Playgroup | Creativity through play

I went to Glastonbury for the first time this summer. My expectations were high.  From the moment I had my ticket through the door the excitement started to build. I joined the Glastonbury group on Facebook, and starting following them on Twitter finding out the line up real time, as they were confirmed and I watched as the site build via the images as they were uploaded twitter via twitpic. 

Finally the big day arrived, and we were off to Paddington to get the train.  I had heard the horror stories of what the next hours would involve; no seat on the train, queuing for the bus, queuing to get into the festival and the hours of walking to find a place to pitch the tent, and of course the portaloos didn’t bear thinking about.

As we embarked on our ‘nightmare’ journey, it turned out that Glastonbury events team had been on the ball - we jumped onto our air-conditioned train, grabbed a seat, stacked our bags, made ourselves comfortable and an hour and half later we arrived at Castle Cary, where the bus was waiting to take us to the festival, so far so good. On arriving and the entrance there was no queue. We were in, the sun was out, and the tent pitched, We were celebrating a good start with a beer by 3pm. The 4 days of pure pleasure began.

I became instantly completely absorbed in the atmosphere as we meandered around the 900 acre site. There is definitely a magic in the air, the place is buzzing 24/7, and there is a feeling of utter delight wherever you go, even if you are up to your knees in mud.

Glastonbury has had its fair share of criticisms and knocks - how ‘its not what it used to be’, about the line up ‘for oldies’, and to be honest the line up wasn’t perfect for me personally, but as anyone who has been will confirm its not just about the music.  It’s the whole experience that they have created at Glastonbury.  I reminds me of traveling, you have all your belongings in one bag, you make your own schedule, or choose to have no schedule at all, you are free, time doesn't matter, you phone either has no signal or no battery, and you get to meet the most unbelievable people from all walks of life. 

Social networks have been big for Glastonbury thats for sure, and Orange were adding to the 'brand experience' real time. They were all over it with glastonav, keeping festival goers up to date with who was on ‘now and next’ and latest news alerts, interactive maps etc...  Great idea, but perhaps that was the reason the whole mobile network was clogged for 4 days, they could probablay work on that for next time.

And my top tip after baby wipes, as much as I love my iphone, take a nokia, the battery was still 3/4 full on my way home and I saved standing in a queue of a 100 people waiting to charge :)   

All in all, a pretty amazing experience. I’ll definitely be back.

Posted by Clare on 09 Jul 09, at 3:16 pm

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