Glastonbury, Volume One: Camping

First off, I was ill-prepared for how big this festival is and the volumes of material it would inspire for this blog. I'm going to have to cover this over a few days, so consider this a multi-parter that should hopefully cover all you need to know about attending a festival. Although Glastonbury is not my first, it is the biggest UK festival and is the most awesomest (yes that's a word.)

Right, camping up first.

To start, and I can’t stress this enough: camp with people you really like.

I repeat: camp with people you REALLY LIKE.

As there are a total of 8 showers for a campground of 175,000 people, chances are you won’t be getting more than a splash of water from your water bottles if the taps haven’t run dry (which they did at one point). Ensure that your camping styles are similar and that you can tolerate these people in times of stress and discomfort (their and yours). As you can see, I have selected long time camp mates Eco Black Belt and her boyfriend, Outdoors Man. She can kick your ass with just her thumbs and he could survive on 2 pieces of string in a desert (probably). So, they make an excellent choice.

OK, that covered, it’s time to find a location.

It's critical to your enjoyment of the festival to set yourself up in a decent spot. For different people, this means different things. If you want to be as close as possible to the action, camping in the first designated camping areas by the footpaths nearest to the stages is IT. However, these areas get so overcrowded you can feasibly wake up to find your back hurting from the tent pegs of your neighbour's tent you are now sleeping on top of. (I'm dead serious: see picture below). Though you will avoid the long schlep back to the darkness of the fields further back, you will need to arrive very early to get these spots. Like gates-open-2 days-before-festival kind of early. Worthy Farm covers 1100 acres and that’s fucking massive when you are trying to run between stages to catch your favourite stars. Over the weekend, we each walked well over 20 miles.

Beware though, a pitch in the heart of it means that people are trudging past your tent 24 hours a day. Almost everyone (not any of our party, obviously) will throw a little garbage as they go from the snacks they’ve grabbed on the move – garbage bins are too few and almost all are full anyway. So be warned, if you camp by a walkway you may wake up with the stench of a half eaten plate of falafel.However, some lebanese take away smells are not the only problems with pitching here. Nope. You'll find that some people will shuffle quietly on their way past your spot, but most will drunkenly stomp and dance past while belting out the songs from the latest act they have just watched. Indeed, some will take the opportunity to piss on your tent and some will even throw up on it. Worse still, your tent has the lowest security factor and anything you leave there has a less than average chance of still being there when you get back.

In those characteristically Glasto muddy years, your tent could be flooded out as the closest tent pitches to event stages lay in the middle of the valley. The picture below is from the infamous 2005 festival. And remember, this is normally a dairy farm and the flooded ground is full of whatever cows leave behind, mixed with water and the waste of the fellow campers who we have established have questionable waste management concepts. Yep, that's why high ground should be considered.Even in dry years you have the dust to contend with. And it covers everything. Fortunately Eco Black Belt formed a solo advance party and set up camp for us on Wednesday and selected a pitch that was fabulous: away from the wetter areas, not next to a walkway and not next to the loos. The site met with approval from all of us, particularly Outdoors Man. Behind him is the full vista of the festival.So, having settled yourself on a pitch further away, but more secure and less grotty you’d think that’s the last of your troubles.. right?

Uh no.

See, whilst you won’t have the worry of passers by to taint your experience, you will still have neighbours. And close ones at that. Below is our old red tent on the left, and Eco Black Belt and Outdoors Man’s blue one on the right. See them? See that nice clean area in front of ours? Yes, we are those people. The Tidy Campers.

Now, zoom in and see how close our neighbours are and what kind of filthy tossers we shared a space with for 4 nights. They were the pill-popping, party all night, come back super late and be really loud types. And yes, we found a pot noodle cup of urine in our area. Sigh. Keep calm and carry on, right?At the end of the week, we dilligently followed the Love The Farm - Leave No Trace ethos that event organiser Michael Eavis promoted after one of his cows died from eating a tent peg left in the ground. See? Nothing left behind. .....aaaaaand here's what the younger people on one side felt was appropriate to leave behind for someone else to clear up. Yes, that's a chair and a saucepan you can see in the picture. The fire was kept alight some nights with a selection of plastic objects. Charming. It's a shame people like this aren't held responsible...
Right - that's the first chapter... stay tuned for more on food, fashion and yeah - music!