Going to Glastonbury Festival for the first time? Expect long days on your feet, unpredictable weather, a lot of walking and a huge amount happening beyond the headline acts.
This beginners guide covers tickets, arrival, camping, travel, spending money and the practical things to know. Festival dates, ticket-sale arrangements, prices and site information can change each year, so always check the official Glastonbury Festival website alongside this guide.
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Getting Tickets for Glastonbury Festival
Glastonbury Festival 2027 takes place from Wednesday 23 June to Sunday 27 June.
General Admission tickets cost £408, including a £5 booking fee, plus postage and packing. The initial sale has sold out, but the Festival has confirmed that there will be a resale of cancelled or returned tickets in spring 2027.
Your ticket is not the only cost to factor in. You will also need to think about:
- Postage and packing: £11.25 per General Admission order of up to six tickets
- Driving: a car park pass costs £60 per vehicle, with a further £3 postage charge if you buy it separately
- Coach travel: the ticket price, plus the fare from your chosen departure town and a £3 coach administration fee
- Refund Protection: optional and charged separately; check the terms first, especially if you already have travel or event cover elsewhere
For a standard General Admission ticket, you only pay the £100 deposit per person when you successfully book. You pay the remaining £308 ticket balance, £11.25 postage and packing, and any car park pass or optional Refund Protection later, during the April balance-payment window. If you book a ticket + coach option, you pay the £100 ticket deposit plus the coach fare and £3 coach administration fee when booking.
Tickets are personalised, non-transferable and sold exclusively through See Tickets. Everyone aged 13 or over needs to be registered before trying to buy a ticket. During the initial 2027 sale, you could book up to six tickets in one transaction. If you’re trying with friends, decide in advance who is going to try for tickets and make sure everyone has the group’s registration numbers and postcodes to hand. When the sale is live, you don’t want to be hunting for details.
You will not receive your physical ticket straightaway. See Tickets will email the lead booker with a tracking reference when tickets are dispatched, and they are expected to arrive at least seven days before the Festival. If you haven’t received yours by then, contact See Tickets directly.
Always check the official Glastonbury Festival ticket information before making plans, as resale dates, registration requirements and payment arrangements can change.
What to Pack for Glastonbury Festival
I’m not much of a camper so I didn’t want to invest in lots of new items just for the sake of the festival, so as soon as we knew we were going to Glastonbury, I began searching for items on Facebook Marketplace and charity shops. Fortunately, one of our groups had a tent large enough to accommodate us and I already had a sleeping bag so it didn’t require much investment.
You can take your own food and drink into the festival, and there are 24/7 manned lockups to store items or valuables around the festival for when you’re out and about to avoid coming all the way back to your tent.
There is also a co-op shop, market stalls selling all manner of clothing and accessories as well as camping stores across the festival site.
For a full first-timer packing checklist, including the things I found genuinely worth taking rather than buying new equipment for one weekend, read my Glastonbury Festival packing list.
What to Wear at Glastonbury Festival
Pretty much anything goes, I even witnessed a woman strolling around topless so wear whatever you’re comfortable in or push the boundaries! Just bear in mind that you will be walking on average around 20k steps a day, there’s limited shade or protection from the elements and you’ll want to be in and out of the toilets pretty sharpish so clothes that are easy to get up and down are recommended.
Be sure to bring a jacket for the evening as it can get quite cold when the sun goes down and a poncho or waterproof. Even during the hottest Glastonbury on record, the evenings in the tent were very cold so bring warm pajamas or layers, but by the time the morning came around it was extremely hot in the tent.
Consider doing fancy dress!
When to Arrive at Glastonbury Festival
Festival gates open on Wednesday, giving you time to set up camp and explore before the main music programme gets underway later in the week. Arriving early also gives you more choice over where to camp. We arrived at the car park at around 11 am and were directed to the Pink West 57 location, by 3 pm we had unloaded the car and set up the tent.
Don’t expect complete quiet anywhere on site: sound travels, campsites are busy and late-night areas can run well into the early hours.
Getting to Glastonbury Festival
There is no train station in Glastonbury, with Castle Cary the closest. In recent years, the Festival has run a free shuttle bus for ticket holders between Castle Cary Station and the Festival Bus Station. Check the official 2027 travel information before booking.
Meet at Bridgwater Services
If several of you are driving from different parts of the UK, consider meeting at Bridgwater Services. It’s then 26 miles to the festival site, estimated around 50-60 minutes. Not only can you take a quick toilet break and pick up some refreshments, but you can then travel in convoy to the festival and be sure to be parked close to one another. This is a good time to stick on your car parking sticker if you haven’t already!
Where to Camp at Glastonbury Festival
It’s a long old walk to and from the car park so you may want to consider doing multiple trips rather than trying to do it all in one go! We parked in Pink West 57, entered Pedestrian Gate D, and camped in Bushy Ground. We chose this location to camp as it was close enough to toilets, easily reached from the gate but not too far into the chaos of Glastonbury.
Bear in mind that late-night areas can run into the early hours, so there is unlikely to be any truly quiet place to camp. It’s a good idea to decide in advance where you want to camp by using the map and finding the closest gate to enter. The official app has a live map that can help track your location, but it helps to find some markers to help locate your tent, such as tent flags.
Pretty much all of the campsites had food and drink options nearby, toilets, a water point, a valuable store, and 24/7 stewards.
If you’re doing multiple trips to the car, you will need both your wristband and your ticket to re-enter. On exiting, you will be given a pass out and on re-entering you’ll need these three things.
