Day 73: Monday 20th June 2022
Travelling to Glastonbury Festival!!! We left Bath Chew Valley Campsite at 9.30am, as we were able to arrive at the Oxfam Campsite (Oxfield) from 10am onwards. It took us about an hour to travel there, following the Purple Route as we got closer to the festival site. Both of us were feeling nervous but excited about the coming days!
It took a little while to be checked in for our motorhome, but we were parked in our spot by 11am. I did wonder beforehand whether Marvin would be too big to take there, but most of the other vans in the Oxfield were at least the same size, and some much bigger, which was a relief to know.
Registration opened at 1.30pm, so before that we decided to get our bearings of the campsite. The Oxfield has its own big marquee with caterers 24hrs a day from Wednesday onwards. There are also lots of toilets and showers - not many showers in the Glastonbury arena other than in the Greenpeace Field, so definitely a luxury for volunteers!
We queued to register from 1pm. In our registration packs, we received our tabbards, shift times/ more information about the festival, meal vouchers x3 (given a free meal per shift you work, which can be used at any point during the festival), shower tokens x4 and our Oxfam ID. We then received our wristbands, and were able to wander into the festival grounds once wearing our ID lanyards and wristbands.
The shifts we are working are Thursday 5.45am - 2pm, Friday 9.45pm- 6am and Sunday 1.45pm - 10pm. We were mostly pleased, as most of the bands we wanted to see were Friday/ Saturday during the day. It did mean we would miss Billie Eilish on the Friday headliner spot, which Mum was disappointed about, but I was pleased we would be able to see Paul McCartney headlining on Saturday!
As we had a briefing at 4pm, our only venture into the festival site was to help someone to a campsite with their luggage before heading back to the Oxfield (which is located just outside of the festival boundary).
The briefing covered information about the festival and the various aspects of the stewarding role, including ticket checking. This made me quite nervous - I didn’t want to get it wrong when checking tickets as they send through ‘mystery shoppers’ who check you do the job properly!
We had our own cooked dinner back in the van, and did have an issue with the gas locker which made us a bit stressed. However, we managed to sort it and then were able to explore the festival site properly, which was great!!!
It was amazing to be on site when the ticket holders hadn’t arrived yet - easier to explore and find everything without the crowds. The main areas we went to were the Glastonbury sign, the areas around the Park stage, and reading a poem about the Solstice in the Stone Circle, as it is the Solstice tomorrow!
It was especially strange to see lots of construction still being done, and the fields so empty without any tents!
After walking to the Other and Pyramid stages, we headed back to the campsite. There are the infamous crew bars with a big bar crawl which everyone seemed enthusiastic about, but we decided against it! Looking forward to another day tomorrow to explore the site before everyone arrives on Wednesday for the festival to actually begin properly!
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