Having a Bad Glasto? That’s even harder than getting in

I was thinking, this year, of doing a Bad Glastonbury report. Just me wandering around the festival, taking pictures of people having a less than brilliant time, perhaps doing the odd interview with them.

“What’s wrong?” I would ask, and the answer would be “I’ve lost my mates” or “I’ve lost my tent” or “I’ve lost my mind” or “nngggggghhhhlffb”. There might be tears. There might – I’ve done this – be a moment where the badness of your Glastonbury means you have to curl up on the ground on top of your waterproof jacket, while thousands of people dance to Firestarter around your head.

But I’m not sure there’s a market for Bad Glastonbury. When you’re there, even if you’re mid-Bad Glasto, if you grab a quick nap under a trestle table and neck a bag of Haribo, you’ll soon be up and at them, out there among the happy hordes, bumping from one unexpectedly excellent encounter to another.

Having a good time at Glastonbury is easy. This is partly because tickets are expensive and hard to come by, so everyone is on a fun-time mission, but it’s also because Glastonbury is designed so there is always something interesting going on.

Desperate for some art-whale music-ambient sound-bathing? Try the Tree Stage. Want some hardcore sexy good times dancing? Off you go to NYC Downlow. At the Flying Bus, at 2am, Phil from Orbital is DJing. At the Crow’s Nest, it’s a chat-and-bounce-up-and-down vibe. Or you could try to locate the secret Underground Piano Bar, or print a T-shirt while learning about climate change or dance under an enormous metal spider with lasers shooting out of its eyes. (Yes, I have done all of these things. I am a reporter.)

The other reason for the lack of market for Bad Glastonbury is that the only people allowed to moan about it are the people who aren’t going. Over the past decade, the dedicated BBC and newspaper coverage has given Glastonbury the status of a royal coronation, or Wimbledon. What started as an alternative CND fundraiser has somehow become the best of British, and Glastonbury is only allowed to be the greatest ever event, the most amazing week of the year, the UK’s party of all parties. The only permissible counter to that is from the stay-at-home crew, grumbling about how camping is never the answer, making jokes about “I’m going to recreate the festival experience by sitting in a compost heap while my toddler hits me over the head and plays gabba house at 3am”.

Bad Glastonbury or No Glastonbury, I’ve been to a lot of festivals, and it’s a fact that Glastonbury is the best. It’s not just because it’s the biggest, though that helps. It’s because of how much there is to do and how little it has to do with who’s on the main stages. There are strange encounters at all turns. It’s an adult theme park, a continual big night out. All the best big nights begin communal and end up individual, you starting the evening with your mates and then going off on your own particular adventure, maybe with one or two others, a mad rollercoaster fun quest to be told to friends when you bump into them at 4.30am somewhere in the Healing Fields on the way to the Stone Circle. “We met a man with a magic duck!” “We did a limbo dance under flaming kebabs!” “We invented a world without money!”

We could discuss the weather and the line-up, but why bother? Glastonbury is bigger and better than both. I’ve done it in the sun and the mud, and it’s a lot easier in the sun (you can sit on the ground, for a start), but it’s not impossible when it’s raining. Rain can add hilarity. I had a row with my then boyfriend during a muddy Glastonbury (2007, I think). He attempted to flounce, to make his point, but could only do it in slo-mo, his boots sticking with every step, pulling out of the mud with a sllluurrrp. It still makes me laugh.

Of course, there have been huge performances over the years, and I imagine Charli xcx/Doechii/Kneecap will be among them this year - but you can spend four days there, see two unmemorable bands on teeny stages and still come back thinking “that was the best yet”. Glastonbury isn’t about the headliners. That’s what makes it different. There is no reason to go to Reading Festival unless you want to see whoever is on; Primavera in Barcelona is a brilliant three days because the set-up makes it easy for you to see the amazing bands (Primavera has the best line-ups). But Glastonbury? Honestly, it doesn’t matter. The big bands are for the red buttoners at home.

What Glastonbury is about are the random moments, the sing-songs with friendly strangers, the odd-bod conversations with people you’d never usually meet, the unexpected performances stumbled upon by accident. A lot of people go everywhere in a group, with every moment of their day planned out in a schedule, but there’s a delight in wandering around on your own, exploring without an agenda, talking to whoever you encounter in the higher fields – higher in all senses. That’s my preferred Glastonbury.

Of course, Bad Glastonbury does exist, and I’m here, like your sensible mate, the one who brought plasters and a phone charger and a light scarf for wind and sun protection, to say that Glastonbury is fantastic, but it isn’t perfect. Though the site has increased in size over the past decade, it now holds 210,000 fun-seekers (about 50,000 more than 20 years ago) and, when you’re there, you can find yourself in situations where that number is several thousand too many. Trying to get from the Pyramid to the Other Stage at 9.30pm. Attempting to walk along the train track short cut to Shangri-La at 1am. So… maybe don’t do that.

To come over all Good Glastonbury for a moment, we are great at festivals in the UK. It’s what we do. We’re stoic about weather, we’re funny, we like to dance and we’re good at getting wasted. We’re excellent at leaving our ordinary lives behind and jumping deep into a hedonistic alternative. That’s why people go to Glastonbury, because something will happen and it will be very far away from your everyday existence. At some point, you will look out over the fields and the people and the tents and the stages and you will feel as though humans might still be a good thing, as long as they’re making music and making merry. Each Glastonbury has a special never-again of-the-moment magic. And if you’re having a Bad Glastonbury, come to me. I’ll talk to you about random stuff and, yep, I’ll have Haribo.

Photograph by Jim Dyson/Redferns