Standard weekend.

[Pun`]

My Glastonbury 2014 story! This may well look like a fairly considerable investment of time but I think the story of our exploits is well worth it. I believe we were the only people to gain access to Glastonbury festival 2014 through the use of our wits and a borrowed ladder.

As normal for a Friday afternoon my thirst for beer got the better of me. It took four pints for me to come to the conclusion that not being at the Glastonbury festival was a gross error on my behalf and I simply had to get there and spend the next 72 hours smashed, listening to music and staggering around with 200,000+ like-minded soles. My friend the Wizard had a plan and after 'checking our levels' we headed off into the night with the express mission of gaining access to the biggest and best festival in Europe. Spirits ran high. We met up with a small convoy in Chard and hit the road. I managed to keep my alcohol levels up for the journey so I wouldn’t say I lost any impetuous what so ever on the fairly long-winded drive. The Wizard entertains. Upon arrival it became evident that getting a vehicle within 2/3 miles of the action was utterly impossible. On foot from here then. Parking up, a small gathering of equally lost and ticketless, opportunistic youths, wondering around in circles without a plan, gathered to exchange hopelessly exaggerated tips for gaining access. I figured that this was where I needed to step up my game and get us all moving at least in the direction of the music.
My first move was to lead this rag tag motley band of around twenty estranged stragglers through an unfortunate locals garden and over their back fence straight into a large expanse of brambles and nettles. This sucked some of the life from the group and I believe that at this point we lost a few of the weaker more narcotically challenged tag-ons.
Fighting our way out of this initial somewhat unfortunate first obstacle we found ourselves waist deep in a large field of soaking wet grass. Half a mile later, drenched but still high on the adventure, the next obstacle was a ten meter wide expanse of barb wire and hawthorn. I still have around 20 septic thorns in my hand from this part, as beating a path through was possibly the most physically challenging aspect of the expedition. My only moment of doubt and defeat on this mission came when swinging upside down from barbed wire and watching my beer pour out into the nettles that were causing me a fairly high degree of annoyance. However, undeterred I pushed a path through and one by one we gathered at the next challenge. A river. At this point some of the group gave up. The team was disbanding and something needed to be done, fast. Knowing full well that the branch of the tree from the other side of the river wasn't going to take my weight I declared that this ‘swing’ I had found would save us. As I plunged into the water I could hear the laughter from the group and I figured, my work here is done. I pulled myself out on the festival side of the water and turned to see everyone gearing up for the crossing. Two miles cross country later we arrived at the first fence. Whittled down in numbers but still buzzing, driven on by the distant lights and music we had the horrible realisation that this next obstacle was the first of many staffed and gated checkpoints. The only female in our group worked her charms and a friendly festival worker allowed us to pile into the back of his vehicle. Overjoyed at the prospect of what lay beyond the fence we drove straight through to the festival entrance where we were unceremoniously deposited. Our plan was simple, walk straight through and hope no one questions us. It was a shit plan. Everyone was busted. Evacuation crews were called and people were being searched. Offers of hundreds of pounds to turn a blind eye didn’t help our situation and all seemed lost. “Go on lads, scarper” Fucking yes! (not into the festival but a ray of hope) We were running, drunk, drenched, stung, scratched, plastered in mud and ecstatic along the perimeter fence. The Wizard was missing, the group had virtually disbanded. Myself and a brave lad called Ross were the only members of the original party left when I reached a safe distance and a place to stop and collect my thoughts.
I WILL festival.
We tracked the perimeter looking for a weakness and luckily we found one, a stream and a wet gap under the fence to pull ourselves through. This was the first of many times when I thought YES we are in, only to be presented with another challenge. Unfortunately, after brushing myself off and wringing the water from my clothes my eyes fell on the first ‘no-mans land’ round the side of the tarpaulin tent in front of us. To top it off we soon realised that the tarp was the back of a tent full of festival security all chewing the cud and keeping watch. Silhouetted against the side of the security tent and dangerously exposed we crawled into a corner and decided the only thing for it was to stand up and walk as if we were there with purpose, straight over the tracks and into the hedge opposite. Somehow this worked. We crossed through a stately homes garden keeping to the shadows and hiding from the people milling around there. Randomly we came across a road and another checkpoint, this one was easy enough, we just stayed in the hedge, ducking the occasional fence. We soon found another no–man’s land across which we wound up in what I imagine to be Micheal Evis’s sizable private residence and gardens which was sporadically splattered with tents and people taking some time out from the festival. At this point I realised that we had probably come the worst possible route, i had wondered at the impressive number of fences and obstacles that a lively mix of sheer luck and perseverance had allowed us to overcome. Our route, most likely, had a higher concentration of fences then Than Area 51. Undeterred we ploughed on, sneaking through the gardens, diving into hedges whenever we heard voices, just missing security details on many occasions. Eventually we arrived at the last no-man’s land and were presented with the daunting prospect of the final obstacle. A fence of alpine proportions, as high as a house with solid concrete foundations and some kind of anti-climb device at the top. Thinking fast, considering I was blind drunk, I had the brain wave that brought our whole mission to a resounding climax. A little way back we had passed a large garage, I thought, hang on, where there is a garage there is a ladder. Leaving Ross to recoup and telling him to time the patrols but not to leave the sanctuary of the thorn bush. I doubled back to the garage. The lights were on and people were lingering about but to my absolute delight, there on the wall, was a fucking ladder! Sneaking in on tip toes and sprinting out rather more conspicuously than was desired with the loud, shining silver ladder, I found Ross, dived back into the nettles and presented our saving grace to him with a rye grin and a wink.
Now the no-man’s land that barred our path to success was patrolled regularly by gangs of hired hands, hard mercenaries with the express charge of shattering our dreams. There was nothing for it but to wait for a quiet spell and storm the fence, pray our luck held out. Slamming the ladder into a solid footing I soon realised that it was problematically short for the task but I could jump from its top wrung and gain a purchase on the anti-climb device. At this point a super human strength came over me, brought into being by the exhilaration of the experience and the stimulating concoction coursing through me. Six attempts and a dangerously long time later I was up, I was straddling the fence but where the fuck was Ross?! Finally he pads out from the bushes and runs across to the ladder, I’ve got at least half a foot on the fella and I knew I had to help him over which took an exceedingly long time. Success! We finally found ourselves atop the obstacle. A crowd had formed on the other side, cheering, whistling and shouting us on! The heroes’ welcome we deserved! But it wasn’t over yet. We had triumphed into an area set aside for the workers of a large stage. Another unfortunate faux pas, again surrounded by check points! We took 'stock' and drank heavily. A couple of fine fellas from the crew offered to act as camouflage and we passed through the last test holding our nerve and looking confident! We were in! Hilarity and festivalness proceeded for roughly 12 hours until rather stupidly we found ourselves outnumbered by festival workers checking wristbands. I had brought no tent, no sleeping bag, not so much as a spare pair of socks, hammered, plastered head to toe in mud, soaking wet to the bone, in the light of the Saturday morning I considered abandoning my last standing companion, the only one with the minerals and making a mad dash in search of a crowd but then I figured, it’s over, let’s go home. The eviction crew turned down my bribe offer of two hundred pounds but they were a jovial and friendly bunch and we had a bloody good laugh in the eviction vehicle regaling the details of our adventure. Almost to the point where my request to drop us at the pyramid stage was accepted but it was not to be. The retard tent was where we were headed. After being processed and evicted we rather fortunately found our friends sleeping in their car at the point of origin, the laughs continued right through the next day, but the upshot is, I was at the fun but slightly less incredible Axminster Beer festival by 9pm Saturday night. I did however have clean, dry socks on and a bloody funny tale to tell.
I will most definitely buy a ticket next year, it’s a damn site easier.

