Anyone who is unfortunate enough to watch my Instagram stories knows that last week I had the privilege of attending Glastonbury. It was my first time at the festival and the first British festival I have attended so here are my takeaways from the loss of my Glasto-virginity.

“Dear lord do you need time to adjust to it”

The festival opening on Wednesday finally makes sense because dear lord do you need time to adjust to it. Now, there is the obvious fact that the site is huge: the festival covers 1500 acres of land. For people like me who still have no clue how large an acre is, that is 850 football pitches. Stages and popular areas like the Healing Fields are completely spread out over this land, with camping placed sporadically around the site.

On top of orienting yourself, there is also the adjustment to the slightly tragic conditions you’ve subjected yourself to for five days: staying in a tent in a field with 200,000 people plus some breezy and downright nasty loos. For full transparency, I was technically working at this Glastonbury, which afforded me the luxury of a separate camping ground. This was relatively quiet compared to the public ones and, most importantly, gave me the holy grail of a shower. So, if you want horror stories about the infamous “long drop” toilets, you’ll have to look elsewhere because I refused to subject myself to that.

“I’ve been to my fair share of concerts where I have cosplayed a sardine”

Now that you’ve adjusted to the size of Glastonbury and prepared yourself for the smells you’ll face over the coming days, you can begin the festival itself. Thursday is when most of the small stages open and is a great opportunity for sightseeing. It was on this day I realised how bloody busy the festival is. 210,000 people attended this year and overcrowding at sets definitely became an issue. Fields were shut down for the Sugababes, Avril Lavigne and surprise act Kasabian because of too many people attending, with Bicep’s set being stopped for 20 minutes due to a crush at the front of the crowd. This is both a fault of the organisation – not putting some of these acts on bigger stages – but also an indication of Glastonbury’s ticketing greed, as capacity continues to grow to the detriment of crew spaces.

As much as I complain about the number of people, I found the Glastonbury crowd oddly respectful. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts where I’ve cosplayed a sardine – but not at Glasto. Yes, the crowd was tight in places. But I never found myself uncomfortably close to someone.

“I would relish an extra few days just to walk around and explore”

However, this also meant the Glasto crowd was just a little bit dead. I’m aware it’s a festival that people buy tickets for without knowing the lineup and it’s certainly fun for discovering new artists. But I’m an indie girl through and through and my dreams of moshing to ‘British Bombs’ at a festival fell slightly short. Yes, I had a jump around but the only people who seemed as excited about Declan McKenna were a couple of girls behind me. Come on, you’re at a festival with Declan McKenna. Are these not the perfect conditions to get a little rowdy?

This felt the same at many performances, which isn’t necessarily a detriment to Glastonbury. The culture of people being able to sit down and enjoy the music, especially on the hill for the Pyramid Stage, is a lovely one which works well for many. But it does detract from the electric feeling of being in an audience. And isn’t that why we subject ourselves to an hour of being a sardine?

As the weekend wraps up, people begin to reminisce on their time at the festival. Many talk about never wanting to leave. Personally, I could not have wanted to be home sooner – queuing for a shower in the freezing cold at 8am is not my idea of fun. But I do understand their point. You can never do everything at Glastonbury; it’s simply too big. I would relish an extra few days just to walk around and explore.

My final takeaway from my time at Glastonbury is that your immune system is never as good as you think. The dust provided me with a nasty cough throughout and, upon my return, I became bedridden for two days with an illness my brother likened to an exorcism. Not ideal.

But, in all seriousness, Glastonbury is a lovely experience. It’s truly a place where people can express themselves freely without judgement and, even in a year when the lineup was arguably poor, the music was still fantastic – certainly a festival like no other.