5 Things To Do If You’re Not Going To Glastonbury…

Don’t watch TV footage, listen to the radio or follow it on Twitter. Are you mad? You'll only get freakin' serious FOMO.

Dolly Parton
Dolly Parton

Don’t watch TV footage, listen to the radio or follow it on Twitter. Are you mad? You'll only get freakin' serious FOMO.

From the headliners to catch, to the street food and the parties, we’ve got all your alternative festival 'needs' covered to make the most of this weekend.

Watch the legend in action

Love or loathe her (ok, most people love her; marmite she ain’t), a major pull to this year’s Glastonbury is the appearance of a certain Ms Dolly Parton on the Sunday Legends stage. But get real! You’d be way too hideously hungover to be twerkin’ 9-5 if you were there. Go and see her on Friday (27 June) or Saturday (28 June) at London’s O2 arena and have a proper night out instead. Glasto schmasto.

Party like it’s 1995

Who needs real bands when all your teen favourites are reuniting for the Summer Weekender in Weston-Super-Mare on 28-29 June? The Backstreet Boys, McBusted, 5ive and erm, Scouting For Girls… see, something for everyone. You’d only be dancing to bad 1990s tunes at a Glasto after-party anyway. Nostalgia – and LOLs – guaranteed.

Backstreet Boys

Backstreet Boys

Go wild in a onesie

It’s Friday, you’ll want to drown your sorrows (more so than usual this week) so do it in style – at London Zoo’s hip after-hours party, Zoo Lates (27 June). Grab yourself a cider and make a beeline for the Sumatran tigers at the Tiger Territory enclosure – animal onesie optional (but you can bet there’ll be way more here than at Worthy Farm)

Zoo Lates

Zoo Lates

Eat street food

Festival food’s improved hugely on the whole but there’s always the risk of being drunkenly conned into paying nine quid for a carton for tasteless noodles and overcooked tempura (we’ve all been there). So head to Street Feast – returning to Dalston’s Kingsland Road for the summer – on Friday 27 June for a decent feed and Instagram the sh*t out of those Kimchinary Korean burritos and Bao London Taiwanese buns to make yourself feel better.

Street Feast

Street Feast

Just chill, man

C’mon, with the king of country piles - Cornbury Music Festival in Oxfordshire – opening its doors next weekend, hadn’t you better rest up? Jools Holland, Hudson Taylor and some seriously competitive glamping... bring on the 4th of July. 

Cornbury

Cornbury

Forget Glastonbury: here are 7 tiny festivals we'd rather go to...

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