Car Parking Issues at Festivals

Massive numbers of people attend music festivals every year. They come for the music but need all the normal facilities like food & drink and are open to lots of buying and trading activities while on site. It has become big business especially given the sheer numbers that are involved. Latitude for example attracted over 35,000 people while Glastonbury attracted around 210,000. Those figures do not account for all the performers and associated businesses present at every festival.

Such figures indicate a potential parking nightmare, given that most festivals are held in rural areas where public transport can be limited. Traffic queues are all too common, and can stretch for miles along approach roads. Then there are the problems of getting people from distant car parks to the main site. Get it wrong, and you can all too easily create an immense amount of bad publicity and disgruntled festival goers.

This is exactly what happened at the Download festival in Nottinghamshire. Long queues of bored festival goers blocked approach roads, and once on site insufficient shuttle buses led to further queues of annoyed people, especially when they realized that they could have walked to the main site in half the time. Social media sites ran thousands of stories about the delays, while vocal complaints were registered in the local press.

It makes a cautionary tale for organisers of any music festival. Ignore carparking issues at your peril – this is a subject that has to be dealt with at a very early stage in the preparations and kept constantly updated throughout the event.

Make sure your car parks are organised

Having well organised car parks, staffed by professional fully trained stewards and marshals ensures that cars enter the site quickly and efficiently. All the parking area is maximised to full capacity by marshals lining up cars correctly and safely. Other marshals point the way to the entrance points, and efficiently check tickets to allow people to pass though quickly.

The process is reversed at the end of the festival, ensuring that all cars leave the site quickly, safely and with minimal delay. Correct signage is provided making sure that people know which way to turn so as to avoid clogging up access roads, and reach the main road system as rapidly as possible.

Basically, car parking arrangements have to be planned well in advance. It is not just a matter of ensuring there are enough car parking areas, it is a matter of ensuring entrance and exits along with safely parking all vehicles so that there are no blocked access points. This is where trained marshals and stewards make a difference because they can lay out the car park , make sure there is straw available to reduce congestion in muddy, slippery areas, put up appropriate signage and deal with any problems that occur.

This is where we can help – talk to our event staff to ensure there are sufficient car parking marshals and stewards available throughout the event including pre & post event setting up and taking down. Our staff are fully trained and know exactly what to do so as to ensure that everyone has a thoroughly enjoyable festival experience.