Paid stewarding work still available for Glasto - Registration closes in 2 DAYS!

[ollie123]

Big Choice are still recruiting for Glastonbury. If you want to work and haven't managed to get your hands on a ticket yet head over to:

http://thebigchoice.com/Jobs/BigChoi.../30018251.html
Affiliate code removed by admin.

Details are as follows:

Type: Temporary
Duration: Temporary
Salary: £6.50 plus wristband plus camping.
No. Jobs: 90
Location: Glastonbury
Deadline: 22nd Apr 2011

Good luck! Ollie

[Bell Boy]

Just a general question on the working stuff.

Is it possible for anyone who works at the festival to use their campervan or do you have to camp?

Want to work there one year but too used to the creature comforts to become a vinyl nomad!

[ollie123]

It depends on the company I think - when I've worked before we've always camped, so I would phone up and check beforehand!

[Roo]

Just had a look at this! The vast majority of stewarding is carried out by charities who arrange volunteers to come work shifts in return for entry to the festival - money the charity gets paid then is 'donated' by the worker to the charity. Many charities are involved in this, most notably oxfam & greenpeace and it raises a lot of money for them. They both have pretty established procedures for volunteering and many volunteer again and again often meaning opportunities for new people to volunteer do not materialise very often or for very long.

Whilst reading the blurb, it does seem that it is mainly car park stewarding being offered here - as few will volunteer to stand around in fields directing traffic miles from the festival. All onsite stewarding is by the charities.

Also, reading that -
Festival wristbands will be issued from Thursday 23rd at 2000hrs for those completing their day shift and from Friday 24th at 0800hrs for those completing their night shift. Lost or damaged wristbands cannot be replaced.

&

All employees must be available on site for a briefing on the evening of Monday 20th June. All employees must be available to work from Tuesday 21st to Monday 29th inclusive. You will be working at least two days over the festival period (Fri/Sat/Sun).

Again does make it sound quite an unattractive offer. With only one day off to enjoy the festival at the weekend, and not getting tickets until the Thursday night/friday morning but having to be there from Monday with no promise of actual shifts and no entry to the festival site, I imagine you would be expected to camp outside the perimeter.

I've never worked for these guys, and don't exactly know their relationship with the festival, but they do seem to be taking the proverbial a little! Though can imagine for those who are desperate to attend the festival, even if only for one day, and earn minimum wage for the few shifts they will get over the week (no mention of being fed or anything either!) they will get plenty applying. Just hope that people who do it aren;t going to be as disappointed as I would be in this!

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Bell boy - in answer to your question, it really does depend on what role and who you work for whether they can provide space for a campervan and a pass for it too. I've luckily found out a crew I worked/volunteered for a few years ago can provide me with necessary passes, but I do have a history of working for them and have also volunteered to arrive early and stay late to help them out too. I doubt every volunteer would get such a pass, the first couple of years I did with them I was in a nylon nightmare and am very grateful that they can spare a pass for me these days!

[ollie123]

Last Summer I worked at four festivals, including Glastonbury, for other companies including DCSS and Green Stewards.

You always have to go for a longer period, but it's cool just hanging out with your friends and meeting new people.

As a student, £6.50 an hour is not to be sniffed at either! You get to go for free, get well paid, discounted food and have loads of fun!

For me, it's a win-win. Though I'm not gonna complain if there's one less person applying for the positions..!

[Roo]

Errrrm! Ollie - declaration of interests request please! You wouldn;t by any chance be a Big Choice Rep? Being paid the lowly rate of £1 for every 3 students you get to register on that site?

http://www.thebigchoice.com/Jobs/Big.../30002965.html

It's just that all your bit.ly links are registered to a user called BigChoiceReps http://bit.ly/u/bigchoicereps and appear to be solely links pimping work at festivals?

[ollie123]

I do work for Big Choice representing them, but I wouldn't say I'm spamming because it's real and I believe of interest to people on this forum!

I'm sure there's a lot of other people who too could not afford a ticket and therefore something like this is a great opportunity.

[Roo]

Last Summer I worked at four festivals, including Glastonbury, for other companies including DCSS and Green Stewards.

You always have to go for a longer period, but it's cool just hanging out with your friends and meeting new people.

So never actually via Big Choice? Also, yup it is cool to hang out and make new friends, just seems a shame that most of the hanging out will be in the car parks.

As a student, £6.50 an hour is not to be sniffed at either! You get to go for free, get well paid, discounted food and have loads of fun!

Indeed £6.50 may well be a reasonable rate for students and quite tempting. But if you do have to be there from the Monday to the following Tuesday and aren't given a great deal of shifts it can mean a daily rate of well below what could be reasonably expected.

