travel by car



If driving to the Festival, please join us in our pledge to reduce carbon emissions by sharing lifts. Car sharing is not only better for the environment, but will also help share the cost of fuel. 

As with your Festival tickets, car park passes are non-transferable, and attempts to re-sell them may result in their cancellation. Refunds are available prior to the ticket refund deadline.

2023 car park / route overview map (click for large version).

Directions

• From south London: M3 then A303 and A37. (Sat Nav TA11 7DP).
• From Swindon: M4 then A350 onto the A361. (Sat Nav BA4 4LY).
• From the North East: A1 or M1, M25 to M3 (Junction 12), then A303 and A37. (Sat Nav TA11 7DP)
• From the Midlands: Preferably M40 and A34 to A303 and A37. (Sat Nav TA11 7DP)
• From the North West: M6, M5 to A39 (Junction 23) then A361. (Sat Nav BA6 9XE)
• From Wales: M4, M5 to A39 (as above) (Sat Nav BA6 9XE)
• For more local traffic using the A37 North or A361 East (Sat Nav BA4 4LY)

PLEASE NOTE – your satnav will not get you all the way to the Festival site but to the start of the Festival signage. Please follow the Festival signs as soon as you see those.

It is important that you approach the site on the side that you want to park. Using local roads to get to the opposite side of the site causes delays so use main roads that are well away from the site. A few extra miles travelled further away can save hours in queues near to the site. Always follow the directional signs, variable message signs and park where directed by staff.

Also please note that those who parked on the east side of the site last year had the shortest queues at the pedestrian gates and the shortest queues getting out on Monday.

Arriving/parking

Car parks will open at 9pm on the Tuesday before Glastonbury 2023, allowing Festival-goers to arrive throughout the night, when traffic volumes are low. There will, however, be no entertainment or facilities (other than toilets) in the car parks and Festival-goers will be expected to remain in their cars until the Festival gates open at 8am on Wednesday morning. Most people choose to eat locally or en-route and then arrive in the early hours.

There are four main entrances for cars, depending upon where you are coming from. Follow the P signs to get to the nearest available parking spaces. Sometimes parking staff have to fill some of the car parks further from the site before some that are closer. This is done to keep traffic moving on the public highways and keep us at peak parking capabilities for as long as possible. Parking at any time is dependent upon the traffic on the highway so you cannot plan to park in a particular parking field other than parking on the East or West side.

If you have a choice, use the Blue Route (approach from the A303, then the A37), where there is more parking space and less of a queue to get in and out of the site.

Anyone heading for the family campsite by the Acoustic field should take the Purple Route into the Festival (this is signed off the A37, follow the purple patches on the road signs).

The worst time to arrive by car is between 7am and 2pm on Wednesday. In recent years at peak times, the A39 queue to get into car parks took several hours, while it took less than an hour for those travelling on the A37.

Where you park

Most people want to park as near as possible to the pedestrian entrances (because they feel they have a lot to carry, or are old, or young, or pregnant, or ill, or just tired). Unfortunately it can’t work like that. The choice you make is which side of the site to approach from, and after that it depends which field the stewards are filling at that time. It’s really down to luck, whereabouts in the car park you end up.

Check where you are parked before you leave the car park

Use the cards provided by the AA to note the route colour and car park number. Trying to find a car amongst the thousands parked can be a nightmare. Look for the flag with the car park number and remember the position in the field. Some of the car parks are over half a km from site so be prepared to carry your kit a fair distance both in the car parks and on site.

Leaving and returning to the car park during the Festival

It is possible to leave the car park and return during the Festival. The cars are parked in rows with decent turning space in between the rows and the car pass works each time you enter.  Most likely you will be parked in a different place on your return, though.

Top tip: book your car keys into one of the free property lockups once you go through the pedestrian gate and enter the festival site – you really don’t want to lose your car keys at the festival! You can reclaim your keys anytime if you need to return to your car.

