[Misc] Glastonbury - Gentrification? (Or 'When I were young, everything cost 2p and was made of wood').

[Stato]

There's an article in today's Guardian about the price of tickets to next year's festival: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/18/glastonbury-2023-ticket-prices

This hit a note for me as I've been moaning away for some years about how festivals, and Glastonbury in particular, have become massively dominated by the monied classes. The last time I went was 1992 and a quick check tells me that ticket prices were £49.00. Looking at this prices comparison tool: https://www.finder.com/uk/historical-price-tracker shows that the increase in ticket prices for this festival massively outstrips even the huge increase in the the cost of housing in the UK: A 693% increase over thirty years, compared with 438%.

Now when I were a lad in t'80s and 90s I'd head to the North Laines to buy cheap secondhand jackets and coats, secondhand records, books etc. I was a student for most of it, so didn't have a massive disposable income, but nothing secondhand was very expensive. Today I've mainly stopped buying vinyl, because the prices went completely mad when it became a fashion for the wealthy, and 'vintage' clothes are more expensive than new ones. I wore Doc Martens back then because as well as being 'the one things that unites us' (Thanks Alexei), they were relatively cheap considering how long they lasted. Nowadays, earning far more, I wouldn't think about paying £150 for a pair of boots.

The stuff I did and liked was called 'alternative' because most people weren't doing it. There was a bit of reverse snobbery for sure, but one of the reasons that a lot of us turned away from branded clothes etc. was because we couldn't have afforded them anyway. It was about three quid to get into the Escape Club for a Sunday night indie gig at The Apple Orchard, back when club entry was three times that or more. I'm not writing this thread to say that everything were better in my day (even though it definitely was), I'm just wondering what is left today for the financialy worse-off youth to have for themselves now that the upper middle classes have bought up (and ruined) every bit of culture that they used to have cheap access to?

('Nurse! He's over stimulated again! Take him for a lie down.')

 

[Questions]

I went to Glastonbury in 81 with my brother, his mate and wife and a Great Dane called Butch and mongrel called Rosie and we all kipped in a Ford transit for the weekend….we got ridiculously stoned and then found the farmhouse scrumpy man…ps we never went into the festival in the end because it was £13 EACH. It was a memorable weekend.

 

[Arthur]

You can pretty much make the same comparisons to football. A lot of lads I grew up with didn't give a f*** about football at school when it was a couple of quid to get in. Fast forward 30 years and they are all replica shirted up sitting in the pub (none of them go) claiming to be life long fans.

 

[birthofanorange]

There's an article in today's Guardian about the price of tickets to next year's festival: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/oct/18/glastonbury-2023-ticket-prices

This hit a note for me as I've been moaning away for some years about how festivals, and Glastonbury in particular, have become massively dominated by the monied classes. The last time I went was 1992 and a quick check tells me that ticket prices were £49.00. Looking at this prices comparison tool: https://www.finder.com/uk/historical-price-tracker shows that the increase in ticket prices for this festival massively outstrips even the huge increase in the the cost of housing in the UK: A 693% increase over thirty years, compared with 438%.

Now when I were a lad in t'80s and 90s I'd head to the North Laines to buy cheap secondhand jackets and coats, secondhand records, books etc. I was a student for most of it, so didn't have a massive disposable income, but nothing secondhand was very expensive. Today I've mainly stopped buying vinyl, because the prices went completely mad when it became a fashion for the wealthy, and 'vintage' clothes are more expensive than new ones. I wore Doc Martens back then because as well as being 'the one things that unites us' (Thanks Alexei), they were relatively cheap considering how long they lasted. Nowadays, earning far more, I wouldn't think about paying £150 for a pair of boots.

The stuff I did and liked was called 'alternative' because most people weren't doing it. There was a bit of reverse snobbery for sure, but one of the reasons that a lot of us turned away from branded clothes etc. was because we couldn't have afforded them anyway. It was about three quid to get into the Escape Club for a Sunday night indie gig at The Apple Orchard, back when club entry was three times that or more. I'm not writing this thread to say that everything were better in my day (even though it definitely was), I'm just wondering what is left today for the financialy worse-off youth to have for themselves now that the upper middle classes have bought up (and ruined) every bit of culture that they used to have cheap access to?

('Nurse! He's over stimulated again! Take him for a lie down.')

1992 was a good year, musically, but even then, friends that I went with were moaning about the ticket price. I thought it was incredibly good value, considering the quality of the bands, camping was included, etc. I'm way past wanting to go, nowadays, but even if I did, the cost v music would be a 'no', from me. Sadly.

 

[Stato]

You can pretty much make the same comparisons to football. A lot of lads I grew up with didn't give a f*** about football at school when it was a couple of quid to get in. Fast forward 30 years and they are all replica shirted up sitting in the pub (none of them go) claiming to be life long fans.

