I might be wrong, but I’m pretty sure all festivals are completely shit

There’s an unspoken truth out there. It glistens in the greasy faces of unwashed, uncomfortable punters; the reek of it rises from sweaty wellies and sick-stained sleeping bags and crowds of miserable people in large, miserable crowds.

It’s a whisper on the wind which whistles through fields of piss-soaked tents and crumpled cans of Fosters, and it says only one thing: sorry mate, but all festivals are shit.

Why is that a controversial statement? Every time I say it, everyone’s all like erm no actually you just doesn’t understand fun. It’s always “you’ve never been to the right one” and “you need to loosen up”, as year on year everyone else drags their rucksacks to the countryside for a great big party I’m somehow missing the point of.

And I like to have fun, I think. It’s not like I don’t drink or smoke or pass out in fields at 4am. I just don’t like paying £400 to do it for four days straight surrounded by screaming blondes in Navajo headdresses and Mandy-addled teenagers gargling mud. But still, they’ll always say “you just don’t get it.”

And to be fair, I don’t. I went to V Festival, and it was nothing but sunburnt goblin children huffing NOS and shouting “Alan” at each other while Calvin Harris did a DJ set in the distance. Likewise, Bestival didn’t offer much more than overpriced beer and a chance to see a Ben Howard-shaped speck play Goo Goo Dolls covers. Granted, I’ve never been to Glastonbury – but like many others, I look at the pictures of dejected backpackers wading through rivers of mud and just think what’s the fucking point.

Sure, the obvious argument appeals to me. There’s no hope of a shower, and personal hygiene is thrown out the tent door in favour of wet wipe washes and wearing the same pants for four days straight. Thus any hope of pulling is minimal, and any actual sexual activity is at best awkwardly disappointing and at worst downright disgusting.

But of course, that’s not why most people come. Nope, they come for the music and the drugs and the downright good vibes, which are also completely fucking shit. Drugs are overrated, and music gets to a point where it’s a bit shit if you’re standing half a mile away from it on the arse end of a three-day hangover.

You’ll never see the acts you want to see, the acts you do see will disappoint you, and even if you do manage to see a good one you’ll probably be way too fucked to actually remember it. That’s not to mention the general “festival vibes,” which basically boil down to everything you hate about Namaste-chanting East London wankers transported to and crystallised in a field in Reading or Oxfordshire or the Isle of fucking Wight.

Then, obviously, there’s the weather, which will leave you downcast and shivering if it’s too cold and downcast and dehydrated if it’s too hot. It will be one or the other, and it will inevitably come with a Biblical deluge of rain which will leave your legs and your tent and your hopes of a sunny weekend sinking into the stinking quagmire you paid several hundred pounds to wallow in.

Seriously, imagine what else you could do for that money. You could book a glorious beach holiday; you could buy yourself an iPad. Shit man, even if you’re one of the people who pretends it’s all about the music you could probably go to ten better gigs for the price of a Glasto ticket.

You might not like it, but the people who don’t get festivals are legion, and we’re tired of being made to feel like straight-laced dickheads.

Come at us if you will. Lambast us in the comments. But as I contemplate flights to Barcelona from the comfort of my air-conned office while you fester in a field in Somerset, I know I’ve made the right choice.