I’ve just spent ten days in the belly of the greatest festival on earth. The granddaddy of all festivals, the one and only gargantuan Glastonbury. I’ve been very lucky to have been going to Glastonbury festival for over 20 years. The first few times I went as a punter. A customer. A consumer of all things bright and wonderful. For the last 15 years I have been honoured to be part of the festival, working in the healing fields as part of the creative crew. Over the years we have contributed with decorative archways, seated gardens, star gates and lots of other bits and bobs that have earned us a regular space as creative crew contributors.

It isn’t a job that pays, at all. But it is a job that we look forward to every year, that gets us into the festival and as long as our creations are finished by Tuesday night we get the whole festival off to enjoy. Then it’s back on duty Monday to take everything down and pack it all away. In the healing fields, all of this is done using no power tools and returning the land back to exactly the state it was in before we started.

This festival site is huge. Speaking to people throughout the festival, most report it takes three visits to finally understand the lay of the land and know your way about. It is that big. And it evolves every year. It is always so jam packed with performance, creation and artistic endeavour. It’s a wonderland of wonderful things.

So this year, we left on Friday night. Choosing to drive through the night from Scotland to Somerset. It was Summer Solstice after all and what better way to see the longest days sun set and the dawn of the new era arise. It was magical. We packed the campervan leaving a long thin gap on the bed for a person to snooze upon. Enabling us to take it in turns to drive or sleep our way down the country.

We arrived on site at 7am and were turned away for an hour. So we parked up in the nearest layby and shared a nap. Back on site for 8am, health and safety inducted and up in our field by 8:25 which was bliss. It was a clear blue sky morning. The fields were green, empty and beautiful. Our excitement and anticipation increasing as we slowly but surely acclimatised to the heat, the hippys and the hype ahead. We were delighted to be back again, in the bosom of the activity and able to be part of the growing animal yet to awake.

Photo: Andrew Allcock

We spent the next three days in the scorching sun, working with an incredible team of people on a combined project for the archway between the healing fields Air gate and the Pennard Hill camping which leads to the Tipi fields and The Park. This year’s organic creation archway was inspired by the rays of the sun, but actually ended up looking like the open toothy jaws of a wide mouthed animal. Ready to eat those who passed under her. It was large and impressive and that’s all that mattered. After the archway came the ornate individually shaped and patterned recycled wood fencing, with alcoves and clematis planting. It was lovely. And yet again I was so taken aback by all the compliments from passersby, the offers of praise and adoration. Thankfully this year it wasn’t tagged or stolen by any idiots without respect for other people’s art. We spent our evenings with friends, on the doorstep of other campervans. Whispering memories of the years passed, toasting the people we missed and tending the bucket of fire.

Photo: Jason Bryant

So Wednesday comes round, the archway is finished, the fence prettified, the punters are coming through the gates in absolute droves, excited, over loaded and full of anticipation. The weather still warm and dry, smiles everywhere, smells of food vendors teasing your taste buds and the soothing sounds of an all day all night festival thrumming around our ears. We enjoyed a long lay in that morning, spent a lazy day of reading, wandering the site and eating our home made food. In the evening we headed up to the Stone Circle to watch the impressive big show stopper fireworks and see the Dragon effigy set on fire. All so wonderful to appreciate when you have the beautiful Dragon field garden around you, water features and archways, interspersed with long comfortable benches.

Thursday we awoke fresh as daisies with nothing to do but enjoy the sunshine, enjoy the newcomers, and walk the site some more. Finding people demonstrating their crafts and watching some of the most amazing food being cooked. Some of the last structures were still being put together, there was lots of work going on around the Pyramid stage and of course, people are still arriving with all their beer stacks and wellies tied to their huge back packs.

The first act we saw on Thursday was the lively King Porter Stomp. Recommended to us by numerous stickers on the back of the long drop doors – who could resist! A bit of Ska, dub, rapper delight on the Hell stage in Shangri-La. The opening act and what a great way to kick off! They were fantastic, got us all moving about, even though they were new to us and we didn’t know any of their tracks, we danced to all of it. Fabulous start to the weekend, in Hell no less!!

Next up, later into the evening, was the Small World Stage which backs onto the same bush dividing our base camp from the field next door. It brings to us a constant output of music and kept us entertained all weekend. And what did we see? The incredibly talented Brighton based Carnival Collective. These guys are awesome. They take up so much room, with all their drummers large and small, wind instruments, vocalists, percussion and brass. And the sound they knock out is a tremendous, soulful, thumping extravaganza you can only enjoy. And oh my! Wait until they break out into their hardcore medley. You will not believe what these guys can cover with their instruments and no electro, digital, repeat gadgets in site. My favourite being the Prodigy mash up they did which was fast, thrilling and unbelievable that they can make that sound thrum the ground. We danced as much as we could without getting stitch from all the vigorous moves. Carnival Collective were immense and gave us such a good feeling, getting the musical performance side of our festival well and truly kicked off.

Review: Lou Hyand