Festivals are awful, and I’ll never ever go to one

Festival season is upon us, and judging from the amount of Facebook and Instagram posts, every single person I know is off to spend their summer getting fucked up in a muddy field. I won’t be joining them.

My only experience of a festival is when I went to T4 on the beach when I was about 14. I got really badly burnt, and nearly fainted due to lack of water. So it’s safe to say that my festival experience is pretty small and poor. But it’s not just that awful day on the beach that puts me off. Festivals are filthy, expensive, overrated and dangerous. And they’ll never be part of my summer plans.

Mud

Every year you see pictures of the poor people at Glastonbury or Secret Garden Party waist deep in mud because it’s been raining so heavily. This year there are even rumours that the main Dairy Fields camping area is a complete washout. Call me crazy, but this doesn’t appeal. I know you’re there for the music and atmosphere but quite frankly being that muddy and gross for three days would really piss me off. Call me an old lady, but I’d rather be clean.

Camping

OK, I’ll admit it, this is a childhood thing – but I really hate being in a tent. It’s either too warm and makes you feel like a plant in a greenhouse or it’s bloody freezing and leaks. I like to have space to get ready, to sleep, to eat and all those other important things, not be enclosed in plastic bubble of death.

Welfare tent

Why is it that any time my friends talk about their totally life-changing festival experiences they always include the phrase ‘welfare tent’ somewhere along the way? My friends aren’t bad people – and I’m not suggesting that you are if you drink a lot, or if you take drugs. It’s typically assumed that it’s part of the quintessential festival experience after all. But it’s not something I want to do, or take care of anyone doing it. Plus the experiences I’ve heard sound pretty scary and dangerous. I like a party, but not when I could possibly die or end up worrying about my mates for half the time.

Equally, I’m guessing that most of the people that go are similar, as festivals are renowned for drink and drugs. I’d probably feel a bit like a fish out of water and end up having a pretty bad time.

The other people

I realise this makes me sound like a grumpy old woman, but here’s my logic: there’s gonna be thousands of people at a festival, and I’m not going to like all of them. The festival is home to kilos of glitter, to white girls in bindis, to the dreaded bucket hat, which I can’t be dealing with. Hundreds of people wearing said items of clothing wouldn’t work.

Seriously though, being surrounded by people who you don’t have many common interests with is a bit depressing, and paying, really, quite a lot for that pleasure doesn’t seem worth it to me.

Music

OK, you’ve travelled for hours, you’ve set up your tent. You’re here for the next four or so days, and there’s no escaping the sights, smells and sounds of the experience. But what if you don’t like it? There is such a variety of performers at some festivals that you wouldn’t necessarily like everything. This means you’re gonna be waiting around for what you do like, or having to force your way out of the masses to find something else.

Unfortunately the majority of festivals this year seems to be dedicated to truly awful music, to music I’d actively avoid listening to. This wipes out a lot of chances of me going anyway, but I think it also leads to people going just because they think it’s cool. It probably won’t sound like such a good idea when it starts to rain.

Money

The bottom line is that the price of festivals is truly extortionate. Secret Garden Party or Reading will cost you around £250. An almost-week at Glastonbury will add up to even more. I could probably go to Spain for not much more than that, and a rainy weekend in a field doesn’t really appeal to me more than a week tanning and lounging on the beach.

It seems like a bit of a rip off too. I appreciate they are providing acts which require a lot of money, but at the end of the day you have to do pretty much everything else – from providing food and accommodation to getting there and back (in most cases).

All in all festivals aren’t my thing. Maybe I need to really try one before I make that decision, or I could just spend the money on sow thing I do want to do. Watching Glasto on TV is just as good anyway.