Six Reasons I Won’t Be Going to a Festival This Year
Festival season has begun. You can feel it in the air, thick with about-time-tent upgrades, group chats named "Glasto Gals 2025", new-age wellies with sustainable soles, high street shops with FSTVL SZN stock, persistent checking of BBC, Met Office and iPhone weather apps (putting trust in the sunniest and driest) and essentials-only shopping lists ft. breakfast bars, wet wipes and tinnies.
And it's big business. In 2022, 6.5 million fans attended UK festivals. The average ticket now hovers around £400. It's estimated that the UK festival market will reach a record high of over £3.22 billion by next year.
To me, it seems like a cultural phenomenon turned commercial catwalk, with redundant flower crowns replaced by diamante headdresses and sequined-to-the-rim cowboy hats. Portable phone chargers have joined shower passes and ocean blue contact lenses as camping essentials. Oh, and if you're wearing something waterproof during the festival-prone torrential rather than a fur coat? Well then, there is something obviously wrong with you.
Festivals were all about losing your pals only to gain new ones in the queue for the compost loos. A smiling stranger offering glitter (or something less legal) in the rain. Cider at 10 AM because it's "basically apples" or the friend who used to mix Berocca with vodka as a festival morning ritual.
Magical. Chaotic. Except it's...just not for me this year. And perhaps ever again. Let me tell you why.
Reason #1 The last time I went to Boomtown I came down so hard I relocated to Devon
Not even joking. 2017, I was 27 and this was my third Boomtown. One minute, I was deep in a forest rave, making profound eye contact with a guy in a feathered top hat, then I was at the services weeping into a nutrientless sausage roll and contemplating a quieter life in the South West. I simply don't have the emotional capacity to go through that again.
Reason #2 I can't afford it.
Look, I'm all for investing in experiences, but when a festival ticket costs the same as a week in Greece with breakfast and a beach view, I have to ask myself: do I want to be spiritually transformed under a disco ball wearing an outfit too tight for my nearing mid-thirty-year-old body, or by the sea eating Gyros?
Add on the travel, the tent, the pricey pints, the emergency wet wipes, the inevitable post-festival Deliveroo spiral… suddenly you're staring at a total that could have been a new boiler. Or therapy. Or both.
Reason #3 What would I wear?
Gone are the days of throwing on some wellies, a fringed vest and whacking a bit of Barry M glitter across your cheekbones. Now it's full-blown festival fashion week. It's nipple tassels and custom crochet. People are wearing BODYSUITS MADE OF ACTUAL CHAINS.
My 2015 galaxy-print playsuit and space buns used to turn heads. Now I'd look like I left a Star Wars convention and wandered into Shambala by mistake. I miss the days no one cared if you wore your muddy Converse three years in a row. Or even just shorts and a T-shirt. Yes, shorts and a T-shirt at a festival. The shame.
Reason #4 The camp induced cramp and back ache give me nightmares
You know the drill. Inflatable mattress slowly deflating at 3 AM. The irritating sounds of the can't-get-comfy-skin-against-rubber-air-bed soundtrack. Someone's Bluetooth speaker playing drum and bass at full blast. Your spine whispering "this doesn't feel quite right" with every toss and turn.
Sure, you could splash out on a luxury yurt, but those cost the same as a small car. And you'd still have to walk to the loo in the dark with the flickering torch you forgot to bring batteries for, strongly offended by the wet, cold condensation of everything.
Reason #5 I can't stay up that late/ I don't have that sort of energy.
Once upon a time, I could survive three days on nothing but cider, crisps and perhaps half of something that would both boost and deplete my serotonin all in the space of 12 hours. Now? If I don't have a proper meal, a full 9 hours, and a wind-down herbal tea by 9:00 PM, I'm a shell of a human.
And let's not forget the walking. Correction: The hiking.for.miles. For miles. Between tents, stages, toilets, food queues and back again. I'd rather save my steps for a city break where there's a croissant and a comfy hotel bed at the end of it.
Reason #6 They're just a bit... middle class now aren't they?
Sorry, but someone had to say it. Festivals used to be this messy, chaotic melting pot of music and mud. Now they're curated, monetised and suspiciously full of people who've never stayed in a tent in their life - they have their yurts, or their pods or the Air BNB’s.
The spontaneity has been replaced with VIP wristbands and £15 organic bao buns. Maybe it's getting older, but in these more mature, self-aware years (ish), I'd rather explore a new country, soak up the culture and eat street food that hasn't been reheated from a van powered by disappointment and daylight robbery.
Will I still watch the Glastonbury highlights with tears in my eyes and regret in my chest? Obviously. Am I writing this because, for the third year running, I have been unable to purchase Glastonbury tickets? (I was nearly there one year but forgot I had to increase my overdraft limit beforehand) 100%
Am I jealous of the younger girls with their festival French braids, their sequin gowns, shapely legs and an ability to show off their midriff, rocking nothing but sequin nipple tape and hot pants? Very likely.
But for now, I'll take my creature comforts, my credit score and my sciatica in check.
The reality is that the closest I've got to a festival this year was a day ticket to see McFly at Powderham Castle. We paid £12.50 for a burger in a bap with some bag salad, and another £ 12.50 for 'loaded' chips. We left early to beat the traffic and by 11 PM were tucked up in a bed with intense paranoia about the ringing in my ears and anxiety around not getting my full eight hours.
So, yes, call me old. Call me boring. But, maybe, just maybe, you festival lovers are the weird ones. Because, based on this new, experiential evidence, I am truly confident in my decision. I’m simply happy to leave festivals in my past.
(P.S If you know anyone selling a Glastonbury ticket, can you DM me?)
Written by Chelsea Branch
Chelsea, 34, is a writer exploring the psyche, relationships with others and ourselves, and the messy, beautiful journey of being human. She is currently juggling her online marketing business, blogs, multiple Google Drive folders with book ideas, a TV script, and poetry—all the things writers will get around to doing. Through her relatable ramblings, she hopes to bring laughter, hope, and healing. Find her on Instagram @chelseabwrites.
Opinion
