In the run up to a festival, I tend to get a little bit excited.
I imagine how great the festival is going to be, reminisce about the good times I’ve had at past festivals and what I’m going to do this time.
It’s funny. When you think back to your previous festivals, you only remember the great bits.
- You remember crowd-surfing to your favourite song
- You remember the one-day friends you made at 3am
- You remember the feeling of contentment as you hung out with your mates and day-drank
You don’t tend to remember the bad stuff though.
- When you vomited just outside your tent
- That sudden rain storm that drenched you as soon as you got ready
- The bands that cancelled
- The expensive beer and the the underwhelming food
So as a little humble pie for your festival appetite, let’s consider the times when these fantasies and realities meet.
Here is the Expectation vs. Reality of music festivals.
On the way
Expectation
There’s a buzz in the air.
As you drive down to the festival with your mates, the drinks are flowing already, the music is loud and everyone’s having a great time!
Pretty soon you’ll be set up in the campsite, wandering around, making new friends and just relaxing as you wait for the music to start.
Reality
You’re stuck in traffic on the M1 as every man and his dog is also going the same way as you.
No-one can decide on the music and the car is so cramped that it’s hard to even see the person in the passenger seat.
then, when you do get to the festival, you need to wait in another huge queue.
A queue that you would have been further along it if your mate hadn’t needed to use the toilet at every roadside services for the past 200 miles.
And now it’s raining.
And you’ve realised you left the camping chairs in the living room, so you need to pay £20 to replace them.
The Food
Expectation
You have been thinking about that jumbo Yorkshire pudding all year.
They announced a falafel stand that you’re dying to try, and the pizza is to die for!
You are going to eat like royalty and gorge yourself all weekend because this is your festival and you are going to experience it to the max!
The Reality
The Yorkshire van is over-priced and the food wasn’t as great as you remember.
Like, it’s okay, but it cost at least double what you were expecting to pay for it.
The speciality vegan stand has had a line a mile long all weekend and you really can’t be arsed.
Who cares that much about falafel anyway?
By the Sunday, you’ve run out of money, so its a chicken stir-fry from that greasy van at the very edge of the arena.
The noodles are over-cooked, the vegetables under, and what do you mean soy sauce is extra?!
The donuts are always awful, yet you find yourself eating them anyway because at least they’re covered in sugar, and that’s always good.
But then you get home, realise you’ve put on 5 stone and spent £300 on food you don’t remember being all that great.
Next time you’ll bring tinned food and a hexi-stove and make all your meals yourself.
But then again, you say that every year…
The Atmosphere
Expectation
The slogan of this weekend is very much ‘Go Big or Go Home’.
You will be drinking 23 hours of the day and maybe grabbing a quick catnap before you jump out of bed to go see the bands.
Chatting to all the camps around you is going to land you some friends for life.
Every day you’re all going to wake up and have a hilarious time, play a few rounds of Beer Pong and maybe even get lucky with that attractive person a few tents away.
Reality
You went way too big on the first night.
Starting drinking before setting the tent up was a bit of a mistake. Its pegged down wrong and looks like it will fall down by the end of the day.
You’re more hungover than you’ve ever felt and you can’t sleep it off because everyone else is playing music and enjoying themselves too loudly.
Your neighbours don’t really want to hang out with you because you projectile vomited on the path last night and tripped over every guy rope from the toilets to your sleeping bag.
Everyone else seems to be having a great time, but you feel like death and you’re worried about how much money you spend last night at the bar, buying drinks for people who gave you cigarettes.
Also why did you smoke last night? Your tongue feels like an ashtray!
The Bands
Expectation
Its going to be thee days of exquisite music. The absolute best stuff that modern bands have to offer.
Your favourite band since you were six is playing, and you’ve heard a rumour that the hottest new artist is doing a secret set on a small stage.
This weekend is going to tick dozens of bands off your bucket list and will be something to tell your grandkids about.
Reality
The band you’ve loved since forever apparently isn’t all that big, so they played on the smallest stage at 1pm, before you were even awake.
By the time you have eventually woken up, drank away the hangover and shuffled to the arena, you’ve missed half that days bands.
The secret set you were excited about? Literally everyone else heard the same rumour and you can’t even get close to the stage to enjoy it.
So you sit around and watch some band you liked one song from a few years ago while you wait for the bigger acts.
But everyone else who loves the headliners more than you got here at dawn apparently.
So you end so far back that you watch the headliner on the big screen, and you’re so far back that the sound has a delay.
The Drive Home
Expectation
You will be driving home on a bright sunny day, laughing and joking with your friends. Still talking about what happened over the weekend.
- That encore was incredible!
- Did you see the two drunk dudes trying to walk each other back to their tent?
- When that guy climbed the scaffolding of the main stage, I could barely look!
You’ll be sad to go, but will have had a great time and created memories to last a lifetime.
Reality
The discussion of the festivals crazier events will definitely happen. But it will be in between bouts of nausea and falling back asleep.
You’ll also realise how filthy you are and be in desperate of both a shower and a clean bed.
Preferably one that isn’t inflatable.
But as I said at the start:
You won’t remember those bits.
You’ll remember the great time you had, the music you heard and people you spoke to.
Yes, festivals do have their downsides. It isn’t sunshine and rainbows all the time.
But don’t dwell on those bits, because by the next year, you won’t remember them.
Be sure to focus on the positives and really enjoy them as much as you can, because that’s what is worth remembering.