Toilets and Showers
The advice was that the toilets can get pretty nasty throughout the day, and most people just don’t bother with showers either being too busy too much faff or too far away. We opted for a collapsible bowl that we could fill with water and wash with soap and a flannel.
A lot of people, friends included, bought a water bag that they filled from the nearby tap and used as a makeshift shower each morning. Since the weather was beautifully hot and the ground dry, this worked really well.
We camped near compost toilets, using sawdust helps to eliminate the odour but they could smell during the day. The toilets near our campsite would get busy around 9am when most people were waking up, but it wasn’t too long to wait.
The toilets around the site were smellier and somewhat open to the elements, they would get busy between acts so it’s best to time it right!
Food and Drink
You are free to bring in your own food and drink to the festival, but if you do choose to eat out there are a considerable amount of options. The majority of vegan options were found around the Greenpeace fields, but there was every imaginable type of food available from sweet treats like brownies and pancakes, to filled Yorkshire puddings, pad thai, and burgers.
Bring some non-perishable snacks like breakfast bars and crisps to keep in your tent for the mornings or when you feel a little peckish. It’s recommended to bring a large water bag or bottle that you can refill using the onsite taps to keep drinking water in your tent.
You can see the cost of food in my spending breakdown further down this article.
Phone Charging
If you’re going to invest in anything, be sure to invest in a good portable charger. The Anker brands were recommended as the best. I took two, one anker and one I already owned.
The signal isn’t great at the festival, so you will only be using it for photos, videos, and the app if you wish to use it. With a shoddy iPhone battery, I kept my phone on low battery mode and airplane mode the majority of the time. By Saturday I had only used one of the power banks, but there were places to charge the phone on-site should you need it.
Things To Do at Glastonbury Festival
Besides the many stages and musical acts available, there’s a whole host of activities to try. The Greenpeace fields host every imaginable craft workshop from bushcraft and woodwork, to textiles and stone carving. Elsewhere you can participate in yoga workshops and sound baths, Latino dance classes and even HiiT workshops. Don’t miss a visit to the cabaret and circus areas, or even a trip to the cinema.
Looking for more than the headline acts? Read my guide to things to do at Glastonbury Festival, including the Ribbon Tower, workshops, Glastonbury-on-Sea and late-night areas.
Useful Tips
Upsize your tent
Typical tent-to-people ratios go out of the window at festivals since you also need to account for all the belongings, it’s recommended to get a larger size so for four of us sharing we used a six-person tent. A two-person tent should be sufficient for a single person.
Buy Second Hand
There’s no sense in spending loads of money on camping items you’re never going to use again, or that are potentially going to get really muddy, so be sure to scour Facebook marketplace and charity shops for some second-hand items. I was able to pick up a camping bed for £10, two camping chairs for £10, a pillow for £2, and a brand new unused trolley for £3.
If you do need to buy a tent, Decathlon has run its Festival Tent Pledge in previous years. It has allowed customers to return an eligible Decathlon tent in store after the festival in exchange for a gift card equal to the purchase price, provided it meets the scheme conditions. Check the current terms, eligible tents and return dates before buying, as these can change each year.
Download the Official App
The official app logs the full lineup that allows you to favourite the acts you want to see and then notifies you around 15 minutes before they’re due to start. The live map pinpoints your location which is beneficial to finding your way around the sit and back to your tent.
Join a Facebook Group
Glasto Gals is a female-only group, Secret Glasto announces secret sets throughout the festival, Glastonbury Festival Fans is another useful group – they’re useful to join if you have any burning questions or want to get acquainted with like-minded people.
Luggage Tags
Attach luggage tags so if you lose something on the way it can be easily returned to you.
Phone Screen
Change your phone screen to a message that details a number or numbers to call if it’s lost and found. Just type it in the notes app, screenshot, and upload.
Emergency Contacts
iPhone users can take advantage of shared notes, by asking everyone to add their emergency contact should there be a situation in which they need to use it. And be sure to share the contacts of the people you’re going with, with your emergency contacts too.
What I Spent at Glastonbury in 2023
To give you one real-world example rather than a current price guide, my onsite spending came to £205.50 across six days in 2023. You can bring your own food and drink, so your total can be much lower or higher depending on your plans.
Merchandise:
There were the costs of available Glastonbury merchandise in 2023.
- Hoodies £40
- Sweatshirt £35
- Tshirt £20
- Tote bag £10
- Tea towel £12
Day one:
- £7.50 Nike Socks
- £20 Merchandise TShirt
- £4.50 Paleta
- £14 Wok Box
- £2.50 Diet Coke
Day two:
- £4.50 coffee
- £5 photobooth (for two strips)
- £1 postcard
- £20 ring making
- £11 fries and Sprite
- £3.50 Ice latte
- £9 Burger
Day three:
- £6.50 bacon bap and 2 hash browns
- £2.50 Ice lolly
- £4.50 Slushie
- £11.50 Burrito
- £6 Crepe
Day four:
- £1 Hibiscus ice tea
- £1 Diet Coke
- £9 Souvlaki
- £7 Halloumi fries
- £4.50 Mr Whippy
- £14 Pizza
Day five:
- £5.50 1L Orange Juice and Canned Chocolate Milkshake
- £1.50 Co-Op (diet coke and snickers)
- £2 postcard posting
- £13 Loaded Fries
- £13.50 Loaded Yorkshire Pudding
