The Glade

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Glade Festival
Location(s) Aldermaston, England
Years active 2004 - present
Founded by
Date(s) Weekend mid July (Fri/Sat/Sun)
Genre(s) Electronic music, Dance music, Intelligent dance music, Psytrance, Ambient music, Breakbeat.
Website gladefestival.com

The Glade is an electronic dance music festival which originally started out as a stage at Glastonbury Festival. The annual festival takes place in England for three days in the summer and attracted around 13,000 people in 2005. The festival's home for the first three years has been the Wasing Estate, adjoining Aldermaston near Newbury in Berkshire[1].

In 2007 the event was held at the Wasing Estate for the fourth consecutive year, from the 20th to the 22nd of July. The licence application suffered an early setback when it was dismissed on a technicality[2][3][4]. The licence application then suffered further setbacks[5] resulting in a delay in tickets going on sale, until on 18th April 2007 the mailing list announced "The Glade Festival is on for 2007... 100% licensed by those wonderful people in power!"

The festival had formerly featured nine main dance tents and stages: Main "Glade" Dance Tent (major artists), Breaksday (UK breakbeat), idSpiral (chillout and non-musical acts), Liquid Connective (psy-trance), Origin (psy-trance), Sancho Panza (house), Pussy Parlure (soul, salsa, R&B, reggae and world), Overkill (formerly the LittleBig tent, featuring breakcore, gabber techno and mash-up) and the Rabbit Hole (acoustic jam tent).

However, the main dance tent was scrapped for the 2007 event and replaced by a new open air stage for predominantly live acts and two smaller tents comprising a techno tent (Vapor) and the Roots Tent, which is themed on the origins of dance music[6][7]. There was also a new space called the Nectar Temple, comprising visionary and performance arts [8].

The Glade features many acts that are well known in the 'alternative dance' world. Some notable performers include:

Some festivalgoers in 2005 complained about an increase in petty crime compared to 2004, some of which was attributed to a high level of gatecrashers breaching the perimeter fence. 2006 prompted yet more criticism from some festival goers, after the use of two security companies caused a number of reports of them being heavy-handed.[10][11]

2007 saw heavy rain that threatened to close the festival, local roads and villages were flooded and closed. The Overkill tent was initially cancelled on the first day of the festival due to the stage being submerged under 2ft of water. However, organiser Ned Overkill described in some detail how the crew dug trenches and built dams to salvage the stage: "Little diggers turned up, water pumps were suddenly sucking all the shit out of our dancefloor, and the soundcrew rebuilt their PA on the stage."[12]

Sound levels at Glade 2007 were perceived by a number of festivalgoers to be inadequate, particularly in the Overkill tent, due to strict noise regulations in the licensing conditions. The organisers had relied on special Funktion One Ambisonic noise-cancelling technology to enable high volume levels within a restricted soundfield, while complying with the regulations outside of the soundfield. Unfortunately, Glade organiser Nick Ladd said the tent that had been intended to be used for the Overkill had been damaged at an earlier event and the replacement was too small to enable the Ambisonic rigs to be used.[13]

The 2008 dates have been announced to be Friday 18 July to Sunday 20 July.[14]

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