Festival Goers: Spare A Thought For The Water Supplier
By Dominic Donaldson
As we get further into the summer months many people begin to prepare for a weekend at a music festival. Music festivals are a wonderful time for people to relax, enjoy new music together and hopefully appreciate some sunny weather. However all of the festivals that we love have to be able to have a water supplier or the weekends planned could never happen. Here in this article we look at how the famous festival known as Glastonbury deals with keeping their massive visitors fully quenched for the long weekend.
Glastonbury festival alone requires a huge 1 million gallons of water for the five days the festival runs. The festival water supplier has to keep over 700 hand basins and 100 standpipes running across the site to provide festival goers with fresh water for both drinking and washing. As this festival has grown in size throughout the years so has its demand for water, so the water supplier has a tough job making sure that the festival has what it needs.
During the festival period the local population grows by an enormous 175,000 people and the local water supplier simply cannot cope with this big demand. In 1997 a water mains was laid from the main A361 down to Worthy Farm. This has definitely helped to cope with the problems that arise at this time but still has not been able to cope with peak time demands that occur between the hours of 10.00am and midday.
To make up for this shortfall, the festival has ended up importing a water supplier from the Water Authority Reservoir that is 7 miles away from the site. Milk tankers travel to the site with 2000 to 5000 gallons of water between the festival and the reservoir 24 hours a day, starting days before the festival and after the closedown. There is a 25,000 gallon storage facility at Worthy Farm which has to be continuously replenished by tankers.
There are also many Oxfam emergency reservoirs that have to remain on site that have to each hold 5000 gallons each. The water is then pumped across the site in the ten miles of pipe work that is laid down each year especially for the festival. All of the water that is used, the water supplier to the festival has to guarantee that the supply is of high quality. The water supply is tested rigorously for chlorine and bacterial content, to maintain the high quality. So the next time you are at a festival, be it Glastonbury or any other, spare a thought to all the work that has to go into you having fresh water!
About The Author
Dominic Donaldson is an expert in event management.
Find out more about aWater Supplier and how the services available can help with providing fresh water.