Real festival stories – the good, the bad and the ugly

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Sure festivals are all fun and games but they can descend into a total shit show (quite literally!). From getting down and dirty in a portaloo to sleepwalking across the campsite, we asked our readers to share some of their best and worst tales…

Room for a little one?

“At a festival recently, I was camping with a group of friends and we had settled down on our airbeds in the early hours as daylight started to light up the site. A little later, I slowly realised I was no longer safe in my tent but I’d actually woken up 10 minutes on the other side of the campsite after sleepwalking – notably trying to unzip and enter a stranger’s tent. We were both utterly confused to say the least!”

What a diva

“I used to run events for Instagram at major festivals and occasionally I had to organise riders for celebs. One certain famous old school garage male singer that has made a comeback asked for a crazy amount of Evian water and sandwiches with no crusts – I thought that was weird. Another female pop diva asked for Manduka honey of a certain strength that I could only find in two stores in all of London.”

A magical moment

“I saw the Dalai Lama talk about the importance of compassion and kindness in the rain at the stone circle at Glastonbury. It was a pretty special moment. I’ve also seen some pretty gross things in portaloos but I don’t think you wanna know!”

Meet the parents

“I will never forget the time I managed to sweet-talk my way into the backstage area at this quirky little festival in Scotland and ended up dancing with Mumford and Son’s parents while the band played their headline slot.”

Don’t stop me now… I’m having such a good time

“I once got threatened with arrest as I refused to stop partying and resisted the security man trying to remove me.”

Someone call a dentist

“I have a long and complicated relationship with one of my front lateral incisors (involving my husband and a trampoline accident when I was 19). It was temporarily stuck in while I waited on an implant. My friend knocked back a bottle of beer which hit me in the face just before we went into a tent to rave the night away – it came out – but I was feeling so high on life that I pocketed it, went in the tent and didn’t open my mouth for a few hours. Needless to say, I made a beeline for the dentist the next morning”.

Get down and dirty

“At this year’s Glastonbury (the hottest on record) two very amorous people couldn’t wait to get jiggy and holed themselves up in a grimey compost loo to do the deed – much to the dismay of the huge queue behind them. They walked out with big grins on their faces, and the poor person that followed found the used condom on the toilet seat. At least they used protection but I don’t want to think about the personal hygiene of either party.”

The frisson effect

“Raving at festivals to my favourite music with my best friends close by would always leave me with a tingling sensation known as the ‘frisson effect’ – basically a skin orgasm. A psychophysiological response to rewarding auditory or visual stimuli that induces a state of pleasure. I felt it most strongly when Faithless ‘Insomnia’ kicked in at Secret Garden Party… but the song that still always gets me to this day is ‘Right Here, Right Now’ by Fat Boy Slim. Combine this song with a heady dose of endorphins and i’m flying”.

Every cloud has a silver lining

“Spending more than 24 hours getting to Isle of Wight Festival in 2012. We were stranded on the ferry floating around for seven hours as the island was gridlocked as no cars could park at the festival site due to torrential rain turning the field into a quagmire. Once we were off the ferry, we spent a further 20 hours in my car packed in with all of our stuff and had to sleep in there rather than seeing the headline act. When we finally pitched our tent the next day, it immediately filled with water. I thought at one point my friend had hypothermia. So we just got drunk and partied on, and it actually turned out to be an amazing festival.”

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