I’ve Seen The Future of Festivals – And It’s Tiny!

What’s the worst thing about festivals? The big ones like Glastonbury I would hazard to say it’s the crowds. You’re probably tipsy and lacking sleep and neither goes very well with thousands of other people in a similar state all trying to squeeze into the same field to catch the same halfway cool act, who are themselves squeezed between Ke$ha and Beyonce (more on line-up later).

All those feet create the other thing that most people associate with Glastonbury- the mud. It doesn’t take a storm to create mud from wet grass, it just takes a light shower and a few thousand feet. Then, as I found out at Glade in 2007, you cannot sit down unless you go all the way back to your tent, reverse in, and take off your wellies. Two days of this and you feel like you’re going mental.

Another thing that most festivals have suffered from intermittently is theft. Even if you lock your tent you cannot knife-proof it, so you take your “stash” of fags, money and whatever with you everywhere and have to dance with it bouncing upon your person somewhere. This becomes annoying.

And the toilets. Even if they are “clean”, there is most often a queue but often you will queue only to find a mess that you really don’t want to be dealing with.

Then there’s the line-up. If, like me, you predominantly like DJs, then you will know how disappointing they can be outdoors. Yes a few electronic acts can make the transition to the arena but dance music to me is best experienced in a dark room, with some lasers an’ that. This is where the dance tent comes in and so often the floor of the dance tent is so lumpy that it’s hard to really dance, even if you can ignore the bag bumping against your hip and the other mong-heads of whom there are too many, and too close.

Three years ago I discovered the answer and this year I was pleased to return to a festival organized by some friends of mine. This is not a unique idea and I am glad the micro-festival is catching on. It is an invite-only party, hosted by friends where we provide the DJ talent and for the whole weekend including food it’s under £50- a snip, I think you’ll agree. So I get to DJ at a festival, in the right-size of tent, with a nice flat floor, and lots of dancing space, but, crucially, it still has the lights and lasers that make a marquee into a dance tent. When I’m done, I walk away into the crowd. I leave my laptop there. I leave my phone charging. Nobody is going to steal it- we are all friends of friends. We’ve had, I think, one light rain shower, but it dried up because 300 feet do not a mud-pie make. Not only were the toilets always clean but they always had toilet paper (in fact on the Sunday this year they had moist wipes for sore bottoms!) and there’s never a queue. If you need something from your tent, it’s right there. But take your stash with you- leave it at the side of the dance-floor. It will be fine. The food is delicious, designed by a clubbing DJ who is also a chef and the menu is of the kind you can eat whatever condition your mouth and digestive system is in.

And it’s nice. You may not even say ‘Hello’ to everybody but you know they are good people or they would not have been invited. Next year give me a shout around June and I’ll see if I can get you in. It’s the best.