#4 - Going to Glastonbury Festival alone...
...and why Instagram ruined it.
Last year, I went to Glastonbury alone, or I should have, which is what this text is about. A word of advice early on: you will definitely have more fun by yourself, than with people who don’t care about you. There is a saying in French that translates to: ‘better alone than in a bad company’ and it has never been more true.
It all started with my dad.
Or precisely when my parents came to visit in London. One morning, my dad came down for breakfast. He found me chained to four different devices, refreshing the same page over and over again. ‘Do you want some coffee’ he asked and came over to see what I was up to. ‘I can’t right now, I need to focus’ I answered in a hurry, brushing him off. I felt stressed. This was my only chance at getting tickets for a festival I had dreamed of attending.
That’s when my mum came down and asked ‘what’s happening?’ My tone of voice alarmed her. ‘Shh’ my dad whispered, pressing a finger to his lips ‘she is getting tickets for glas-tonne-beury’ he said with a broken french accent. After an excruciating 45min, I failed to secure tickets.
I felt a lump in my throat. I was going to cry. That’s when I explained how impossible it was to get tickets. To which my dad replied ‘there must be another way’. He was not one to admit defeat.
A Christmas surprise.
I have never liked surprises. They are like a double-edged sword; they bring both excitement and unintended consequences. Keeping his promise, dad managed to secure one hospitality ticket for the festival. It was a dream come true but I would have to do it alone (my point exactly).
I didn’t know how I felt about going alone. Unlike going to the cinema or to the gym, festivals are not necessarily tailored for loners. They are the place you go with the all-mighty group of friends. It was still a few months away, I would have time to work-it-out.
Fast-forward to June.
A few days before the festival, I was sitting by the lake in Geneva. I still didn’t have anybody to go with. But I had made peace with going solo and embraced the chance to follow my own schedule. After years in a relationship, it was long overdue.
That’s when I received a notification on Instagram. A friend of a friend messaged me, saying she was going to Glastonbury. She asked if we’d go together. She also had a hospitality ticket. Call me a hopeless romantic but I immediately thought it was the start of a beautiful friendship.I messaged her back right away.
The plan was that I would get there a day before her and secure a good campsite space. At the time, I believed it was the perfect course of action.
Glastonbury day 1.
This is not going to be a review of Glastonbury by the way. It is an attempt at putting down my feelings about whether going to a festival alone is a nice thing to do.
After setting up my tent, I introduced myself to the neighbours. I learned it was good practice to do so, especially on your own. Then I set out to explore the place. And an exploration it was. The entire Glastonbury site is big, and by big I mean actually huge. My step count never dipped below 30'000. That’s about a 5h walk every day.
I headed to the information point and picked up a map of the area. I am old school like that. The hospitality camp stood all the way in Silver Hayes, so all the way West. Little did I know I would spend most of my time in Shangri-la, which is all the way East.
I wandered past the stone circle, crossed the healing fields, and stopped for lunch at a very hippie looking place. I queued, grabbed my Tibetan momo's and joined people sitting on the floor. I remember thinking: this is so nice. And even though I was having lunch alone, I didn’t feel lonely.
The next day.
“Good Morning, I survived my first ever night at Glastonbury” I posted on Instagram. I took a shower and headed for breakfast. Tonight the festival was officially starting and my new friend would be joining me. I was super excited. We had agreed to meet at the tent so I’d help her set up. Around mid-afternoon, she texted me saying she was walking in.
She arrived with another girl. I had never met her but I think she immediately disliked me. It was as if she had decided, without any apparent reason, that I was someone to be wary of. And rapidly after that, the idea of creating lasting memories unravelled. From then on, it was all about her, where she wanted to go, what she wanted to eat and who she wanted to see.
And that was the problem.
Never once they asked for my opinion or considered seeing a gig I wanted to see. Most of the time, I ended up going alone. After their arrival, I was ridded with anger, sadness and disappointment. I tried to brush it off to not let it ruin my experience, but it was difficult. I regretted agreeing to meet them and I didn’t know how to fix it.
Timeless Conclusions
Glastonbury is absolutely magical. If you ever get a chance, go, no matter what. I can only wish I would have actually done it alone. And I blame it all on Instagram. I was tricked into thinking that there is only one way to do a festival, which is, surrounded by people.
Nowadays, it has never been easier to pretend being popular. Ultimately, the reason for sharing pictures constantly surrounded by people, is to show we are loved. But sometimes, that gets in the way of what it is to actually be loved. And sometimes, you have no pictures to prove it.
I, like everybody else, need to remind myself that Instagram is a constructed reality. The truth is that I had the best time on my own and I ruined it for the wrong reasons. I only have myself to blame and I should have prioritised a real experience rather than a fake narrative. Lesson learned.