Apr 22: Glastonbury

Glastonbury is a sensory experience... and one that everyone should have sometime in their life, although it's pot luck if you try to get a ticket when they go on general sale. Having said that 2026 is a rest year. Tickets for 2027 will come out towards the end of the year, and will be quite pricy.

However, I went as one of the many people who are given a ticket each year in return for working part of the time in some way - whether as part of the preparation, the festival itself, or the clean-up afterwards (which is a story in itself). 

This was back in 2010. It was the 40th anniversary year, and a 'dry year' with no rain, and plenty of sunshine. Apparently it was 2019 before that happened again.

In previous years, the site had flooded as it occupies a huge area, some of which is fairly low-lying, although it is surrounded by higher land, such as where the big GLASTONBURY letters are located above the Park Stage area.

Mission:Explore had a summer of festivals that year, including Latitude that year. I travelled down to the festival with Tom Morgan Jones, and we eventually found the correct entrance gate and car park, and then had to walk down through the main festival gates to find our accommodation location. This required a special wristband to access as it was not in the main Festival area.

I've also had another brush with the festival. I was travelling back from Cornwall some years later, and our train made an unscheduled stop at Castle Cary to load up the train with people who had been at the Festival, so that the train station could be a little less busy.

As I was working there, we had better access to all the stages as we were in the centre of things, but that meant it was never quiet. My tent was a couple of hundred yards from the Glade Stage - I could see it from my tent... and that went on until the early hours. As a result, and also because of the heat, I didn't even try to sleep.

This meant that I came across the spectacle of Arcadia at night with its giant spider stage and giant Van de Graaf generators, Shangri La in the early hours, and the other far corners of the site.

I shared a photo album with some of the images that I took during the five days I was there. 

There is plenty of opportunity to engage with environmental groups while at the festival, with a presence from Greenpeace and others. I worked as part of the Green Kids field, and we offered activities with a geographical theme. 

This was our set up, in the Green Kids field. It was a hot one... We took part in a whole range of activities.

I'd love to hear your other memories of Glastonbury: the bands you saw there.

Please fill in the Google Form below and let me know about your Glastonbury experiences.

Images of Glastonbury 2010: Alan Parkinson, shared on Flickr under CC license.