Tips for the Glastonbury Festival
Making the Most of a Trip to the UK's Greatest Summer Music Event
This is no ordinary music festival, it's a way of life for six days in June. Even experienced festival-goers can benefit from some advice in getting the most out of it.
The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts site is big. To see just how big, read The Annual Glastonbury Festival.
When to Travel
Although the site opens to the public on the Wednesday and stays open until Monday, the Festival ‘officially’ starts at Friday lunchtime and finishes on Sunday night. Traditionally the busiest time to travel is the Thursday, but in 2007 Wednesday was busiest, with most people arriving early to enjoy an extended holiday. It also means Thursday arrivals can struggle to find good camping spots.
Camping
Try to avoid camping at the bottom of hills as they are more likely to flood in heavy rain. You may also want to think about pitching your tent near a path or roadway. Although you may get more disturbed at night, it'll be easier to find your tent at the end of the day. It's also less likely to get fallen on.
With 177,000 people on 1,000 acres there are a lot of similar looking tents. There isn't an organised campsite in the traditional sense of the word, tents are pitched wherever they fit so your guy ropes may need to come down to give someone more room.
Many people choose flags to help find their tents – the more distinctive the better. National flags and rainbow-coloured ones saying ‘Peace’ abound, so think about a children’s balloon instead, perhaps of a fish or a bird or anything else noticeable from a distance. Remember also that you'll have to find it in the dark so bright, flourescent colours are good.
What to Take
Travel light. Some people wheel trolleys rather than carry a rucksack but they tend to get stuck in the grass. In 2007, the Glastonbury organisers encouraged visitors to leave spare camping gear so it could be collected and donated to charity afterwards. You can buy anything you wish on site, so you could arrive with just the clothes on your back, buy everything there and then leave it behind for charitable uses afterwards.
The car parking fields are enormous. Dependent on how far away you are, it can take 2 hours just to get to the entrance gates. Lots of people carry crates of beer and food as well as their camping gear, but that’s a heavy load to carry for a long time, especially when bars, cafes and shops are so plentiful and not too expensive.
Make life easy on yourself and look after the environment - go easy on the toiletries.
Use bleach-based disposable cleansing wipes for the toilet seats, facial and body cleansing wipes for yourself, anti-bacterial hand gel, a dry disposable toothbrush and toothpaste kit and forget about washing and drying your hair. It’ll be fine for a few days and you’ll appreciate not having to queue for showers. It also gives you more time to enjoy yourself.
After all, will anyone really care what you look like?
Preparing for the Weather
If it’s sunny make sure you have shades, sun block and a hat – Glastonbury Festival has big skies which can lead to some serious sunburn when you’re out all day. If it’s wet, you’ll desperately want dry clothes to change into so bring plenty of plastic bags to keep spare clothes dry.
There's also lots more advice on the official Glastonbury Festival website which is well worth checking out before you go. Final piece of advice? Ignore all this, relax, chill out and enjoy it.
