The Beginners Guide to Glastonbury

The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts is one of the worlds most recognised festivals, it was started in the early 1970’s by Michael Eavis and has grown into one of the largest green fields festivals in the world.

This year as first time Glasto goers, the Summer Festival Guide will give you a beginners guide on how to get yourself to and around the madness of a festival spectacular that is Glastonbury.

1. Register for tickets – register early before the tickets go on sale, you will need to upload a photo as these are printed on your tickets!
   You can register here
2. Buying tickets – this is the hardest part of getting to Glasto, actually buying tickets.  With hundred’s of thousand’s of people trying to buy tickets from the ticketing website, its best you get onto the website before the sale begins and once it starts follow the on-screen instructions until you finally make it to the ordering and payment pages.
3. Sort Accomodation – Once you have got your tickets organised, the next step would be deciding if you are going to camp in the standard fields, maybe upgrade to luxury camping, or even hire a motorhome!  Make this decision early and if you need to book luxury camping or a motorhome, do not hesitate as these will book out very fast!
4. What to take – Do not trust the weather man! Prepare for all types of weather as you may either be knee deep in mud or basking in the sun!  Essential items are comfortable wellies and wet weather gear to help combat the rain, t-shirts, hats and sunglasses to protect you from the sun when it does shine.  Clothes aside, take plenty of food, water and other drinks, a torch, day pack, portable chairs (to sit on), wet wipes (for those times you cannot get to a shower), and a cheap camera.  Do not take anything valuable as thiefs operate in the area.
5. How to get there – We would recommend you take full advantage of the bus and train services that go to Glastonbury, this will help keep your carbon footprint down.  If your driving, ensure that your car is not empty and if it is, then try advertising as a car-share to ensure we reduce the number of cars travelling.
6. When your there – Try and get to Glastonbury either on Wednesday or Thursday before it starts, this will give you the chance to walk around and get your bearings right.  Unless you have been there before you cannot imagine the size of the site, it will take upto and sometimes over an hour to walk from one end of the site to another.  The stages are spread over site and in peak times and muddy grounds it can take much longer to get around.
7. Set a schedule – With hundreds of acts playing daily, its best to decide beforehand who you really want to see, ensure that you have enough time to walk from the stages to catch the next act.  Its impossible to see everything so be sensible and check the map to see how far apart all the area’s are.
8. Getting around the site – Each area of the grounds has its own allocated pedestrian entrance.  Remember the entrance name as that is what you will be using throughout your time at Glasto.  Take care when the ground is wet or muddy as you can easily slip or get stuck in the mud (as we witnessed this year!).  There is good mobile reception at Glastonbury as they have some dedicated cell sites, you should always be able to make a call when you need to, and they have mobile phone charging stations around the site, however, they can get very busy sometimes.
9. Leaving the site – With the last acts playing Sunday night, you will find that leaving the site by car can either be fast and easy, or slow and tiring.  We found that a few people started to leave immediately after the last act on the main stage, we left at around 1am (Monday morning) and it took around 20 mins to leave the site before we were on the road.  Come Monday morning, you will be looking at long queues ahead.  If you have a bus or train booked, ensure you know where the pickup point is and what time you need to be there.