Free tents and other equipment

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Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,294
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
But it should be OK for a years worth of sleeping in the nature?
Can not be that bad, it is not made out f paper....

I am stunned with the sense less waste ........
 

Old Bones

Settler
Oct 14, 2009
745
72
East Anglia
I understand that one of the big problems with clearing sites is the metal tent pegs left behind - since at Glastonbury much of the site is normally used for grazing, it can be very dangerous for the livestock.

There seems to be different ways that kit gets salvaged or reused at different festivals, but this article on Glastonbury was interesting. But this article hits the nail on the head - throwaway mentality, with tents that are cheap and shoddy enough to be thrown away, or cant be packed down easily (like those self erecting tents - its bad enough trying to put away with of those sunshades back into its bag), and thus gets abandoned. Its a bit sad really.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,294
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Old news?!

Some festivals ship the stuff out to 3rd world countries. It’s generally cheap nasty stuff that nobody wants; not least the festival goers.
Maybe old news for some, but not for me. Never been to one of those festivals. I do not do drugs, listen to bad bands from a half a mile, or enjoy camping in a field surrounded by a bunch of .......!

That the tents is gifted to the needy is apparently a myth too.
 

Billy-o

Native
Apr 19, 2018
1,981
975
Canada
You are coming across as too much the isolated dandy dentist, Janne.

Festivals are great fun, and the people there are great fun, and the bands are by and large terrific. You don't take drugs (though you say you drink like a fish), but the fact that you don't shouldn't reflect on the personal qualities of those who do. And, from your recent posts it doesn't really sound like you enjoy camping at all, what with your arthy neck, shoulder, knee etc, never mind amidst, you know, people who are likeable, conversational and out to have some fun.

The OP was about tents, not how horrible the hoi polloi are. I like your posts here a lot, but you do seem to want to outdo everyone at everything, and it does wear a person down after a while.
 
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Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,294
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
I do not drink axcept a beer now and then. Used to though. I am very strongly against drugs. I fish, yes.
Is that wrong? You drink like a fish?
Taking drugs is not reflecting on someody’s personal qualities? No, not if you think being a criminal is, as most of those drugs are illegal substances! Drugs are not cool, messes up your brain.

No, no festivals for me. I like a quiet time. Listening to birds, watching wildlife.
Yep, body is damaged, but still good enough for light camping!

I do not think it is acceptable that we waste resources like this. Not today with the knowledge we have.
The vast majority of the left stuff goes into land fills. Crazy.

In most countries we pay for each plastic bag we buy in the supermarket. Most of us recycle.
You recycle?
Is it correct to leave a mess up like that? How many plastic bags are ekvivalent to one of those tents?
We are getting a music festival next year called Kaboo.
Duran Duran. Blondie. Shaggy. Bryan Adams. Some local bands.
No tents though.
Come and enjoy the music, then you could test how to live in the bush here. But no drugs. Heavy prison sentence. Our courts do not joke.
 
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mousey

Bushcrafter (boy, I've got a lot to say!)
Jun 15, 2010
2,210
254
42
NE Scotland
Maybe you should go to the Kaboo one? - where do people stay with no tents?

A local one, admittedly not massive perhaps just a couple of hundred people, at a farm where the owner puts on free whole roast goat and pig with three or four local bands playing throughout the weekend was most enjoyable. The kids had a great time playing amongst the hay bales too.

Drink, yes.
drugs, possibly.
but everyone was happy, kind, considerate and having a good time.
Admittedly I've not been to the likes of Glastonbury so maybe the class of patrons up here are better?
 
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Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,665
McBride, BC
You ought to find a crew to recycle or even sort out the festival dross.
Must be a little money in the clean-up.

Plastic shopping bags still exist here = very heavy duty, 20% recycle and easily used a dozen+ times.
I just bought 6 well stitched heavy cloth bags, custom-printed, for $2.00 each.
Now I have matching luggage and some to give away..