Discounted food? Guess that's something, as long as they don;t try the ol' meal ticket voucher - which very few of the food stalls other than burger vans accept. (though if it is a goose hall ticket - Yum!)


Call me cynical, it just seems a little odd that a rep from Big Choice is pimping their agency and details of work that can be expected are being slightly glossed over.

[Roo]

I do work for Big Choice representing them, but I wouldn't say I'm spamming because it's real and I believe of interest to people on this forum!

I'm sure there's a lot of other people who too could not afford a ticket and therefore something like this is a great opportunity.

Apologies if I did accuse of spamming, maybe not a great choice of words, I was only after you to openly declare your interests in being paid to get people to sign up to bigchoice. Which would have been easy enough to have declared openly and honestly.

[akicif]

It's not strictly true to say that all the "inside" stewarding is through the charities only: there's SIA work, too: admittedly, that's more like security than stewarding.

I've not heard of the other paid stewarding companies closing registration yet, although Stuart Security, who I worked for in 2008 and indirectly with in 2007 look as if they're about to fill up: http://www.stuartsecurity.co.uk/steward_app_form.html

They're not actually bad folk to work with, but rather than repost what I've said about them before, I'll just mention that it's somewhere in this section of the forums....

[Roo]

admittedly, that's more like security than stewarding.

Which I believe is more like actual work than stewarding, probably better than £6.50 an hour too! I will have a look for what you've said elsewhere here, though imagine it is much more like a regular shift pattern with little time off to enjoy the festival whilst the volunteering is often a fixed number of shifts and some time off over the weekend. Most 'volunteer' positions will be expected to miss at least one of the main fri/sat/sun evenings, working properly main mean missing all headline slots I suspect.

[Bell Boy]

------

Bell boy - in answer to your question, it really does depend on what role and who you work for whether they can provide space for a campervan and a pass for it too. I've luckily found out a crew I worked/volunteered for a few years ago can provide me with necessary passes, but I do have a history of working for them and have also volunteered to arrive early and stay late to help them out too. I doubt every volunteer would get such a pass, the first couple of years I did with them I was in a nylon nightmare and am very grateful that they can spare a pass for me these days!
[/QUOTE]

Roo, thanks for the info, i was expecting to have to buy a campervan pass in the normal way, do you know if having a ticket through any agency is then registered with SEE tickets so that i'd be able to buy a van pass seperately? - last question, are workers allowed to stay anywhere or do they have to be in some allocated area for their agency?

all of this is at least 2 years away from happening so who knows what it will be like then! Cheers

[akicif]

No, Stuart are quite rigorous about time off: one shift on, four off, no swapping sessions (although you can swap between teams when you sign up): the first one starts at about eight on Wednesday morning, the next at four, then midnight and so on until about eight on Monday morning (shifts are counted as eight hours, but that's in position - travel time between camp and where you work can be half an hour). There are normally five groups, and team A start their sceond shift when team E finish their first - this means everyone gets an early, a late and a night.

The stewarding is either on the gates, or on the perimeter fence - which is better than you'd expect: you can often hear one of the stages, and the area's teeming with wildlife.

Also, you get your wristband more or less on arrival, so you can wander into the site on the Tuesday as soon as you've had your briefing.

But I'm probably repeating what's here: http://forum.glastowatch.co.uk/worki...=2010#post2010

[Roo]

Roo, thanks for the info, i was expecting to have to buy a campervan pass in the normal way, do you know if having a ticket through any agency is then registered with SEE tickets so that i'd be able to buy a van pass seperately?

No, you wouldn't be able to do this, 'volunteer' or 'staff' tickets would not be handled by See in any way shape or form. Though if you knew others that were buying tickets, I suppose they could then buy one for your use

last question, are workers allowed to stay anywhere or do they have to be in some allocated area for their agency?

Usually staff or volunteers are allocated to stay in a particular area. The 'jobs' being quoted by Ollie here do seem to indicate that their camping area would be outside the main festival if they won't be receiving wristbands until thursday/friday but be expected to be there from Monday.
Usually any group you volunteered for would expect you to camp in their allocated crew camping area (and these are often slightly better than 'punter' camping due to cleaner toilets & shower facilities). But this would be dependent on which group you volunteered/worked for.

I'd do a bit of research into what sort of role you would see yourself as doing and who to approach as many positions are competed for. Some volunteer coordinators may not wish to offer a position to someone who may seem a bit soft & needy in requiring campervan pass/accomodation, when the hope would be that they were going work hard and prove to have few demands on the coordinators whilst at the festival. I think if I was an unknown in regard to the team I am going to be working with my requests for a campervan pass would have met with a no-way, though as I have had a few years experience with them, and even held a supervisory role previously, they were more than happy to fulfill my request.

[Glasto-worker]

this guy ollie123 does get about - check out his latest twist

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/thr...aid-and-unpaid!