Festivals now feel like a cross between a spa and a gastropub...
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Gromit
International Man of Misery
Festivals are my happy place.
I've seen them change a lot over the years.
Fantasia (1992) bares little resemblance to Wilderness (2023).
But things change. I try my best not to stamp this is how the world was in my day and it should not change.
Creamfields never used to have bare chested Instagram gym posers strolling about. It does now but if that what the youth does now and will miss when they are 50. Fuck it. It's their youth to squander as they choose the same way mine was.
If festivals have expanded into a huge industry also catering to older disposable income rich middle classes then great. More festivals for me to go to because that what I am now. Still plenty of underground grassroots stuff for others. One is not devouring the other. Different markets innit.
Potluck bands is great too. That how you discover new stuff, keep your tastes broad and avoid only listenen to the same tracks forever and ever till you die.
I've seen them change a lot over the years.
Fantasia (1992) bares little resemblance to Wilderness (2023).
But things change. I try my best not to stamp this is how the world was in my day and it should not change.
Creamfields never used to have bare chested Instagram gym posers strolling about. It does now but if that what the youth does now and will miss when they are 50. Fuck it. It's their youth to squander as they choose the same way mine was.
If festivals have expanded into a huge industry also catering to older disposable income rich middle classes then great. More festivals for me to go to because that what I am now. Still plenty of underground grassroots stuff for others. One is not devouring the other. Different markets innit.
Potluck bands is great too. That how you discover new stuff, keep your tastes broad and avoid only listenen to the same tracks forever and ever till you die.
seeformiles
Lost in the wood
Millennials get blamed for much of what’s “wrong” about festivals. Perhaps another reason for the change is that they increasingly cater to middle aged folk who, while still into the music, aren’t as prepared to rough it as they were in their hedonistic raving 20s and now demand creature comforts, good organisation and an on-site Waitrose where you can get a lovely chilled Chablis.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
It’s great that you enjoy festivals. I hope you continue to enjoy them.
However I don’t agree with the last bit. I don’t go to festivals, never have, but I don’t listen to the same music I did when I was 18.
It’s not the potluck bands in itself I complained about: it’s paying £335 + £5 booking fee for the potluck bands. (Plus travel, intoxicants and sustenance). I’ve never had that amount of disposable income to spend on potluck bands. (Or its inflation adjusted relevant equivalent).
As a musician myself, I’m glad some people do have the money and inclination. I’m not one of them.
mx wcfc
Well-Known Member
Festivals are my happy place too. I may do one "big one" a year (Boomtown this year!), but they're mainly small, DIY, "grown up" festivals. The three I've been to so far this year have all had decent loos, decent enough ale (exceptionally good ale in Glastonwick's case), and decent music, as well as an occasional poet not unknown to this board. I take my own food to save cash, and my own beer sometimes too. There's sometimes a bit of weed floating around, but generally there's little in the way of drugs, or even teenagers. Tickets are generally less than £100.
The small independent DIY festival and music scene is flourishing at the moment. It's not just about Glastonbury/Reading/Leeds/Download/Bearded etc
The small independent DIY festival and music scene is flourishing at the moment. It's not just about Glastonbury/Reading/Leeds/Download/Bearded etc
Gromit
International Man of Misery
Well my partner wants to see Pulp, Elton John, Bruce Springsteen and Rickie Lee Jones this year.
One of them isn't doing Glastonbury, one may be a secret act.
If she paid to see Pulp and Elton alone it would be more than her Glastonbury ticket so she's done rather well from potluck.
Most festivals do usually advertise a line up to get sales.
Glastonbury doesn't need to because i'll easily see £800 worth of music I love for my £340. I've never yet failed to fill my week with old and new music and experiences with which to treasure.
Footnote: We've paid to see Pulp, Rickie and Bruce outside of Glastonbury. That's costing more than Glasto and we'll see a lot lot less support arts.
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Yeah, I wouldn’t pay to see any of them to be fair. I even low key like Pulp and Rickie Lee Jones (enough to own albums I no longer listen to but don’t want to get rid of).
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
That’s excellent. But as ever with bulk buying, you can only get that discount if you have the lump capital sum upfront.
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
As an unashamedly bourgeoisie, middle class wanky-reformist, I really enjoy the new version of festival (not the big ones, I'm not forking out hundreds of quid to spend time with other fucking people), I quite like music with words and a tune, nice food, toilets I don't need to report to the OPCW, perhaps some hippy/charlatan who can cleanse my aura or realign my chacras...
Yes.
No.
Yes.
No.
FridgeMagnet
Administrator
I've never been a big one for festivals tbh (I get bored far too quickly) but I do not see how this new version with added Marina Hyde is supposed to be better. I would much rather wander around bored surrounded by random shit bands and gong baths than wander around bored surrounded by guardian columnists and centrist debate groups.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
What's with the politicos showing up? Don't we hear enough from these cunts blathering on all year and now they're at festis too?!? Can see the attraction of some Gove-grade-gak, but John Major? Fuck that.
