I was a huge fan of festivals growing up. I first started going to them as a kid, taken by my mum as a special treat. They were affordable, and it meant I was able to see some incredible acts from around the world over a number of days.
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As I grew up, the experience changed for me. I had other focuses. I drank more, partied way into the morning, and found festivals that played the music I wanted and had the scene I was looking for. Still, though, they were affordable and fun.
Now, however, I see the media pouring out of festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury, and I don't feel like it's somewhere I want to be. I may just be getting old, but it feels like festivals, or at least the big ones, have mutated into something quite grotesque.
It's All About The Love Man
I found that one of the things that stuck with me months after a festival was the sense of togetherness I felt after leaving the festival fields. There was no posturing, no posing, just a bunch of people sleeping in tents, looking for the next best stage.
Festivals were the great leveller. Nobody cared what you wore or who you came with. The closest anyone got to being a VIP was having a blow-up bed and a cooler box. Now, there are tiered tickets, glamping options, exclusive areas, and a whole swathe of social dividers.
Apart from the price, which I will talk about later, festivals feel far too tiered. It's not just about being there and rubbing shoulders with your fellow pleb. It's about making sure you've got the VIP wristband and have forked out for the showers with an hour-long queue rather than two.
Leave Your Phone At Home
I have almost no pictures from my festival days. We would get so twisted that we would need one cheap burner phone per day due to losing them in the dance. A camera would be completely out of the question in a crush to the front. But, I have memories that, if they existed the next morning, still remain today.
But, now, it seems to be an awful lot of posting and a lot less partying. Social media wasn't much of a thing in my younger festival days. But, even when it eventually was, nobody had the time or sense to post anything. Most of us were so covered in mud and sweat that pictures certainly weren't what anyone wanted to see.
All you need to do is look at a Glastonbury or Coachella crowd from the back today compared to ten years ago to see the difference. From that vantage, all you see now is a sea of phone lights. Before, if you were at a particularly moving show, it would be a sea of lighters.
Nobody wants to see your blown-out, blaring festival video. Why did you pay so much for a ticket to watch the show through the screen of your phone? With the fear of sounding like a complete geriatric, just live in the moment, man.
Coachella And Glastonbury Embrace Elite Pricing
The final straw, for me, is the pricing that both Glastonbury and Coachella have slapped on their tickets. I understand that acts are more expensive than ever before, and there are economic reasons for that, but it's damaging the future of festivals deeply.
I was able to go with a single mother, a brother, and a sister to a relatively big festival year after year. It was all paid for, and we had enough left over to treat ourselves to the occasional food van meal.
Now, Coachella is $600+ for a wristband only, and Glastonbury sits at £$00. Any parent wanting to take a child or two to a festival is looking at some serious expenditure. This is essentially denying a whole generation from growing up with the cultural experience of a festival. Any festival owner who can't see how that's going to negatively affect their future business model is as thick as they are greedy.
Families apart, making festivals so expensive means that people either have to finance them, like with Coachella, or already have the available cash. This deviates too far from their original purpose of being an accessible, liberal, all-welcoming music event. They have morphed into another event reserved for the wealthy elite.
Festivals like Coachella and Glastonbury being full of phone-wielding rich kids hoping for their next Insta post doesn't sound like the place I remember so fondly. I think small festivals are the way to go.
