This year's capacity - UPDATE: Capacity Confirmed

[Chris]

Last year, I got an email in mid-July, telling me that the festival had sold out. I haven't had one this year, and tickets still seem to be on sale at the official site.

Does anyone have any idea what the capacity is this year? I've seen rumours of it being "10,000", or "double last year".

What's the word on the street?

[marc]

I've just ordered an exta ticket and the ref number was past 10,000.

[Chris]

If that number is indeed a reference to the number of tickets sold, it looks like being much bigger than in previous years. Even palesaint, who has been to more festivals than most people, was only predicting about 7,000 people for this one.

So, I suppose the big question is whether the extra capacity is going to be a good thing or not. It's still less than a tenth of a Glastonbury.

[peridot]

Well our order (for 2 tickets) back in April was 6818, so if it's sequential and many orders are for multiple tickets then that does indicate a large turnout. However last year, once rain was predicted I understand that a lot of people tried to offload their tickets pretty quickly and probably never turned up.

I expect a lot will depend on how the weather turns out over the next couple of weeks.

[palesaint]

me and the gf got our tickets this morning and order number was 10265, wether this has any baring on the tickets sold i don't know, because they could have started at any number really, and i would be very surprised if there are 5,000+ more people there this year.......

[Chris]

I've emailed Jo to see if she'll tell me the official capacity. I reckon it must be a bit bigger than last year, they were sold out by this time.

[kidpresentable]

Last year was 6,000, this year is 7,500 I think.

[marc]

I'd be happy with an extra 1500, could easily see them fitting in, any more and I'll reserve judgement to see how it works. Apparently the site is bigger this year anyway.

[Chris]

I've been doing some looking around to find out what the capacity is. I found myvillage.com, which says

"Started five years ago, the event has grown from an initial capacity of 300 to 10,000 for 2007"

Also, the BBC say:

"One of the closest to the friendly and communal festival spirit of yore, this folk-dominated, 10,000-capacity event is now in its fifth year".

Neither are straight from the horse's mouth of course, but 10,000 is looking like the number that's being bandied around the most.

[river]

looking to buy tickets....hoping I still can!!

[Chris]

The official word from Jo is that the capacity is indeed 10,000 this year. They've added some entertainment areas and opened up more of the parkland, so it sounds like it'll still be not too crowded, except maybe the crowds at the stages will be bigger.

Jo also said that she'd been to Glanusk over the last few days, and that the site is draining brilliantly, so it sounds like any rain we get won't be such a disaster.

Tickets are nearly sold out, so anyone who still hasn't got one ordered had best get a wriggle on!

[cleggy]

Sounds like quite a jump from 6000 to 10,000 in one year.I hope they have taken that on board with the facilities such as toilets,water points,food outlets etc. Latitude festival had doubled in size this year compared to last year and the facilities were woefully inadequate including some of the tents for the performers.Hope Greenman doesn't make that mistake.

[Chris]

They have taken on board the need for more facilities with the increased capacity. Straight from Jo Bartlett, the word is...

"Don't worry, we've increased everything and always have more than the licence asks of us. We don't cut corners, that's not what we're about."

Nice to know that they care about things like that.

[woodenrabbit]

Yes - 10,000 is a LOT more and I really hope this is reflected in CRITICAL places like SIZE of folkie dokie tent and bottlenecks like the archway outside the Green Man Cafe - hmmmmm I REALLY hoped it would not be SOOOOOOOOOOOOO much bigger