Crispy
The following psytrance is baṉned: All
Have been to several of these and will be going again in a few weeks' time. I can reassure the thread that loud music, griminess, young people and drugs are not in any kind of short supply.
Epona
Sonic: 1 Nov 2006 - 8 Jan 2022
Slightly tangential, although still related - a lot of what used to be free 1 day/weekend street or park festivals in London now seem to involve barriers and paid for tickets since stuff started happening again after COVID (although I know it had started down that route before).
As I usually only attend free stuff and take my own beer and sarnies, which can make for a lovely and inexpensive summer day out, the likelihood of finding something fun and free that lets you bring stuff like that in is getting less and less. Which is not what you need during a hot summer and a cost of living crisis. (I mean I will usually buy something - a couple of pints or a snack to support the thing, the prices of food and drink can be eye-watering).
As I usually only attend free stuff and take my own beer and sarnies, which can make for a lovely and inexpensive summer day out, the likelihood of finding something fun and free that lets you bring stuff like that in is getting less and less. Which is not what you need during a hot summer and a cost of living crisis. (I mean I will usually buy something - a couple of pints or a snack to support the thing, the prices of food and drink can be eye-watering).
Gerry1time
Did a wee in Dirac's toilet
"Two pound y'stella, three for a fiver"
jimbarkanoodle
Well-Known Member
Like pubs, festivals have been gentrified by the middle classes. There are still plenty of decent ones which are an exception to this (Boomtown, Balter, Mucky Weekender to name a few), but in general, festivals are now a perfectly acceptable thing to do for them, and tell their friends about at dinner parties. Festival companies and organisers don't mind them because they spend £800 to rent a fucking yurt for 3 nights and are less likely to cause trouble.
I don't care too much, they tend to stay to their own festivals- that shite Pub in the Park thing, Wilderness, Secret Garden Party, Camp Bestival etc, but it does fucking annoy me that they also buy up all the Glastonbury tickets each year, and i consequently have to try and break in.
I don't care too much, they tend to stay to their own festivals- that shite Pub in the Park thing, Wilderness, Secret Garden Party, Camp Bestival etc, but it does fucking annoy me that they also buy up all the Glastonbury tickets each year, and i consequently have to try and break in.
TopCat
Putin fanboy
How is the bunking in going?
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
I never really got into festivals - did Glastonbury in 1986 - had a fine time , enjoyed it, never went again. Did The Elephant Fayre in 1983, again, hugely enjoyed it, never went again. The only other major one I went to was Reading in about 1992, again, it was fun, never went again.
So, if they are different to the 'old days' now, it doesn't bother me tbh
So, if they are different to the 'old days' now, it doesn't bother me tbh
jimbarkanoodle
Well-Known Member
i didn't end up trying last year, although a few of my mates managed to successfully, but that meant having to go in on the Monday, so a whole week on site.
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This week the score draws are plentiful
I liked the ATP festivals because they weren't like festivals - and the bands were more my sort of thing, anyway. Wasn't interested in camping in a field to watch bands whenever the golden age was and I'm not interested now either. It is weird just how many of them there are these days, though.
Anyway, the gentrification of them has been happening a while. Adam Buxton hit the bullseye with this 12 years ago:
Anyway, the gentrification of them has been happening a while. Adam Buxton hit the bullseye with this 12 years ago:
ska invita
back on the other side
true to an extent, but above all festivals have grown into a huge industry and i wouldnt be surprised if GB had more festivals than any other country - theres literally hundreds of them. Inevitably to appeal to that much wider audience theryre going to fill every possible market permutation.
if there were no good festivals left that would be shit, but there seems to be plenty for everyone and every taste
festival culture - in its modern incarnation - IMO is a sign of how this country is becoming a nicer, more relaxed place to live in. Easy to forget how much more narrow cultural tastes were not that long ago
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ska invita
back on the other side
i mean near me in Bromley/Lewisham border - long been a cultural wasteland - we now have a DnB festival, a Hip New Music festival, a Soul weekender, somekind of Bowie tribute thing, dinky Sunday in the park things with unknown bands, A carribean food + music weekend thing - and theres probably more Im not aware of
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
True, but then there's also the evolution of some of the already established festivals has IMO turned them into these super sanitized, TV friendly, safe play areas which was everything I stood against when I went to festivals back in the 90s.
E.g. look at Reading now, with all those bits of crowd segregated into sheep pens with video screens larger than the actual stage. Talk about irony.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Yeah I have mixed feelings about the way a lot of this has been done in the name of health and safety. You can complain about the more sanitised nature of somewhere like Glastonbury but I think it's fair to say it probably was going in a direction where the alternative was a mass crushing incident. On the other hand though they stuck a big fence round the Lambeth Country Show for example and there's never been any issue with anything like that there, just a few local youths acting like dicks at chucking out time.
ska invita
back on the other side
yes certain festivals have changed but others have popped up in their place - swings and roustabouts
