Glastonbury 2024

Had Glasto on all day with family here. Nearly every act that came on we were educating the relatives with "you know more songs than you think" and were singing tunes and seeing how many everyone knew.

When SZA came up and someone asked "what songs would I know" everyone said "none". Literally nobody could hum a single tune, myself included, let alone the people that hadn't heard of her.

Just the most ridiculous choice to close Sunday. And a sign of the times that someone so "massive" can have so few recognisable songs to their name.
 
Apparently SZA had the smallest headliner crowd ever, while London Grammar had a huge crowd. So there's been more chatter about how badly organised the scheduling was.
 
Yeah, there was a few instances where a stage was absolutely rammed while the Pyramid struggled. SZA did a successful arena tour but she draws a younger crowd than Glastonbury plus, the vibe is very much 'do yr hits for a singalong' and she doesn't have very many.
 
Ellie said:
Vile. If football is so important, skip Glastonbury and give the ticket to someone who wants to be there.
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fucking hell :D it's not that serious. I think it's quite camp to take a couple of hours out for the boys on a rainy Sunday at glasto.
 
Jark said:
fucking hell :D it's not that serious. I think it's quite camp to take a couple of hours out for the boys on a rainy Sunday at glasto.
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I will never forget the time I went to see Flight of the Conchords in 2018. The concert actually had to stop in the middle because so many people kept leaving to go to the lobby to watch some shitty England match when it came to penalties :angry: Just dreadful behaviour.
 
Ellie said:
I will never forget the time I went to see Flight of the Conchords in 2018. The concert actually had to stop in the middle because so many people kept leaving to go to the lobby to watch some shitty England match when it came to penalties :angry: Just dreadful behaviour.
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Quite a significantly different situation, no?

Loads of people on Twitter saying that Glastonbury has frequently shown England tournament games on big screen / stages when they have been there before.
 
When Glastonbury goes on sale, no-one knows how the football schedule is going to land. Same for most gigs - people sell tickets so far in advance now that it's not really possible to foresee when the games you might care about are going to land.
 
octophone said:
When Glastonbury goes on sale, no-one knows how the football schedule is going to land. Same for most gigs - people sell tickets so far in advance now that it's not really possible to foresee when the games you might care about are going to land.
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I mean fair enough, but I missed watching Wimbledon finals on two occasions due to going to outdoor summer concerts and made that decision because the shows were more important to me. I just find it RUDE.
 
Glastonbury is a multi-day festival with about a million artists to see and things to do on site. I don’t see why a big screen to watch the footie can’t be one of those things. It isn’t comparable to a people going to a concert and then ignoring the performer which I agree is wanker behaviour.
 
Glastonbury is a whole town, effectively. At any given time there will be loads of people not at one of the stages. Giving them a screen to watch football so they have another choice is no big deal at all. And if it thins out the crowds a little for those who want to watch an act on stage, so much the better.
 
I really don’t think the football is what caused SZA’s set to tank. Most people either went to Avril Lavigne or left early.
 
Poor SZA

Between the incompetent scheduling and the evil Louis Tomlinson, she'll probably never agree to a UK festival again.

I can see the thinking of pushing her given all of the previous criticism of Glasto being a white man affair. But the poor girl has had one and a half hits over here. Setting her up to fail.
 
I think it just proves that the festival is *massive*, the audience there is truly spoiled for choice and being a headliner of one of the main stages doesn't guarantee you'll draw a huge crowd.

But, unfortunately I think festival bookers will use this experience in the future as leverage as to why they should place a male act in a headline spot over a female.
 
I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Loads of women have drawn enormous crowds. Didn’t Beyonce have the closing slot a few years ago?

SZA was just a misguided booking for that slot. I imagine the main takeaway will be to avoid booking acts who are primarily famous via TikTok.
 
Penelope said:
They should have had the Sugababes in that final Sunday slot.
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Honestly - their lesson should be THIS. Big crowd pleasing act, loads of hits, and an edge of cool that makes them more suitable for Glasto than your Girls Alouds, etc.

If you want to meet your “diversity quotas”, there are ways of doing it while delivering what the festival needs.
 
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Shoat said:
Poor SZA

Between the incompetent scheduling and the evil Louis Tomlinson, she'll probably never agree to a UK festival again.

I can see the thinking of pushing her given all of the previous criticism of Glasto being a white man affair. But the poor girl has had one and a half hits over here. Setting her up to fail.
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I assumed she was massive. She’s filled out multiple arenas here and played Hyde Park, didn’t she? It’s really not my bag as whatever she did yesterday (as well as the clips of her on Saturday) did not impress.

I know Janelle Monae doesn’t have the recognisable hits either, but the sheer quality of their performance if given the appropriate time slot (as well as their profile in pretty recent mainstream films) really could have had a great effect. And there were no “sound issues” in Monae’s set and no fucking autotune.
 
