Festivals
I came late to Festivals, I was 43 when I went to my first one! It was Womad at Reading, and it was quite a small festival in those days, and I loved it! But over the years it grew bigger and the stewards became more domineering and the price of tickets went up and up and you seemed to be there just to fleece more money off. back at the start Festivals were free and joyous-- now they are just money making vehicles for big business. I will never go to another one, and that is sad. I remember one year in particular at Womad when my daughter of 20 something was driving us in in her VW camper van with her 36 year old friend and her young teenage son and me ( I was in m.y 50's ) and we had passed the ticket check and were driving round to the camping fields and were stopped by a huge steward who demanded we all get out and roughly put us aside while he had a look in the van, there was nothing we were hiding and eventually he let us go, but it left us shaken and sad.
The price of tickets has risen to nearly £200 for a weekend in a field surrounded by security and less than adequate facilities, and in the case of Womad you have to pay extra to arrive on the Thursday and £25 extra if you are coming in a camper van, it is just so sad and destructive to the original concept of the Festival.
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