I recently had a very pleasant conversation with Julie White, Accor’s chief commercial officer for premium, midscale and economy brands in Europe and North Africa.
Our discussion topic was Accor’s Ibis family of brands’ 50th anniversary. Expect an an article on Hotel News Now about the milestone very soon.
The person who set the call up from a public-relations company was on the call, too, and she said she was off to the Glastonbury Rock Festival.
As you read this, there will be thousands and thousands of tired but happy music fans leaving the site in Worthy Farm, Pilton, Somerset, in the west of England.
White lives in Somerset, too, she said, and if the wind is in the right direction, her village will certainly hear the festival's bass speakers.
White added that Accor's Ibis brands are offering free showers to Glastonbury fans following the end of the event.
I see online that this is on a first-come, first-served basis, and there are a limited number of slots in those hotels in which the offer is relevant. But it is still a genuinely nice gesture and excellent marketing for brands that pride themselves on their affordability and comfort.
The hotels might get a break this year. Usually, there is a day or two in which Glastonbury resembles a hippopotamus’ bathtime, lashing rain and 400,000 feet quickly turning the site into a quagmire.
This year, though, after an early spring in which spring never seemed to arrive, the forecast calls for pleasant weather, albeit with a chance of rain late on Friday night.
There are legendary photos of Glastonbury-goers trying not to get mud-caked. Then, when realizing such precautions are folly, revelers enjoy the muck with the wild, carefree abandon, soon resembling primeval bog-dwellers.
There is definitely the chance this year that the sun will shine, something the climatologists might put down to climate change.
It seems to me that over the last few years June has been the nicest month for warm weather — that is, until the end of June when Glastonbury and the rain meet again.
An Accor representative told newspaper Bristol World — Bristol is the nearest city to the festival site — that “Glastonbury is famous for the best music and mud in the world!” Hence the idea for the offer of free showers.
It is also possible to book one of a limited number of accommodation offerings at the festival site itself, which I am sure come with some facilities for attendees to remain as presentable as possible. Although I assume remaining central to the “experience” is bringing in your own tent and hoping it does not swim away on a rivulet of downpour.
I have gone to Glastonbury, and it did rain in the year I was there, a solid downpour during a headline set by The Cure.
Tickets were £17 for the three-day event; today, tickets are £355 ($451), plus a £5 booking fee, which sell out in minutes.
The Bank of England’s inflation calculator states that £17 from the year I attended is now worth £49.23. Sixty-thousand people attended the year I did, so the festival is far bigger today.
It resembles a small city, most of the acts playing I have never heard of, which is the way it should be. And once the last music note of the festival sounds, the organization for the next year’s festival begins.
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