Fact #129200
When:
Short story:
The start of the first day of the annual Glastonbury Festival at Pilton, Somerset, England, UK is disrupted by the worst thunderstorms in the history of the event. Live sets on the Pyramid Stage are delayed when the stage is hit by lightning, and the festival site is turned into a quagmire, parts of which are navigable by canoe. Artists appearing include White Stripes, Killers, Royksopp, Doves, Elvis Costello, The Undertones and Fat Boy Slim.Full article:
Bill Egan (Applications Engineer, Aggreko NE) : The 2005 thunderstorm, a month’s rainfall in four hours, has to rate as one of the most exciting times. Standing in torrential rain and fielding radio calls asking if I felt it was safe to re-power the main stage just as yet another lightning strike slammed into the site. My answer was NO! . It was also a great testament to the team that we had almost all the power back on line two hours, before my house in a neighbouring village was back on, and the festival was able to go ahead under conditions that would have stopped many events.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Chris Beale (CBS-Wireless Events Ltd) : The monsoon rainfall created a river through the Pyramid backstage area that carried tents, sleeping bags and other festival detritus in a flood that ran a couple of feet deep in places. I drove through it in a 4x4 with the water level halfway up the doors. It's not a great situation to be in with a couple of million pounds worth of electrical equipment but the kit survived and the crew rallied to make the show happen. It's probably the camaraderie and the sense of duty to everyone else that you feel in times of stress at Glastonbury that makes it a festival like no other.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Joanne Schofield (Radio Avalon) : The storm was so bad that people were actually being told not to come to the festival.Fields were flooded and tents were floating away. It is times like these that the radio station comes into its own, as soon as the punters see signs for 87.7FM on their way to the festival they tune in to get the vibe whilst waiting in the queues.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
However the storms were causing the power to go off all over the site, which included us. Luckily we are situated very close to the main fuse box for our particular supply of power. So every time it happened a crewmember would go running over to the fuse to flick the switch back on, unfortunately the switch was in a cowshed! It involved climbing up a wobbly ladder and kneeling on a shelf. This happened so many times that we made sure that the crewmember stayed in the shed until the storm passed over. Each crewmember did this in shifts of about 20 minutes until the sun came back out as it usually does in Glastonbury.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Robert Kearle (manager, Litter Picking): I've been coming to Worthy Farm since I was twelve. I used to help milk the cows at the weekends and got interested in the festival. Now, I'm in charge of the litter pickers - all 800 of them during the festival and another 300 when it's over.
Last year we collected 650 tonnes of rubbish and this year we are really keen to get people to use the litter bins properly, to recycle as much as they can and to make use of the bin bags we will be handing out when they arrive.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Tweet this Fact
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Chris Beale (CBS-Wireless Events Ltd) : The monsoon rainfall created a river through the Pyramid backstage area that carried tents, sleeping bags and other festival detritus in a flood that ran a couple of feet deep in places. I drove through it in a 4x4 with the water level halfway up the doors. It's not a great situation to be in with a couple of million pounds worth of electrical equipment but the kit survived and the crew rallied to make the show happen. It's probably the camaraderie and the sense of duty to everyone else that you feel in times of stress at Glastonbury that makes it a festival like no other.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Joanne Schofield (Radio Avalon) : The storm was so bad that people were actually being told not to come to the festival.Fields were flooded and tents were floating away. It is times like these that the radio station comes into its own, as soon as the punters see signs for 87.7FM on their way to the festival they tune in to get the vibe whilst waiting in the queues.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
However the storms were causing the power to go off all over the site, which included us. Luckily we are situated very close to the main fuse box for our particular supply of power. So every time it happened a crewmember would go running over to the fuse to flick the switch back on, unfortunately the switch was in a cowshed! It involved climbing up a wobbly ladder and kneeling on a shelf. This happened so many times that we made sure that the crewmember stayed in the shed until the storm passed over. Each crewmember did this in shifts of about 20 minutes until the sun came back out as it usually does in Glastonbury.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)
Robert Kearle (manager, Litter Picking): I've been coming to Worthy Farm since I was twelve. I used to help milk the cows at the weekends and got interested in the festival. Now, I'm in charge of the litter pickers - all 800 of them during the festival and another 300 when it's over.
Last year we collected 650 tonnes of rubbish and this year we are really keen to get people to use the litter bins properly, to recycle as much as they can and to make use of the bin bags we will be handing out when they arrive.
(Source : Interview with Johnny Black)