I sent this to the organiser of the festival with an offer to pay for his ladder. He responded by giving me a free ticket for next year!

This also went a little viral when i wrote it, so i thought i'd paste it in here. Hope you enjoyed a little insight into my life. We were all completely fucked on everything going. The festival sells out 200,000 tickets in one hour and you have to actually register for a chance to get one and try your luck calling the ticket number repeatedly hoping to actually get a ticket. Fuck that.

Cheers

[Sens]

fucking yes that's awesome. Legend. Great story telling also!

[Pun`]

Thanks Sens!

[RickJames]

This was a great read, I enjoyed it!

[kE-]

+1

[Hermione]

[KillEmAll]

Great read.

[HUMPTY]

hahaha nice one pun..

hope its a good lineup next year for ya!
have done most of the uk festivals ..not glastonbury yet though..will not be trying your way out though;D

[Sonic|^]

[Xenoscythe]

Haha great story pun I've worked eviction monitoring a few times and its often a good laugh to see how desperate people are to get in!

[blackout\\]

[tigerclaw]

idk man, sprawling through fields with a bunch of drunks doesn't sound like a good time

watching said drunks sprawl is always amusing though...

most of my nights out would be redacted

as we were ******* **** in the corner, the homeless man looked up and smiled, he suggested the best way to do **** was to freeze it into an ice cube and insert it ********, i gestured that we would take his word for it