Glastonbury: How Come Everyone Wants a Ticket?

Next Sunday (October 7, 2018), millions of people will be waking up bright and early with the hope of purchasing a ticket to the biggest event in the UK's festival scene; Glastonbury. With demand far outweighing the capacity, tickets are snatched up within minutes, leaving many people with a feeling that I, myself have experienced, and never want to experience again.

So what's with all the fuss and anxiety surrounding this fateful day? Why do people seem so keen to get their hands on a golden Glastonbury gate pass? Well, I'll tell you why I for one, am going through that exact process.

Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts started life on September 19, 1970 as the Pilton Festival. From this date on, the festival has grown in size as well as notoriety as being one of the best festivals in the world. In its most recent form (Glastonbury Festival 2017), the site boasted around 80 stages, welcoming thousands of artists to entertain the 200,000 visitors.

With this vast number of stages, comes a hugely varied lineup, featuring almost any kind of music genre you could think of. Each year the stages evolve and even multiply, to showcase the best musical talent in the world today. There's no doubt that you could cram your weekend full of top performances from huge mainstream pop artists on the Pyramid Stage, to the lesser known, but still crowd-pleasing home-grown acts on the bandstand.

As the title of the festival suggests, Glastonbury is a celebration of multiple art-forms. One can head to the Theatre and Circus field for mind-boggling acrobatics and theatrical performances; get involved in some environmental activism in the Green Fields; rave the night away in Shangri-La (and who knows what else!), or chill and catch some of the biggest hits in cinema at Pilton Palais.

Now, anyone strolling around Glastonbury for many hours is going to work up quite an appetite. Luckily, the food options here are outrageous! I guarantee you could find a stall selling almost anything that you wanted to eat. The festival has also previously run a scheme highlighting outlets that offer a meal for an affordable price (food for a fiver kind of thing), so there's no need to break the bank to sample worldly delights.

Having had a full day of sights for the eyes, ears and stomach, the natural step would be to grab some shut-eye. HOWEVER, this is a festival, so let's be real, we're not ready to sleep any time soon. Usually, festivals can offer a couple of hours of after-hours activity, before having to shut down to keep local residents happy. Glastonbury doesn't have that restriction, and definitely uses that as a golden opportunity.

Glastonbury's nightlife scene is just another tool in its artillery for gunning down competition. An all-nighter is easily accomplished thanks to the festival's south-east corner; full of wonders to make any party-goer's mouth drop. Each area in this corner pulls out all the stops to make sure your nights are as wondrous and zany as your imagination could only begin to envisage.

Alas, I cannot cover every aspect of this utopia we call Glastonbury, so I implore you to check out the festival's website. If you're lucky enough to get a ticket next weekend, have the best time! If you miss out this time, remember there is a re-sale in April for returned tickets!