Party people like us: The rise of the private festival

Somewhere in the depths of Hell, a demon is hard at work crafting nightmares just for you. If you’re a Broadway actor, he’ll send you a terrible vision of forgetting your lines on opening night. If you’re a Parisian waiter, you’ll be tormented by the dream of spilling oily bouillabaisse over the linen trousers of an angry billionaire. And if you’re a regular attendee of Glastonbury festival, you’ll be trapped in a horrifying scene: under a roasting sun among a writhing crowd of strangers, miles away from your friends, no battery on your phone, hungry, thirsty, sweaty, and — as the ground rapidly approaches your face — questioning the wisdom of ingesting contraband substances.