What do you miss most about festivals?

Festivals: a staple in your elaborate plans for the summer. The promise of live music, booze, over-priced street food and a lairy laugh leave us angling for those blissful months away from uni to arrive. This is all so we can get wonky with our mates and wake up the next morning next to the tent with our head in our own vomit.

Whether it’s the heat of Hideout, or the magic of Glasto, there is a music festival for everyone, and we just can’t get enough.

But because those few days of madness are so extraordinary, coming home back to reality becomes something we all dread. It’s all ‘this time last week I was spangled out of my mind in a field’, or ‘I’ve been listening to [insert artist name] all day thinking ‘I’ve seen this live’’, and we somehow get ourselves into a nostalgic frenzy that is rather difficult to escape.

Coming back to the reality of uni makes us all reflect on the priceless experiences that our long hot summers gave us, so the Tab spoke to some of you keen festival-goers to find out what it is that you miss most about these glorious days.

Mona Beni, Second Year, English with Creative Writing

“The atmosphere, the fact that no-one cares and people can do what they want. Festivals have a sense of freedom about them, I miss that.”

Niall Ahearne, Postgrad, Psychology

“Probably the music, as I prefer to see someone play music live. And it gives me an opportunity to see artists I wouldn’t usually see on a tour.”

Emily Grant, Second Year, Geography

“I miss the clothes. Because at a festival you wear the things you can’t usually wear.”

Robert Billingham, First Year, History

“Probably getting pushed around by everyone. Like when everyone’s dancing and people push you and you push back. Definitely how cheap the alcohol is too”

Jacob Mullankuzhy, Second Year, German, Spanish and French

“When you’re at a festival, you have the whole day to get fucked, no worries, no responsibilities. And meeting new people, you can be yourself straight away. Obviously the music too.”

Adam Snaith, First Year, Modern European Studies with German

“You get to wear whatever you want. You’re surrounded by friends and even if they are friends of friends there, you can all just get on because you’re only there for a short period of time. Living in the moment.”

Beth Evington, Second Year, French and German in Translation

” PHOI hate coming back to reality. I miss not being surrounded by crowds, people everywhere, everyone in a good mood. And especially with festivals abroad, I miss the weather.”

At the end of the day, festivals do have their shit bits: you have to use grim toilets, if it rains – you’re fucked and you’ve just paid eight quid for a tiny portion of noodles. But they give us an escape from the world of dissertations and secondary reading, we can let go for a weekend and it’s addictive.

For now, while you’re watching Netflix avoiding seminar prep or struggling through your eight hour shift at M&S, you’ve just got to hang onto the thought that there is always another wicked weekend not too far away.