Off the record: Summer's back on

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Summer is approaching: get ready to embrace the festival spirit

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Glastonbury has sold out, and, with headliners currently being announced at other summer events on a daily basis, all would seem to be well in festival land after the problems of 2008.

Jugglers can keep on juggling, naked men can resume their nudity with impunity and sales of novelty jester hats will be unaffected by the credit crunch.

However, the problems that led to several high-profile disappointments last year have not disappeared completely. With the market at saturation point, events such as Wild in the Country, Leeds's Wax:On Live and the Portsmouth and Southsea Music Festival were all cancelled last summer — and the principle problem of putting on a festival is still that there simply aren't enough decent bill-toppers to go around. Kings of Leon were so ubiquitous in 2008, headlining at V, T in the Park and Glastonbury, that they were probably sleeping in the tent next to yours.

In a year when music lovers are likely to be choosier about where to spend their cash, it's not enough to have a big name, a big marquee and a couple of burger vans. The little things are going to make all the difference. The boutique festivals continue to be confident that the space and exclusivity they offer is more of a draw than a superstar line-up. Recent announcements of Super Furry Animals for Wychwood and Mogwai for Hackney's Field Day are hardly likely to prompt stampedes, but the small print promising real ale, a solar-powered cinema and a village fete should appeal to just the right sort of people.

Bestival, on the Isle of Wight, remains the benchmark for the extra-curricular silliness that turns a good festival into a magical one.

Together with its new sister event, Camp Bestival in Dorset, it offers a posher campsite area with yurts and tipis, “comfy crappers” toilets, an inflatable church and world record-breaking fancy dress day. Last year even the horrible weather didn't stop 3,000 early bird tickets for 2009 selling out in a day immediately afterwards.

Other weekenders, such as Latitude, which is like the Hay Literary Festival with bands, have become more highbrow and there is ever more competition to become child-friendly as people with families want to keep up the festival-going of their teens and twenties. Glastonbury has all these things and more, of course, but it can also have the hellish bustle of Oxford Street on Christmas Eve: not what Londoners look for in a weekend of escapism.

Ever more people are looking abroad for something truly different. Last year organisers of Roskilde in Denmark even claimed that their festival was easier for Brits to get to than Glasto. Wherever you pitch up this summer, choose wisely. Looking back in years to come, it won't be the headliners you remember.

SIX PLACES TO AVOID THE HERD
Hard Rock Calling
27-28 June
Hyde Park, London
Bruce Springsteen and The Dave Matthews Band perform at the grown-up festival that lets you sleep in your own bed at night.
www.hardrockcalling.co.uk

Roskilde
2-5 July
Roskilde, Denmark
Another huge festival with a history as long as Glastonbury's, it has already announced an appearance by Coldplay this year.
www.roskilde-festival.dk

Larmer Tree
15-19 July
Larmer Tree Gardens, Salisbury
Named Best Family Festival at last year's UK Festival Awards, this one occupies Victorian gardens and features low-key folk and world acts playing for only 5,000 people.
www.larmertreefestival.co.uk

Latitude
16-19 July
Henham Park, Southwold
Separate literary, poetry and theatre arenas, plus dance by the lake and plenty of left-field bands.
www.latitudefestival.co.uk

Camp Bestival
24-26 July
Lulworth Castle, Dorset
Bestival's second festival offers PJ Harvey, Mercury Rev and Chic, plus jousting, a theatre in the woods, a petting zoo, fancy dress parade and English National Ballet.
www.campbestival.net
 
Green Man
21-23 Aug
Glanusk Park, Brecon Beacons
The supremely mellow epicentre of the nu-folk scene, in a beautiful rural location.
www.thegreenmanfestival.co.uk

 

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