True, I suppose there is a lot of what you could call 'experience tourism'. There seems to be a desire to be involved and to be seen to be involved in whatever social and traditional media is paying attention to as a way to gain self-validation. That desire seems to be the biggest driver in today's culture. I reckon a lot of people don't find out where they have been and how good a time they had at something until they get home and review the phone footage that they took of themselves doing it. My word I'm old.

 

[deletebeepbeepbeep]

Worth it to be part of the biggest party on earth.

 

[attila]

From my 2015 autobiog, then and now, read if you're interested

Glastonbury had started in 1970 with an attendance of 1,500: 1983 was the seventh, and the numbers of punters attending had rocketed to 30,000, but the original hippy vibe was completely intact. Everything I had heard appeared to be true. There was minimal security at the fence, and everyone was incredibly friendly: some people were wandering around naked, more than a few completely off their heads. The weather was hot and sunny, which added to the laid back atmosphere: it was perfect.

I was booked to play the Cabaret Tent, probably less than a quarter of the size it is now - these days it’s the Cabaret Marquee. I’d been told I could sleep there as well, so I hadn’t bothered to bring a tent of my own. Swells and I met Cabaret organiser Arabella Churchill (granddaughter of Sir Winston, co-founder of Glastonbury with Michael Eavis and organiser of the Theatre & Circus Field until her sad death in 2007: Bella’s Field was named so in her honour) who was lovely, and I made sure that my scrumpy was secure and out of temptation’s way until I’d done my gig. I remember that I went on after Rik Mayall, who was doing his Kevin Turvey routine, and I got a great reception: Swells had been on earlier and gone down well too. Happy with a job well done, and thirsty in the heat, I took the lid off the scrumpy and got stuck in big time.

I’d never drunk proper West Country scrumpy before. The nearest thing to decent cider we had in Sussex was Merrydown, and I’d had some of that, but this was different. It tasted wonderful, and not as strong as I thought it would. Little did I know! I was drinking real ale now quite a lot of the time, and this was like real ale only made with apples: an absolute treat. I was feeling sleepy, and starting to see double. It was so hot. I didn’t really need all these clothes on, did I? Loads of people were walking around naked. It wasn’t something I’d normally do, but when in Rome……….

I stripped naked, put my clothes under my head as a pillow and went to sleep on my back in the blazing afternoon sun, still clutching the scrumpy.

The next thing I knew, I was being blasted back into consciousness by a bucket of cold water and an unmistakable West Yorkshire accent. ‘John! John! John! You’re bloody frying mate! Wake up!

It was Swells. He’d found me, still lying on my back naked asleep in the sun. Seeing what it was doing to me, especially certain tender bits of me, he’d tried to wake me and failed, so he’d gone for the bucket of water. That worked. I woke up. After the initial shock of the cold water had passed, I realised that I was absolutely roasted. I looked like a cooked lobster on a fishmonger’s slab. All bits hurt, but some bits hurt more than others. My poor knob looked like a tiny sundried lugworm. My scrotum was a raw mass. (Goodness, gracious, great balls of fire!) And, as happens with sunburn, after a couple of hours the pain got worse, and worse……

Arabella Churchill took pity on me. She gave me some soothing cream to put on my tenderest parts, some strong coffee to clear my head and let me sleep in her (huge) tent. Despite the pain I somehow managed to enjoy the rest of the festival, and it certainly taught me a lesson about scrumpy!

Arabella invited me back to the next Festival and I have played every one there has been since: I guess I’m one of the longest-serving performers on site these days. It has been fascinating to see how it has grown and how the security/commercial aspect has increased. For the first few years the deal I got to perform there was £100 plus more or less as many tickets for my mates as I wanted! Bomber, Mike and Roy (RIP) were very happy and quite a few others got in that way too. Imagine that kind of a deal now, where 135,000 tickets sell out online an hour and a half after they go on sale….

After the controversial incidents involving the travelling community in 1990, security got tighter and tighter, and numbers have increased massively over the years as well, from 30,000 punters at my first festival in 1983 to 135,000 at my 25th (total numbers on site these days must be well over 150,000). Given that ticket prices have soared to over the £200 mark too, there have been all sorts of accusations that Glastonbury has ‘sold out’ and ‘isn’t what it was’. Of course, I understand what people mean. Loads of old Glasto fans simply can’t afford to go now, and it is a huge operation, a world away from 1983.

