Welcome to the apocalypse that was coming out of Erik Prydz at Arcadia, 3am, at Glastonbury last year. My third time at the festival, this was the worst crowd crush I’ve ever experienced. Sure, Glastonbury festival is known for its huge crowds, but this was different. And it wasn’t a one-time fluke.
Crowds fill one of the pathways during day two of the Glastonbury Festival 2024, which features around 3,000 performances across over 80 stages (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty)
There was an overcrowding issue at play at Glastonbury festival in 2024, it’s clear – programming, too, as people flocked to the same artists. Practically everyone I know who went was caught in something scary. Callum Davison, 26, from Manchester, actually left before his favourite DJ – and Thursday headliner – came on at the San Remo stage, despite having waited there practically all day. “The shoving and elbowing got unbearable. People were having panic attacks – it was mad,” he says. “We did the same slot in 2023 and it was popping. The crowd was full but everyone had enough space. This time, the crowd were so aggy with each other too, which is really unlike Glasto.”
“It was the most stressful crowd experience I’ve ever had there,” says Julia*, 44, from London, who’s been going to the festival for years. “It went from the standard jostling to suddenly having to almost swim through a human sea of bodies. I was elbowing people in the face, literally climbing over people, and crawling through people’s legs.” After 28 minutes, the performers actually stopped the set for 10 minutes, coordinating the crowd to take steps back in unison – and refusing to restart until they did.
Glastonbury increased its capacity in 2020 to 210,000 – 7,000 more than the year before, and 40,000 more than 2014. While the site has got bigger in that time, it has not expanded commensurately with the number of tickets sold (Photo: Matt Cardy/Getty Images)“They’re really lucky that no one got hurt,” continues Julia, who has known IICON to be full and busy, but never rammed in a way that felt dangerous. “Organisers tried their best, though. If they hadn’t shut down the stage, I do think something really, really bad could have happened.”
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But with a capacity of 210,000, a few thousand tickets is nothing. Glastonbury has dramatically expanded in recent years, so this new figure will still be more than 2019 numbers (203,000), and far from the 170,000 capacity of 2014. And while the site has got bigger in that time, it has not expanded commensurately with the number of tickets sold.
I’m sceptical these layout tweaks are enough – there needs to be a complete overhaul in the site configuration. Let’s hope this makes a difference, though, because I don’t have it in me to go through that again.*Name has been changed
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