Pop-up Tents and Student Debt
All the buzz for our up and coming IAStival, has reminded me of
a few years back when myself and a group of university mates
brought the festival fever home and turned our student living room
into Glastonbury. Coming out of uni for the summer usually leaves
you with an empty purse and a hefty minus sign on your bank
account, two factors that prevented three mates and I from joining
thousands of festival goers back in 2009. No matter how we tried to
persuade the folks that providing their destitute children with
money was a parental requirement, or how hard we tried to extend
our overdrafts, the chance of rolling around in Glastonbury's mud
looked pretty obsolete. Yet the idea of missing out and spending
yet another night dining on Pot Noodles and watching Jeremy Kyle
repeats, gave us the sudden urge to create our own festival. So we
brought Glastonbury to our small student house in Sheffield, tents
and all.
If I remember it correctly it was the year Neil Young, Bruce
Springstein and Blur took to the stage as the three headlining
acts, displaying their musical excellence on the Pyramid stage!
There was nothing quite like the three of us all huddled up in our
little pop up tent, which was more like a wind shelter than a fancy
NorthFace item, enjoying a mixture of musical genres from Pop and
Indie to Jazz and Rock n Roll. The BBC showed performances late
into the night and although the music wasn't live, and the sights
and smells weren't completely true to the festival scene, we didn't
feel so defeated by our financial burdens.
I don't know how we managed it, or what possessed us to turn our
living room into a festival frenzie and in turn complete mayhem,
but our dull student room was transformed and missing out on the
real Glastonbury didn't seem such a disappointment. Present on the
night was the pop up tent, sleeping bags, cider, bacon butties, and
our fuzzy student TV, the kind where you have to take turns to hold
the aerial until a picture appears! I'll admit we didn't actually
sleep in the tent, but crawling into bed after a satisfactory
amount of Magners, seemed a much better option and the best bit of
all... there was no portaloo!
So whilst a good percentage of the nation experienced
Glastonbury from the frontline, we watched the festival in the
comfort of our student abode. Don't get me wrong, there is nothing
quite like waking up in your tent surrounded by the actual smells
(some not so good) and sounds of a festival, but when your student
burdens are rapidly increasing, a festival in your front room is
the only option!
It just goes to show that wherever you are, whether it's camping
in a field or camping (sort of) in your living room, as long as you
have the right ingredients, music, food, drink and good company,
you have the recipe for a festival! Something that the IAS team are
getting ready to serve up and with a menu to suit all musical taste
buds, it's going to be an event that won't disappoint. I've got my
pop up tent at the ready!!
Tagged:
Music