Leaving the Festival

The worst times to leave by car are on Monday between 8am and 5pm when there can be long delays of up to 9 hours to leave the car parks. Beat the queues by leaving between 1am and 7am on Monday morning – if you can get up! The Festival is doing everything possible to reduce queuing but there is only so much capacity on the roads. If you need to be anywhere on Monday leave early – and have plenty of water and food as you will queue.

When leaving the festival please be aware that journey times on the A39 back to the M5 can be a couple of hours and on the A37 to Bristol can be up to 4 hours. Over the past few years the best route for exit has been south on the A37 to the A303 and then east to the A34 for the Midlands and North or onto the M3 for London. Also consider using the A361 towards Frome and then the A350 towards Swindon to get to the M4 from there pick up routes to the Midlands North and East.

The Festival traffic plan will direct vehicles from each parking area in different directions to reduce the volume on each route.

The Festival licence runs until 5.00pm on Monday and we are expected to have cleared the car parks by that time, if possible. From 5.00pm traders and contractors start leaving the site and all the roads are clogged. We would not have security on the car parks after 5.00pm – so please plan your exit before then.

Make sure you are OK to drive. Drug driving is not a safe trip. When did you last have a drink? You see more police around the site than you do for the rest of the year. Do not risk it! Wait until you are OK – you know it makes sense.

Electric Car Charging

As a rural location, Worthy Farm has very limited capacity to offer electrical vehicle charging on site.

Just as drivers of petrol or diesel cars need to make sure they have sufficient fuel for their journey, if you are traveling to the Festival in an electric or hybrid vehicle, it is important to make sure you have sufficient battery charge for your journey.

· Please charge before you travel to site – if you have less than 50 miles charge on approach to the site, please recharge before you enter the Festival car parks, making sure you have sufficient charge to start your return journey after the Festival.

· You can use a mapping service such as zap-map.com to find charging points on your journey or close to the Farm. Please note, the village of Pilton will be stewarded to ensure resident safety which will mean any charging points shown in the village will be unavailable to general public.

· The AA will offer a limited – first come first served – emergency recovery charging facility (to members and non-members) onsite at Bronze car park only, off the A361. Emergency charging is at a fixed cost of £50 for up to an hour’s charge / 80% battery (whichever is soonest). Payment is by card only. Please note this service is for emergency use only and cannot be guaranteed, so please do charge before you arrive.

Breakdown

If you arrive on site and your car needs attention, get it sorted ASAP so it will be ready when you need to leave. On Monday all recovery services are very busy. A locksmith is situated by Bronze Gate if you lose your keys or lock them in your car.

For AA Service at Glastonbury, ring their dedicated Festival hotline on 0330 053 0338.  Special rates apply for non-members who wish to join and receive immediate service.  Also, AA staff will be in East 9, off Purple Route, and at Bronze Gate in West 32 throughout the week, and the AA’s dedicated Key Assist vehicles will be on site from Saturday.

People with disabilities

Unless you are pre-registered for the accessible car park, people with a Blue Badge should display the badge clearly next to their official festival parking ticket when entering the public car parks and Stewards will direct you to the forward parking (this may still be some distance from the gates). All festival goers needing parking will need an official parking ticket.

If you have further enquiries regarding disabled access and transport please refer to the Festival’s Access information.

Cars and climate change

CO2 is the main cause of climate change and arguably the single biggest pollution threat that humankind faces today. Road transport accounts for around 25% of Britain’s emissions. The least polluting cars emit around 100g of C02 per km, while the most polluting emit around 520g. The main ways to cut emissions are to drive less, reduce fuel use by choosing more fuel-efficient vehicles and by car-sharing wherever possible.

Traffic news

Check out the Festival website and Twitter account for the latest travel news. Once within range (about 10 miles) tune into Worthy FM on 87.7 FM – it’s good for traffic news both when you arrive and when you leave – and listen in to the morning show each day to find out what is happening on site.

Improvements

The Festival team have worked hard over the years to improve access and egress, aided by the addition of numerous roads and tracks, and changes to layouts to reduce congestion. We are still parking on farmland and will be subject to weather conditions, but going forward we have a more robust operation than we have ever had to cope with what mother nature throws at us.

Back to top