Dreaming in Brighton

Wilderness Festival

This weekend I had the pleasure of working at Wilderness festival. I quickly discovered that the scenic four day extravaganza, set in the idyllic Cornbury park, is the rich man’s dream, but what does it offer if you don’t have two pennies to rub together? There were elements of the organisation of the event that were slightly off-putting. Namely, the focus on commodities — everything initially appeared to have a price. On top of the ticket, you are faced with an assortment of extra costs if you want to take part in anything from extravagant banquets put together by Michelin star chefs, to the late night roller disco. Of course there is an element of marketing to every festival, but at this one in particular it seemed that everyone was attempting to fill their pockets. After a day of feeling exasperated by our lack of money, we did start to discover that there was indeed fun to be had for free. 

One of my favourite elements of a festival is that moment which convinces you that you have discovered the best place in the entire site. Stumbling upon a snippet of magic that is so wonderful that you are simply grateful that you get to be a part of it. The bottle blue dragonflies skirting around an empty lake before the punters had arrived. Dancing madly to a great rock n’ roll band that I’d never heard of previously as it poured down with rain. Being in a crevice of the woods that stands as the late-night Pandomonium as they played Fleetwood Mac and everyone seemed to join in. Attempting to go to bed only to be distracted by a band that sung everything from James Brown to Otis Redding with enough soul to (almost) do the songs justice — well come on, what’s the likeliness of living up to the greats? 

The highlight of these, however, came from an unexpected place. In a seemingly tame and peaceful tent filled with sofas and carpets, and books lining the stage and hanging from the ceiling, the late night revelry of story telling took place. That still sounds relatively low key, especially for all the other sorts of adventures that are bound to be occurring at 2 in the morning, but when you take a marquee full of intoxicated strangers and hand them a microphone you never know what might come out. A series of confessions that broached the crude and inappropriate with great force, with a few spontaneous sing-a-longs and poetry readings thrown in for good measure, and one slightly distressed presenter who ended up having to excuse himself to go to bed, we found ourselves in the midst of one of the funniest affairs to have appeared in my life for a long time. Even as the 4am curfew came and went (one massive downside to the festival) the host of the tent ignored the pleas from the sound crew in favour of continuing with the fun; despite eventually having to shut off the microphones and shout from the stage instead. I can’t remember the last time I laughed so hard and with one of my favourite people at my side I couldn’t have asked for more. Then there is the consideration of how many of those moments must be occurring simultaneously over one field, thousands of people blissfully happy and entirely convinced that they would rather be in that spot than anywhere else in the world. It turns out that all you really need to enjoy even the most expensive of festivals is good company and an open mind — the rest will find you.