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[title]A fair few of us try and get to at least one of the UK’s brilliant music festivals each year. For others, pretty much every weekend from late May until early September is spent boogieing to a smorgasbord of headliners in fields up and down the country. But then there are the festival fiends: those of us who have attended so many that we’ve entered into the triple figures.
Matt Wilkinson, former head of New Music at NME and now Apple Music radio DJ, has been to more than 100 festivals in his time – so who better to give us advice on how to survive the sun, mud and line-up clashes this festival season? In the weeks leading up to Glastonbury 2024, here are his pearls of wisdom.
1. Beware of the festival pirates
‘At one of my first Glastos I camped with a bunch of uni friends, but the wider group was this mad collection of about 100 people – it was like being in a commune. Some of them, who I hadn’t met before, would get up at 5am and comb the fields looking for dropped wallets, keys, phones – basically collecting people’s gold. We weren’t involved, they never shared it, but they’d go home with bin-bags full of people’s belongings.’
2. Don’t be ruled by a schedule
‘The best fun I’ve ever had is when I’ve let my time freewheel a bit. Those times when you have a three-hour window and you just go with whoever you want to go with is when you discover the best stuff. Particularly at Glastonbury, it’s impossible to plan – you could be an hour away from the next stage. I pick three or four things that I know I want to see that day and night, but that’s it.
‘Things like the Hare Krishna tent [at Glastonbury] are amazing — it’s full of serious people who don’t speak for the whole festival and they’re there doing these marathon yoga sessions for days, and you can just walk in. As just a fairly normal bloke, I love seeing that stuff.’
3. Pack light – unless you want to be famous
‘I once went to a festival and this guy didn’t bring a bag with him. We drove down, stopped at an Oxfam on the way and he bought a blanket – that’s it, plus bank card and phone charger. He just crashed in different tents, wore the same clothes, didn’t shower. The longer we were there, the more jealous I felt of that guy. No bag, no stress.
‘However, there’s been a couple of times when packing not-so-light has paid off. Seeing Wet Leg really sticks in my mind because someone actually brought a chaise longue with them. Not only that, but they got everyone around them to lift it – it needed about 50 people, but they became a festival legend. And when I was watching Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys perform Good Vibrations, the sun came out, which was poetry in itself, but someone appeared from the crowd on a surfboard. People were passing this person on top of the audience just in front of the Pyramid Stage.’
4. There’s one thing you absolutely have to bring
‘Wellies, 100 percent. If you’re not already aware, or if you’ve never been to a UK festival before, this is the absolutely essential item to pack. You can obviously have a look at what the weather will be like, but even if it’s going to be 90 percent blanket sunshine, even if there’s a shadow of doubt in your mind, pack them. You’ll just kick yourself if you’re standing in a field in flip-flops and you see the clouds starting to form. Even if it rains for five minutes, that field is gonna be muddy for four hours. Pack the wellies.’
5. Finesse your booze collection
‘The easiest and the lightest but probably the most disgusting is a cardboard box of wine because it heats up through the day – by the evening it’s sort of cup of tea-temperature which is definitely not the nicest, but it is the easiest. There is something really, really nice about standing in a field with a freshly poured pint, though, watching a band.’
6. SPF is a must
‘This one is really important – you’re outside all day so even if it’s cloudy, you need suntan lotion. Hand sanitiser is another must. I took it to every festival, even pre-pandemic.’
7. If you want to get some sleep… do this
‘With sleeping, you’ve got two choices. You can either take earplugs, and they do work pretty well, or just cover your face in as many clothes as possible: create a 360-degree pillow kind of situation, but that might be a bit sweaty. Or, you can get blind drunk and hope to just pass out – but that’s maybe not advisable. Definitely don’t pitch by the techno tent.’
8. If you want to stay up all night… do this
‘Honestly, trust the festival planners. If the entertainment is good enough, then you don’t really need any tips. They know how to programme the best kind of music for the best time of day – no one with any sense is going to schedule a brass band for 4am, are they?’
9. Stick to what you know
‘I think you pick up [how to survive festivals] quite quickly. The first couple you go to, you’re like a wide-eyed puppy just going crazy, but then (hopefully) you realise that you’re there for four or five days and you should pace yourself. Each one feels like its own little world, but stick to what you learn early on and you’ll fall into a rhythm.’
10. Ditch the flag – but find a landmark
‘I never did the flag thing, but luckily I’m like a homing pigeon so I can work out roughly where I am – it’s never happened to me where I’m wandering around for an hour and a half thinking “where did I put the tent?”. What I will say is you don’t need to take a flag because other people do (refer back to number three). You can look at the trees, the corners of fields, other tents, and use those as landmarks – maybe camp behind the people with the flag which is upside down.’
11. Switch-up your crowd
‘I’ve been to festivals with just one other person and I’ve been to festivals with sprawling groups where you don’t even know everyone to begin with, like 50-60 people. It’s all amazing and it’s all a slightly different experience. If you don’t want it to be the same every year, it’s great to switch [who you go with] up a bit – it’s gonna bring a whole new take on a festival, for sure.’
12. Be ready to embrace anything – you’ll make lifelong memories
‘I’m quite shy, but at South by Southwest Festival I was chatting to Amyl and the Sniffers before [their set]. I don’t know how we got onto it, but they were like “you’re coming on stage with us tonight”. Just because of the festival atmosphere, I thought: yeah, why not? When the show started, I was stood fairly close to the front and Amy, the singer, spotted me. She put me on her back and dragged me on stage. I probably wouldn't do that again – only at a festival.’