Glastonbury Festival - A Whole New Experience
Part One
We’ve returned from Glastonbury Festival full of inspiration with a diary full of new contacts and friends. Read on to hear all about our festival experience, and discover our tips on networking.
Illustration by Steve Rack
The first thing that strikes me is how overwhelmingly huge the site is. This is not your average festival with a couple of stages in a field. It is a whole community stretching as far and wide as the eye can see! It helps to be able to read a map, which is not my strong point. Subsequently, I got extremely lost with a huge ruck containing the weight of a twelve year old child!!!
Steve Rack (The Crayola King) in his tent backstage at Glastonbury festival
Steve Rack (The Crayola King) in his tent backstage at Glastonbury festival Finally, I arrive backstage. I’m greeted with creativity in abundance. There are little huts with cow prints and clouds painted on the roofs with daisies towering above. There are also three shelters, which are constructed together with different coloured plastic bottles (They looked amazing lit up at night.). So, in order to blend in with the colourful environment, Steve Rack (The Crayola King) and myself set about doodling all over our tents. I sew on a few jingly jangly beads, and we blow up some balloons, and we draw characters on them. Then it starts to rain.
Angelbws doodling on her tent
FRIDAY
Friday’s highlight for me is The Gossip. Beth Ditto appears in a deep purple jumpsuit with the hood up covering her face. From the second she emerges she’s off thrusting her fist in the air, stomping her feet in time to the music and shaking every muscle on her body. Being as controversial as ever, she provokes the crowd by saying how lucky they are to have Jay-Z and how he’s going to save Glastonbury Festival!! From what? Who knows? The crowd reacts with a few boos and hisses.
But this doesn’t deter Beth. She decides she wants to get closer to the fans, so she slides down off the stage and runs along the barrier giving hi fives to everyone. Then she dresses up in peoples hats, sun glasses and flower garlands. She even stops to allow a girl to paint hearts on her cheeks. The audience adore her, especially when she proposes to a butch looking security guard who tries to keep his composure, but looks absolutely mortified. This is exactly what you want from a live performance; improvisation, interaction with the audience and an energetic performance etched into your memory for ever.
The Gossip, photo by Martin Coyne
After a long day of walking miles from one stage to another, we go to the backstage bar for a drink and some networking. To be successful in the creative industries you have to realise that it’s all about who you know. This is what industry people do when they gather backstage. It’s all about meeting the right people who can influence your career as well as initiating some great collaborations.
A Dalek stood outside the huts
SUBvert Magazine’s top tips for successful networking
* Smile at everyone you see and say hello.
* Open body language. (Don’t sit in a dark corner!) Hang out somewhere you can be seen and sit in a manner that invites others to join you.
* Be the one to start a conversation. If people are wearing name badges, look at what company they are from and ask them about it. Be genuinely
interested in what they do. Do they enjoy it? How long have they been doing it? What are the best and worst things about it?
* Always remember to get their name and contact details, and give them your business card.
* Don’t cling to the first person you talk to you. Mingle with as many people as possible. The more people you talk to, the more confident you will become
* When you return home, remember to send an email to everyone you met just to say “Hi.” and how nice it was to meet them
At Glastonbury Festival we spoke to everyone; the festival staff, photographers, journalists, the bands, friends and family of the bands, tv crew, radio presenters. Anyone that crossed our path, we made it our mission to speak to them, and this in turn made our festival experience so much more valuable and enjoyable. Some people we will remain good friends with. Others were important contacts that we will work with in the future, and they will be vital in connecting us with other influential people in the industry.
If you didn’t go to Glastonbury festival, why not check out all the highlights at:
www.bbc.co.uk/glastonbury/2008/artists
Check our more photos on our flickr account.
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