All the fun of the fest...
Photograph: Matt Cardy/Getty Images
The first Glastonbury festival I went to was the 1995 event headlined by Oasis, when it was still overwhelmingly the preserve of alterna-kids and grizzled types who boasted that they'd been to every one since the beginning. The only other festivals that then offered an entire weekend away from reality, including the all-important primitive sanitation, were Womad and Reading, which catered for different crowds.
So Glastonbury was the only real choice for people keen on squeezing several hundred indie bands into three days. Despite my aversion to everything that gave the old-timers so much joy (the Sacred Space, falafels, the guy selling "candle-powered" boats), I had a great time. But 11 years is a long time in festival-land, and while Glastonbury remains the biggest cheese, it's certainly no longer the only one.
There are now so many festivals that there's a dedicated website, www.virtualfestivals.com, that lists all 59 of this summer's major events. If it included the European, American and Asian ones that are attracting a growing number of British fans, there would be a few dozen more.
The scene has mushroomed to accommodate people who would once have ended their festival days when they hit 30, but now see a weekend in a tent as affirmation that they're still hep. Since many thirtysomethings come with kids attached, many events, such as Womad, provide bouncy castles and the like to keep them quiet, or at least occupied.
Festivals have become destination events, attended not just by music fans but fashionistas, who've brought wellies and mucked in since Kate Moss and friends gave Glastonbury the Heat magazine seal of approval a few years ago. These people appear to spend the entire weekend in the hospitality tent, which is treated as an outpost of their London social scene.
There are undoubtedly too many festivals. Quite a few are clearly opportunistic, leaping in to fill the gap left by Glastonbury's year off. Lost Vagueness, which has had its own tent at Glastonbury since 1986, attempted to go it alone this year, but cancelled due to poor sales. And the two-year-old Wireless five-dayer held in Hyde Park last month didn't sell out.
Other events appear to be festivals inspired by the preponderance of festivals. Any bash with the suffix "stock" is facetious - perhaps metalheads are looking forward to Bloodstock, and fans of water sports and dance music can't wait for Wakestock, but nobody, least of all the hedge-fund managers at whom it's aimed, needed last month's Hedgestock.
Glastonbury's return will test the newcomers' mettle, and many probably won't make it to a second year. With tickets somewhere in the region of £100 for a three-day weekend (and cheaper day-tickets not always available), only hedge-funders and trustafarians can afford more than one or two events. There's pleasure to be had, though, in picturing them encountering the downside of every festival in the world - the plumbing. Even It Girls can't escape the portaloo.
