Festival season

So we find ourselves once again fast approaching the Isle of Wight Festival, the event that has in the past acted (for me at least) as the start point for the summer festivals. Yes I know that there are plenty of festivals before this one, in fact we seem to be at breaking point with the number of festivals going on in this country (not to mention abroad) and it seems that barely a weekend passes without being presented with two or three festivals all waiting to make us part with our money and I intend to attend several of them. But it's still the IW that is the marker.

Except for me this year it isn't.

For the first time since the rebirth of the festival in 2002 I won't be attending. It wasn't a decision I made lightly either. 

There are several reasons for this, the first being a simple financial consideration, I am venturing to Glastonbury in a fortnight and only have a limited number of beer tokens in a month. Another is that a lot of my friends aren't going either and so would be less of a group as previous years. But the fact is that both of those reasons are pretty flimsy - I have been offered a free ticket through work and have been going to festivals long enough now to know how to avoid the expensive food and beer and do it on a shoestring, similarly I also know that festivals are as much about making new friends as well as spending time with existing ones.

No the real reason that I'm not going is simply this:

I just don't care for it anymore.

It's become too crowded, to commercial and quite frankly the bands on just don't appeal to me this year - Bananarama headlining the big top? M&S sandwiches for sale? 60,000 people trying to get round a site build for half that. You can keep it I'm afraid - it's just not what I want from a festival anymore - give me Bestival any day, it amazes me how two completely polar opposites festivals have sprung up on the Island. By contrast Bestival has it so very, very right and has the magic. Giddings would do well to take a long look at his partner if he's going to take the festival forward.