Glastonbury 2017: Where to go, what to do and how to make the most of it

From the secret sets to where to see Ed Sheeran, Phoebe Luckhurst has a guide to next week’s blowout on Worthy Farm
Rave on: the Glastonbury crowd
PA Wire/Press Association Images

Glexit means glexit. On Wednesday the capital’s carousers will head to Worthy Farm for the annual pilgrimage to Michael Eavis’s altar. Joyless observers will try to dampen their spirits by impugning the headliners or proffering pessimistic assessments of the weather and mud, but everyone going knows it is undeniably the best way to spend a long weekend.

While every year is special this one is supercharged. This festival will be the last at Worthy Farm until 2019: next year Eavis is giving his own paddocks a break and the festival will decamp to an as yet unnamed site in the Midlands, about 100 miles away.

It’s unlikely the festival will lose much of its magic in the move, and it will return the year after. Nonetheless, there is a fin de siècle spirit in the air: those packing for next week’s event intend to use this as an as an excuse for hedonism on an unprecedented, reckless scale. You won’t be back at Worthy until 2019 at the earliest — celebrate by visiting every stage, by daubing yourself in foil freckles, by having two breakfast ciders instead of the seemlier single can. The fields await you and they are primed for a party. Here’s what to expect.

Act up

As Glastonveterans will point out, this festival is about so much more than the headliners. You care for about 10 minutes, in March, about who’s top of the bill on the Pyramid Stage — mainly for the purposes of an argument — and then you forget.

Remember the year someone started a petition protesting about Kanye West’s headline spot? By the time the field filled up people could not guzzle their ciders as the density of the crowd had trapped their arms by their sides.

Friday night’s headliners are The xx and Radiohead, overlapping with Lorde and Major Lazer who are playing at similar times on The Other Stage. Foo Fighters have finally made it: the group were supposed to headline in 2015 but singer Dave Grohl broke his leg and the group was replaced by Florence + The Machine. Foo Fighters will headline the Pyramid Stage on Saturday after Katy Perry and The National.

On Sunday it is Ed Sheeran, who looks like the sort of person you’d find talking to a whittled wooden stump in Green Futures but who is in fact headlining the Pyramid Stage.

Craig David is playing an afternoon spot on the Pyramid on Saturday afternoon, and Stormzy and Wiley are on the Other Stage on Saturday evening. Obviously there are hundreds more — try to retain sufficient wits to navigate the site so you don’t miss anyone important.

Lastonbury: Solange will be one of the acts playing at the festival before it moves to the Midlands for a year
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Field politics

Activism is enshrined in Glastonbury’s lore. Certainly the modern-day version is less inspiring than the people-power movements of Glastonbury’s early political history, however there is still a hopeful spirit at Worthy.

This year, on the Thursday, the festival will attempt the “biggest peace sign ever” in the Green Fields.

Remember, there is something about being at Glastonbury that makes the most combative, sarcastic people go native and contemplate vegetarianism seriously. Enjoy them now — on Monday morning they will revert to being sourpusses, the transformation taking place just as you get stuck in a three-hour traffic jam on the way home.

Furthermore, this year’s festival marks an anniversary of sorts: last year, the results of the EU referendum came in on the Friday morning of the festival. Needless to say, this was not the right audience for it, and the valley echoed with grief. This year’s takes place during the uncertain aftermath of a hung parliament, though Corbyn’s unexpected success — relatively speaking — has given the Left reason to hope again.

Either way, expect the Left Field — a sort of bucolic Speaker’s Corner — to be packed with enraptured disciples listening to firebrands including poster boy Billy Bragg. On Friday there will be a lunchtime talk about Brexit, A Year On, and the field will crescendo over the weekend: Sunday’s lunchtime debate is the more incendiary “Is Democracy Broken?” Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell will be chewing this question over.

Pyramid Song: Radiohead are headlining on Friday 
Amy Harris/REX/Shutterstock

Talk of the tents

The country is tremulous after three terrorist attacks in 10 weeks and, undoubtedly, one talking point of this year’s festival will be the increased security. Last week ticket holders received an email outlining new measures “in light of the recent tragic events in Manchester and London”. The organisers are advising visitors to pack as little as possible and emphasise that queues to get in may be longer than at previous festivals as bags will be checked more thoroughly. Take two fewer outfits and some tinnies for the queue — you’ll get in eventually.

With that dealt with, conversation pivots inevitably to the weather. Tentative forecasts are encouraging: dry in the week preceding the festival (which is arguably more important than the weather once you’re actually there) and occasional periods of light rain on Saturday and Sunday. Stating the obvious: pack for both sunshine and showers.

It’s more fun to speculate on the secret sets. Many of this year’s crowd will remember the year Prince was “definitely” playing. Every year Daft Punk are supposed to be doing a show. The rumours spread with extraordinary velocity, though realistically, if you’re not in the right place at the right time, you probably won’t see whoever has popped in.

Saying that, Emily Eavis has appeared to confirm there will be a good one this year. “There’s a really big one,” she told NME. “I haven’t even told anyone who’s coming and we’ve managed to keep it completely quiet for the first time. I’m just pleased we’ve managed to keep it secret for this long.”

The Park is celebrating its 10th birthday this year, so some commentators wonder if it could take place there, with a few pointing out that Lady Gaga was rumoured to be headlining this year but wasn’t on the main line-up announcement, so it could be her — she once played a small set in Shangri-La’s garish temple in the small hours of Glastonbury 2009.

Wipe off the disdain: you'll have a better time if you let go and have a little fun
Rex Features

Make your mark

It is 2017, and therefore you share, instinctively, all over social media. While one of your friends might have suggested, hopefully, that maybe you could “ditch phones this year” this is clearly impractical as Glastonbury spreads across 900 acres and managing your friendship group is as exasperating as herding cats. Plus, five minutes inside and you’ll forget your stance: phone network EE, which provides the on-site wi-fi (stop groaning) estimates the 175,000 attendees will share more than 40 terabytes of data, which amounts to around 400 million selfies, and you will almost certainly be one of them. The scene is too kaleidoscopic and magical to resist it.

Incidentally, in more pro-smartphone propaganda, EE’s app is actually quite useful — less for planning the headliners, although they have now hooked up with Apple Music so you can do your music homework, than for navigating, as you will definitely lose your paper map within about an hour of erecting your tent.

There are charging points for phones, those who were organised and bought a Juice Tube power bank can swap it once a day for a fully charged one.

Yes, there is fun to be had in going off-grid but — whisper it — you’ll get on better if you wipe off the disdain: if your mate wants to share a picture of you on Instagram, gilded in glitter, then pose for the photo. You will be glad you have it to remember the good times, when you are pining for Worthy next year.

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