I think SZA is massive, but very clearly not massive with the people that go to Glastonbury, and the people booking these slots should have been able to work that out.
 
GNL said:
I think SZA is massive, but very clearly not massive with the people that go to Glastonbury, and the people booking these slots should have been able to work that out.
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That was the original argument when Jay-Z was booked all those years ago. Only Jay-Z at least was legitimately huge in his genre and had been for some time.
 
I'm actually shocked Avril got such a huge crowd. her tour has been a bit of a disaster from a PR standpoint. but she does have the hits embedded firmly in pop culture.

maybe the somewhat tame audience at Dua's show (despite that being absolutely stacked with huge hits), and huge audiences for Avril and Shania, highlights something similar - a headliner should be able to tap into nostalgia and probably have been active for a decade or more. SZA is probably one of two album cycles too new for it. Sugababes would've been absolutely perfect.
 
Combine Ed Sheeran with the self-awareness of Jessie J and the musical ability of Ali G.

He'll have a UK number one hit within 5 years.
 
This is why I couldn't have ever been a celebrity. She held her nerve so much better than I could.
 
Ellie said:
I assumed she was massive. She’s filled out multiple arenas here and played Hyde Park, didn’t she? It’s really not my bag as whatever she did yesterday (as well as the clips of her on Saturday) did not impress.

I know Janelle Monae doesn’t have the recognisable hits either, but the sheer quality of their performance if given the appropriate time slot (as well as their profile in pretty recent mainstream films) really could have had a great effect. And there were no “sound issues” in Monae’s set and no fucking autotune.
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Honestly Janelle Monae was in a different league to everyone else.
 
Anyway as we all know SZA was a last minute panic replacement when the Madonna deal fell through. They should have just paid her what she asked for.
 
Suedehead said:
Anyway as we all know SZA was a last minute panic replacement when the Madonna deal fell through. They should have just paid her what she asked for.
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I'm not convinced Madonna is the right fit for Glastonbury either to be honest :eyes: maybe. but I can easily imagine her being absolutely panned for her vocals and getting drowned in mixed/bad press.
 
Madonna would have been a perfect Sunday night closer, strained vocals and all. Especially as she's all about the HITZ right now. This was the year she should have done it with the headline roster lacking. They should have thrown more cash at her.

And she should only be closing on Sunday or nothing. Madonnas don't come along every couple of years. Even Coldplay don't hold a candle to her legacy.
 
GNL said:
I think SZA is massive, but very clearly not massive with the people that go to Glastonbury, and the people booking these slots should have been able to work that out.
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There is no such thing as ‘the people that go to Glastonbury’ - over 200,000 attendees who book tickets without a lineup can’t be categorised.

While I couldnt give two fucks about SZA I love that the festival constantly books a hugely broad selection of music. I went from listening to Paul Heaton to acid techno on the same day. There will always be one or two that dont hit the mark one year and there will always be a few that get bigger crowds than expected
 
big ron said:
There is no such thing as ‘the people that go to Glastonbury’ - over 200,000 attendees who book tickets without a lineup can’t be categorised.
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Well, you could probably categorise them as people with plenty of disposable income :basil:

I suppose what I mean more specifically is that she's huge in that she has a big enough fanbase to sell out an arena in London for the best part of a week, but that's not much use for a festival where people have booked long before the acts are announced.

YouGov has 30% of the population as familiar with SZA. For comparison Coldplay and Dua are at 97% and 86%. She's hugely successful, but she's not that huge with a general audience. Your nan couldn't hum one of her songs.... And neither can I tbh.

I think one of the challenges for the people booking these things is that it's increasingly difficult to find people who have come up in the past few years who do have that sort of crossover appeal - and harder still when you're also looking for people who feel, for want of a better word, worthy.
 
Over a quarter of my team went to Glastonbury, including a couple who work it pretty much every year. The first few come back to work tomorrow.
 
GNL said:
Well, you could probably categorise them as people with plenty of disposable income :basil:

I suppose what I mean more specifically is that she's huge in that she has a big enough fanbase to sell out an arena in London for the best part of a week, but that's not much use for a festival where people have booked long before the acts are announced.

YouGov has 30% of the population as familiar with SZA. For comparison Coldplay and Dua are at 97% and 86%. She's hugely successful, but she's not that huge with a general audience. Your nan couldn't hum one of her songs.... And neither can I tbh.

I think one of the challenges for the people booking these things is that it's increasingly difficult to find people who have come up in the past few years who do have that sort of crossover appeal - and harder still when you're also looking for people who feel, for want of a better word, worthy.
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I think its tricky because streaming and to an extent covid has meant there are way fewer ‘big acts’ to book these days, so yeah I guess you have to pick from the likes of SZA if it isn’t to just become a massive lineup of 90s indie acts playing the same old greatest hits all weekend

That said, I also saw some great newer bands who have pyramid potential in a few years.
 
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