Glastonbury Festival

It's the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world.

It's like going to another country. It involves travel, and probably a queue to get in. Then you enter a huge tented city, a mini-state under canvas. The Law still applies, but the rules of society are a bit different. Everyone is here to have a wild time in their own way. The site has distinct socio-geographic regions. The more commercial aspects are around the Pyramid, Other and Dance stages, like the West End on a Saturday night has been removed to a field, beautified, and you're on every guest list, including the night time cinemas. And then there are more relaxed areas like the Jazzworld and Acoustic areas, and the family oriented areas like the Kidz Field, the Theatre and Circus fields, and an increasingly alternative aspect as you pass the Field of Avalon, the Tipi Field, and the Green Fields before you reach the hedonistic madness that is Lost Vagueness. And at the top of the site is the Sacred Space - its stone circle being a modern construction, and yet perhaps it has already seen as much celebration and ceremony as some of its foregoers.

The site is in a beautiful location - 900 acres in the Vale of Avalon, an area steeped in symbolism, mythology and religious traditions dating back many hundreds of years. It's where King Arthur may be buried, where Joseph of Arimathea walked, where leylines converge. And the site is ENORMOUS - more than a mile and a half across, with a perimeter of about eight and a half miles.

Then there are the people, in all their splendid diversity! There is only one common characteristic of a Glastonbury-goer - they understand that Glastonbury offers more opportunity than any other happening to have the best weekend of the year or even of a life-time, and they are determined to have it! You'll meet all kinds of people, of all ages, backgrounds, nationalities, lifestyles, faiths, concepts of fashion (or lack of it), musical taste; some will undoubtedly wear silly hats, or buy shirts that they'll never wear again. Until next year. The vibe is mellow and friendly.