The duMaurier Jazz Festival is held in the funky Gastown district, an older part, of downtown Vancouver, BC.
Two stages for performers, some 2 or 3 blocks apart and they alternate sessions all day long.
The street is closed to traffic except buses and fuzz. Park your car and join in.

Bunch of restaurant patios in between. People out to make a day of it drift back and forth.
Eat and drink all day long for several days. Time well wasted. I'll take in a day of acts when I can.
Take the Skytrain, it puts you right at one end of the event at Waterfront station!

Nobody throws _anything_ on the ground or in the street without 50 people yelling at the offender.
45 gal trash bins every 50'.
Nobody sleeps in the street at night. Not a healthy plan. Everybody goes somewhere else.
 
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Billy-o

Native
Apr 19, 2018
1,981
975
Canada
Nobody sleeps in the street at night.

Brian, when were you last in Van? Past three years there's lot more sleeping out. Not just Hastings, but all over ... Denman, 4th, Robson, Broadway everywhere .. and of course the parks which have (as ever) a regular commute coming out at 8.30 am.

Or, do you just mean drunk jazz fans don't just doze off for the night? :)
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,294
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
Those 'festival" tents, how much are they about?
UKP 40-50?

Surely it would be worth for a bunch of people to take them down, fold, place in a plastic bag and sell for UKP10?

It seems to be a such waste!
 

Old Bones

Settler
Oct 14, 2009
745
72
East Anglia
Those 'festival" tents, how much are they about?
UKP 40-50?

Surely it would be worth for a bunch of people to take them down, fold, place in a plastic bag and sell for UKP10?

Millets will do a two person tent for 25 quid, often a popup (and we know just how much fun they are to get back in the bag). And once people have put mud all over it, plus the normal detritus of living in one for a couple of days, plus the distinct possibility that its chucked it down with rain and the place is a sea of mud, the tent is sopping and someone might have drunkenly fallen all over it, would you think its worth it carefully taking it down, repacking it, etc?

So they dont - they have already written it off. Thats a shame, but its human.
 

Janne

Sent off - Not allowed to play
Feb 10, 2016
12,330
2,294
Grand Cayman, Norway, Sweden
WOW, that was cheap!!!!

No, now I understand why nobody bothers retrieving them.

What a world we live in.....
Manufacture of materials, cutting, sewing, packaging, shipping.......
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
2,665
McBride, BC
I flew into YVR once a month for 6 years. I know the downtown spreading at night from the Hotel Vancouver.
One of our staff spent most Friday nights with the back alley gang. He made up little packages of
soap, washer, tooth brush and paste and handed those out in the murkiness of those lives.
 

Billy-o

Native
Apr 19, 2018
1,981
975
Canada
Oh, I see. I wonder did I misread somewhere that you worked at SFU ... or was that the same thing

I go through there a lot, but I remember once being on the 19 bus as it went through Hastings. It was during a kind of sunshower and down one alley I glimpsed Armageddon. It can be a heartrending sight at the very best of times, but no kidding, a blast of light illuminated a squalid picture of dozens of people standing, holding themselves or others, trying to find a vein, or sitting or capering or discoursing to no one... straight out of Breughel it looked. It was the light. Not just terrifying, though certainly that, also weirdly beautiful .. sublime like, at once modern and appallingly ancient.
 
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richy3333

Full Member
Jan 23, 2017
273
101
Far north Scoootland
Maybe old news for some, but not for me. Never been to one of those festivals. I do not do drugs, listen to bad bands from a half a mile, or enjoy camping in a field surrounded by a bunch of .......!

That the tents is gifted to the needy is apparently a myth too.
Bit of a leap from tents being left to ‘everyone that goes to a festival is a junkie.’ (That’s the inference your post suggests). What sort of a bunch are ‘those people’?

What’s your term of reference for the tents/ some of them not being recycled?
 

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