the sound in a particular direction.
I've also been told that the Sancho Panza tent was one of the main culprits on the Friday night, mainly because the lower half of its walls were open and effectively made it an open air stage. You may have noticed that its walls were down to the ground on the following nights.
I also spoke to Ans about things in general on Saturday and said I'd felt the Glade had won its reputation back, which I genuinely believed to be the case at the time. People I'd spoken to in general were happy with just about everything at the time. But I told him at the time that I expected there would probably be the annual complaints on the forum about sound levels and he genuinely seemed surprised about it. He thought there were far less problems this year, which probably comes as a surprise to many in this thread. But then again, as I'm only too aware, people on this board aren't necessarily a representative cross-section of the Glade - if they were, there would have been nobody at all watching Pendulum for example.

I've also heard from sound crew and one of the organisers that some of the acts with MCs tripped the decibel meters (human voices shouting too close into mikes send decibel levels soaring apparently). So did the "turn it up" chants, ironically.

I'll get their official word on things in the next few days - they're still on site right now and then they'll probably need to unwind for a bit.
Pete - I'll do my best to persuade them to turn the Origin Stage down.
