The past ten years has seen an explosion of festivals, large and small, across the globe. With everything from goat-herding to javelin throwing offered on the billboard.
The past ten years has seen an explosion of festivals, large and small, across the globe. With everything from goat-herding to javelin throwing offered on the billboard. And with numbers of attendants sky-rocketing each year, despite increased tickets prices and a dire economic situation, I don’t think there is much need to give reasons to attend, we’re pretty much all going. But of course I’ve decided you need a little more convincing…
BANDS
Yep, they’re supposed to be the main reason for attendance, but I have recently noticed a growing number of unusual sorts who buy tickets with no idea who will be performing there. That’s just ridiculous! Of course sometimes, the bands may be fighting for attention against fairground rides and getting completely pissed, but without them a festival wouldn’t be a festival.
Whatsmore, a festival is the best opportunity to go see bands you would never otherwise see. I know personally I am not an avid follower of 80s punk but I have been spotted, on occasion, head-banging along with the best of the mullets and purple mohawks.
I mean, name somewhere else would you turn up, and watch both Eminem and Girls Aloud perform in the same day. And you know what? Discover they compliment each other perfectly!
COMMERCIALISATION
Yes commercialisation is the bogey man of all self-respecting indie anarchists and festival-goers, but I have learned that it is possible to hate why they do it but also make the most out of what they’re peddling. Some may call it hypocrisy. I myself call it ‘living in the real world’, and in my real world I enjoy returning to my tent with bottles of free sun-cream, packets of jelly babies and enough pot noodles to feed me for the whole weekend. In fact, I have been known to return home with a larger backpack than the one with which I left.
WEATHER AND EXPENSE
Oh boo hoo, the weather was bad, it rained all weekend. My wellies got wet AND mucky! If you don’t like it don’t go to a festival in the UK, that don’t mean there ain’t 100 more festivals you could go to and run around in shiny, clean wellies ’til your hearts content.
And it don’t have to cost you an arm and a leg. European festivals are often half the price, if not more, than their UK counterparts, have weather that could lead to possible sunstroke, and some of the best settings in the world. But if sunbleached beaches and turquoise waters ain’t your thing…
LIFE EXPERIENCES
You know what? We aren’t our parents or grandparents generation. We have never lived on rations, or been forced to join the Boy Scouts or GIrl Guides and live outside tying knots and sleeping in tents in the forest. Instead we go to festivals, where we learn to live like a homeless person, scrounging and begging whilst there. We steal abandoned wellies from outside tents, sleep in spite of that single drop of water hitting us in the face all night long, discover a pop-up tent will always leak, and overall live an illusionary, out-doorsy lifestyle for a weekend. If our grandparents had had to swim across a newly erupted muddy river after a hard days drinking in order to reach their tent I doubt they’d have complained half as much about the war!
MEMORIES
Everyone has their festival memories, often too gruesome to even be repeated to friends outside those who experienced it, but that’s part of the fun. These memories will bring tears to the eyes ten years down the line and will never be forgotten. The first time a friend fell half naked out of a portaloo, the moment of horror when you wonder whether you drank a bottle of wine or pee…
Ahhh memories.
WRISTBANDS
We all know we want one, and you can’t get it unless you go! So how the hell are you gonna hook your next boyfriend/girlfriend unless you can unveil a gloriously multicoloured forearm of cotten wristbands, each one screaming your coolness for all the world to see?
