This year was my first time, attending with my partner who has worked on many of the recent muddy years. With us was a festival regular from the US who's done several big events like Coachella. We also caught up with some friends who had been attending for 17 years, so between us, we had a wide range of experiences.
We had a great time all in, but it was sullied by the overcrowding issues. We were lucky in that we had hospitality bands and could slip through the interstage cut-throughs - but there were times where you just had to get stuck into it.
On Thursday night I ended up having a panic attack in The Glade due to how quickly it suddenly filled up when Sasha came on, to the point I had to be dragged out - I've never had a panic attack in a crowd before...
On Friday night, somewhat readier for the crowds, we left Billie's set - which was great, and we had queued from early on for a spot near(ish) to the front, we went with the crowd up toward Arcadia thinking we might get to Groove Armada. Big mistake - we got caught up in THAT crush, which took us a good 45 minutes to get through.
The bit that disgusted me the most about the crush was not the crush itself - arguably no one in the crush can be blamed for it singularly, however, I found the behaviour of those deciding to trample over the tents in the campsite alongside Arcadia leading up to The Park was disgusting. Whatever happened to common sense or decency?
Sunday was the day that disappointed me the most however, we seemed to shuttle from one stage to another to wait for a shit experience; Di-Ro was a long wait toward the back hoping to avoid the queues again, but then when we found we couldn't hear anything, and she wasn't really cutting it, like many others we decided to cut out early and wander down to McFly to get a good spot there. Waited for ages, and then it just went mental again - too crowded and we couldn't really hear once it'd filled up. So we left there and got caught in the crush there too.
At that point, my partner and I simply cut our losses - we'd exhausted our will to bear the crowds, and despite wanting to see PSB, we decided to leave the site and come home. We're so glad we did now, hearing that it was again a nightmare leaving the other stage.
Overall, I would echo the sentiments made by others - it felt too much from an attendance perspective - too many in too tight a space most of the time. We would have quite happily stayed in the smaller tents and listened to the alternative stuff, but there wasn't much of that we could get to either.
As mentioned, we had hospitality, so we were able to use those toilets which was a godsend, so while I saw queues around the site, it wasn't too much of an impact. However, the showers in hospitality did fail and so we had no hot water which was frustrating given the expense. Food was crazy expensive at times, and queueing was challenging unless you ate at odd times.
Finally, I'll add this one observation - I am deaf; I wear two hearing aids. I found it often very difficult to hear what was being played, especially when sound bleed was occuring - there were times on Thursday night when I wanted to listen to what was being played in places but simply couldn't get close enough to be able to hear properly. That was the most disappointing element for me.
Those with me with previous experience were shocked at how much busier it was - citing the scheduling as probably one of the leading factors in the crushes based on previous years with decent clashes calming it.
So my summary is this: I'd heard so much about the experience I was really wanting to love it, but I came away feeling very Meh about it. I sure as hell wouldn't want to bring my 9 and 11 year along, not when its this crowded. Shame, as I enjoyed much of it, but the bits that I didn't kind of ruined the good bits 😞
ETA: Oh yeah, and we've both come home with COVID - the UK is gonna see one hell of a spike in the next few weeks I think...