I have to say that Robina and I still absolutely love it, however. Some of the main stage fare is certainly mainstream beyond belief these days, but there’s good stuff on there too sometimes - and there is such a diversity of music and performance on offer elsewhere, and so many different arenas to watch it in, that I defy anyone not to have a good time. In the Green Fields (and to a large degree in the Cabaret Marquee where I have performed each year) the spirit of the old Glastonbury is still very much alive, at least it is for me. Since I stopped doing ‘comedy’ gigs in the early Nineties, Glastonbury is the one place where I still meet and perform alongside old friends from those days: Steve Gribbin (hi to wife Sharon and their kids, who always come too) Mark Thomas, Jeremy Hardy, Simon Munnery, Arthur Smith, Steve Frost, Robin Ince and many more. And my old mate Otway, though I see him a fair bit elsewhere.

Of course, the big jokes about Glastonbury have always been the same ones: the toilets and the weather. Having had a performer’s pass for every festival I’ve been spared the worst excesses of the toilets, though with the massive increase in personnel in all departments these days there are sometimes quite a few ‘convex’ ones in the backstage compounds too (yuk!) As for the weather: after 25 festivals I have seen it all. My first two sum the whole thing up: baking sunshine at the first, mudbath carnage apocalypse at the second. I have a wonderful memory from the second one. John Peel and myself spotted each other simultaneously. We were only about a hundred yards apart, but a huge sea of cloying black mud stood in the way: determinedly, we waded towards each other, shook hands, and then waded off to find a bar.

I love Glastonbury.

 

[Machiavelli]

I've been (I think) four times, and am yet to pay to get in. You used to be able to find a hole in or under the fence or, failing that, jump it. I was younger then. I also had a press ticket courtesy of my ex in the late 90s/early 00s.
I'd love to go again and even pay the inflated admission fees. Would rather support other festivals that are half the price, and far more accommodating in terms of space for someone as old as I currently am.

 

[bhafc99]

Football, concerts, festivals… it all felt relatively affordable and accessible as a student in the late 80s/early 90s.

Not any more. Some ticket prices are now eye-wateringly high, and their availability infinitely smaller.

So, yes. I'm definitely in your "it were all made of wood in my day" demographic and viewpoint.

 

[Frankworthington]

Only time I've ever been to Old Trafford it was £1.80 to get in. Lost 2-0 November 1981.
Differant world!

 

[Swansman]

I'm just wondering what is left today for the financialy worse-off youth to have for themselves now that the upper middle classes have bought up (and ruined) every bit of culture that they used to have cheap access to?

Everyone can afford or easily find a knife

 

[Stato]

Everyone can afford or easily find a knife

So whittling then?

 

[Wozza]

Regardless of pricing, Glastonbury is definitely becoming more popularist, mainly because of the extensive BBC coverage (of the main stages), I suspect.

As previously discussed on here, tents/stages no longer have themes (world music; up-and-coming acts), so 'big name' acts are scattered all over the venues and schedule.

It was really noticable this year that the masses constantly moved around the site chasing the 'names' - due to homogenisation? Social influence?

 

[BNthree]

Used to be festivals were for drugged up weirdos. Now they are so mainstream I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Waitrose concession at them.

 

[Wozza]

Used to be festivals were for drugged up weirdos. Now they are so mainstream I wouldn't be surprised if there was a Waitrose concession at them.

Well, I've seen a Next (!) stall at Camp Bestival Dorset.

Camp Bestival Shropshire had a Barclaycard stage and something sponsored by H&M, iirc.

Oh, and John Lewis used to sponsor Blackheath Festival.

 

[Machiavelli]

Regardless of pricing, Glastonbury is definitely becoming more popularist, mainly because of the extensive BBC coverage (of the main stages), I suspect.

As previously discussed on here, tents/stages no longer have themes (world music; up-and-coming acts), so 'big name' acts are scattered all over the venues and schedule.

It was really noticable this year that the masses constantly moved around the site chasing the 'names' - due to homogenisation? Social influence?

You're by no means the only person to use this, but it's not a word. Do you mean 'aimed at a wider audience'?

 

[Official Old Man]

Talking of prices. Premier League Darts (Sky event) at Brighton. £135 each for a table seat anywhere within the main hall.

 

[Wozza]

You're by no means the only person to use this, but it's not a word. Do you mean 'aimed at a wider audience'?

It's 'not a word'... and yet a) you knew what I meant, and b) had to use five words to replace it.

 

[Machiavelli]

It's 'not a word'... and yet a) you knew what I meant, and b) had to use five words to replace it.

You carry on with your creativity: inventing words and listening to bands that don't exist

 

[BNthree]

Talking of prices. Premier League Darts (Sky event) at Brighton. £135 each for a table seat anywhere within the main hall.

Went about 10 years ago and it was £50(ish) for main hall seat at the Brighton Centre. Thought that was steep at the time.