This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Business News Gigs & Festivals Live Business
Local council calls for reduced noise levels and improved crowd control at next year’s Glastonbury Festival
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 28 November 2022
The Glastonbury Festival has been asked to reduce noise levels and improve crowd control at next year’s event, after a report from the local Mendip District Council – which licenses the festival – said that this year’s edition had been “well planned and managed” but that “improvements are necessary”.
According to an ITV News report last week, at a recent council meeting local residents said that noise levels on the festival site were higher this year than in the past, with the local authority stating that – next year – organisers will need to “address excessive loudness and low-frequency noise” through monitoring and time restrictions.
Meanwhile, concerns were also raised about crowd management at the festival. Chris Inchley, who chaired the recent meeting, reportedly said: “Talking to people who actually went to the festival, one comment made by many people was about the actual number of people on the site, especially on the Sunday. They said they felt rather unsafe with the volume of people”.
His fellow councillor Heather Shearer stressed that the festival site is definitely large enough to accommodate all the ticket-holders, but added that more needed to be done to control crowds in particular areas of said site in order to prevent crushes.
“It is recognised as something that the festival organisers need to be thinking about”, she went on. “Because it’s such a massive site, it’s clearly big enough for the people if it goes to the pinnacle of its numbers. The issue is really about crowd dynamics – about the pinch points when they move”.
Although they had representatives at the meeting, organisers of the festival are yet to formally respond to the council’s comments and concerns, but are expected to do so in writing in the next couple of months.
There was a time when Glastonbury regularly ran into issues with its local council, sometimes resulting in fears that the event might not even be granted its licence. However, in more recent times the festival has generally enjoyed a much more positive relationship with the local authority.
