Going To a Festival? Don't Annoy The Locals, Everyone Else Has!

Every Autumn, around where I live my commute is regularly held up by potatoes. No, seriously, around deepest, darkest Bedfordshire, (it be farmin' country around 'ere) every August the tractors full of tasty goods fill up their loads and trundle along the roads at what is basically walking speed, to send them off to Mr Morrisons, so you and I can enjoy a lovely salad, or a Turnip Surprise (comments at the end please, on what the Surprise is...). It does make my hay fever go bonkers, but hey, they've got shots for everything nowadays. Now, this may sound like the start of a rant, but it's barely even worth complaining about.

Those who live (or regularly commute) around London must be looking at the combo of the royal wedding this April with dread, but not half as much dread as the up and coming Olympics next year. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for them, but can you imagine trying to get the Circle Line to work, only to find the first three trains crammed up by people in "amusing" shorts, questionable baseball caps and massive cameras? Crikey, it'd drive me mad! Constantly being stopped in the street and being asked in broken English where "the big sports place lives", and not being able to get anywhere due to the endless traffic from the events, leading tourists to question if anything actually moves on the roads! If I lived there, do you know what I'd do? Go on a massive holiday! Some people are renting out their flats or houses in London to tourists who can't get a hotel, sometimes for crazy money for a week. One person I know is asking for £1,000 for a weeks stay in their central London pad to anyone who wants somewhere nice to stay during the games.

This hassle, however, is a one-off event. It'll come, it'll go, it'll be forgotten about. What about the residents of Reading or Leeds?

It's hard to miss the constant coverage of the Carling Weekend Festivals in these towns. They're massive, I tells ye, and they're every year as well. The rush for tickets is mad, with sell-outs of all the nearly 90,000 tickets happening in a day or so, and they're not small local bands, they're international stadium-fillers such as Muse, Elbow and The Strokes. Having been to a fair few festivals myself, I can tell you that the sheer volume of festival-types walking around the towns is mind-boggling. They're easy to spot: muddy shorts, hair that hasn't seen a shower in days, asking everyone where the pubs are, and with backpacks that are bigger than Charlie Sheen's ego. And that's not even mentioning the colossal traffic jams on the Monday afterwards. The residents of Reading & Leeds must have the patience of a saint!

 And before you ask; yes, I have my ticket to Reading Festival.

However, this'll be the first year that I've paid real money to go. As much as I'd like to massively lie and say I crawled over the fence using a series of moves that'll make Spiderman take notes, I can't. Instead, I worked at both Reading and Glastonbury. Oxfam supply Stewards (those folk in the orange Hi-Vis jackets) for the events, in exchange for a big donation. Stewards volunteer for Oxfam, in exchange for free entry to the event. Ok, so you have to do some shifts, but you get in for free, and this provides almost boundless anecdotes for anyone. For example. A small Scottish lady came up to me to ask if I could pass to the front gate the tickets for KT Tunstall's band. I said I would, and asked for her name. She (and everyone around me) looked somewhat shocked, then she told me that she in fact *was* KT Tunstall. It wouldn't have been so bad had I not been standing next to a massive poster of her. I know that festivals get a bit of bad press by the more panicky in our society, but despite the fact that everyone's home for the weekend is a tent, that is secured by a mere zip, crime is amazingly low and there's an atmosphere that doesn't happen anywhere else.

So, this August, I will be enjoying the lovely Berkshire weather, some lovely bands and some lovely people. And what's the best thing? Those who will scoff at going to a festival, whether it's because they believe you'll catch plague from the mud or they'll statistically be killed three times a day, will be back home, in their car, screaming at the fact that they're stuck behind a tractor.

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