When Glasto goes weird

From eating chips by foot to magicians getting in VIP, artists and festival-goers tell Isobel Lewis their strangest moments

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It's hard to talk about the magic of Glastonbury without sounding like a massive cliché. Ooh, there's something special about the world's most famous festival? I'd never have guessed! From the outside, it's the music that makes Worthy Farm in June seem so exciting. But Glastonbury is so much more than what makes it onto TV. It's a round-the-clock experience with moving parts you just won't find at other festivals: carnival processions, celebrities in dark sunglasses letting their hair down, the odd druid. You can be freer than you are for the other 360 days of the year.

All of this contributes to a feeling at Glastonbury that what you're experiencing now won't, couldn't happen anywhere else. That extends outside of the crowds: you will see some strange stuff on site (particularly if you make it to the Stone Circle at 6am...). Asking musicians and attendees to share their funniest, weirdest Glastonbury stories, many emerge that cannot be reprinted: usually involving illegal substances, often relating to distant members of the British royal family or former England footballers.

The rest are here: Ethan, London, music publicist

My first visit was back in 2017: the year of Radiohead and Jeremy Corbyn. However, I do remember myself and two of my friends skipping the lengthy queue to get into the famous and now defunct Rabbit Hole bar, as we had a friend on the door who could sneak us in. What we didn't realise was that it was on the condition that we strip down to our pants, stash our clothes in the corner and drape ourselves in some luxury sequin dresses for the evening. Being actors, we weren't averse to a bit of dress-up - we duly obliged and danced for hours. There is a photo of us, which would undoubtedly be the weirdest thing you've seen all year, but I don't think it should see the light of day.

Sue, Bristol, nutritionist