The excellent Galtres Festival announces further enhancements and a number of initiatives to hopefully cope with the worst of the weather if need be. Read on…..

Last year was a cracking festival with a brilliant programme, but the extreme weather made it tough, particularly on the Friday. There were delays getting in, problems parking, and the site got seriously muddy.

We're hoping for sunshine this year - we all deserve it. But we're planning for the same conditions again or, dare we say, even worse. We learned a great deal from last year, and have listened to your suggestions. We've networked with other festivals and event organisers, worked more closely with the licensing authority's Safety Advisory Group, and have come up with a set of contingency plans which we are pretty confident will mitigate the consequences of severe weather (including using more trackway). We can't promise you won't get wet, but we do expect that you'll be able to park more quickly and get about the site more easily, adding to your enjoyment.

Weather Contingency

Festival organisers have set out their plans for weather contingency this year; to ensure that if we get a repeat of last year's deluge they're better prepared.

Explained festival director James Houston: "Now this year we're due some decent sunshine, but our planning is for the worst possible conditions. We had a tough time coping with the consequences of torrential rain last year, and we've learned a lot of lessons from that. Both to improve safety, and your enjoyment of the event, we thought you'd like to know about some of the measures we will be implementing:

Trackway - to make it easier for people and vehicles to move around. Especially useful for pushchairs and wheelchairs - please give them priority around the arena.

New parking field - we've rented a new field immediately adjacent to Crayke Lane - it's the one on the other side of the road from the arena. It's big, well-drained, and more suitable for our parking needs. There will be trackway at the entrances to facilitate vehicular access.

Dedicated traffic management team - last year the gate stewards didn't cope too well with the parking problems and traffic congestion, so this year we've brought in a team of traffic management professionals to make sure this runs much more smoothly. Objectives are customer safety and reducing congestion - we aim to get you into and out of the festival much more quickly, so you can spend more time enjoying the programme. We've had to increase the ticket price a bit to cover this and other measures, but we hope you'll agree it's money well spent.

New stewarding and security - we went out to tender this year for a new security provider, and have appointed the one we consider to be the best in the industry - Showsec. They have an excellent reputation, and come with the endorsement of many colleagues whose judgement we can reply on. Similarly our decision to use the highly experienced Green Stewards team should greatly improve the quality of the stewarding service. We'll make sure they are better-briefed and far more helpful than some were last year.

Better communications - we'll be better set-up to communicate this year, both between the different teams managing the event, with you the public, and with external agencies. Examples include manual fire alarms in camping fields, and SMS messaging to attendees with programme updates and safety announcements.

"As well as rain and mud, we're preparing also for the possibility of high winds, or a heatwave! Extensive safety and contingency planning means we're confident that whatever the heavens throw at us, we can take. Bring it on!!"

Camping

The caravan and campervan field will be accessible directly from Crayke Lane, via trackway - last year's location was difficult to navigate to, given the conditions. It will be bigger with more hook-ups.

There will be more buses connecting the Peel Park campsite with the arena - a dedicated service every 30 minutes, more often at peak times

There will be better facilities at Peel Park - we're planning a bus shelter, morning catering, and better security

The Mosswood camping area will be extended so more of you can fit in.

We've also introduced a new large tent size, recognising that some modern family tents are pretty big!

There will be more caterers this year, including an additional wood-fired pizza supplier.

Catering

We've organised better arrangements for getting food supplies to caterers while the festival is running, so they don't run out

We're introducing new checks on food provenance, to ensure the caterers really do use local producers and FairTrade supplies - with financial penalties if they don't. For us local food sourcing doesn't mean getting tins from the local cash & carry - it means buying direct from famers in producers in the immediate area.

Improved checks on food hygiene and health & safety will be implemented, to make sure the quality of the food supplied is at a premium. Not that it's been a problem previously!

Roads and Transportation

Crayke Lane closure - the road running parallel to the festival site - will be closed to through traffic this year while the festival is running. This will reduce congestion and increase the safety of pedestrians using the road. It means people arriving at the festival by car will need to display their windscreen pass to get in. Click on the 'download' link lower down this page for traffic route details.

Dedicated traffic management team 24x7 - a team of traffic management professionals will be managing the roads and parking fields around the festival, keeping traffic moving and preventing roadside parking which can cause blockages. Also a tow-zone will be in place on Crayke Lane - any vehicles which ignore the 'no waiting' cones will be towed away.

Trackway to get cars quickly off the road into parking fields. Entrances and exits to parking fields will be by solid trackway, to make it much easier for cars to get into and out of the parking fields if it's muddy.

Reduced dependence on tractors - a combination of the use of trackway and also winches to tow any vehicles stuck in mud will reduce our dependence on tractors. Wonderful though they are at pulling vehicles, they exacerbate the mud.

More buses - we are laying on extra buses this year, both to get people to the festival site, and to connect with the offsite camping areas and with Easingwold. For details click here.

Speed restriction on Crayke Lane for a week either side of the festival - this will make it much safer while we set up and take down the festival, as well as while it is running.

Read more on Galtres 2012 HERE.