How repeatedly missing out on Glastonbury festival tickets surprisingly led to the best moments of my life
Everything happens for a reason; doesn’t it?
That’s what I seem to say when things go wrong at least. Is it just me or is it much easier to look for signs from the universe when things go tits up and thank skill otherwise? Anyway.
What I’m saying is that there must be cosmic power out there doing everything it can to prevent me from getting my hands on some Glastonbury festival tickets.
But that’s not the real problem; lots of people miss out on Glastonbury tickets every year. No, the real problem is that the same celestial being that is blocking my chances has also planted the deepest desire any human has ever had for it in my soul.
Now you see the problem?
Nice, well let me tell you how this rather irrelevant problem in the grand scheme of things led to some of the greatest moments of my life.
Before I jump in, you may be wondering what the point in this post is. Well, there are two reasons.
- To inspire people who have repeatedly missed out on Glastonbury festival tickets too.
- Perhaps putting this out there will play with those cosmic forces and direct me towards something as magical as the things I’m about to tell you about.
I’ll do my best not to make this sound like a LinkedIn post; loosely tying major events to some business mindset.
But here we go. Here’s how repeatedly missing out on Glastonbury festival tickets has made some unbelievable stories, and how being backed into a corner with nothing but desire can create yours too.
It begins on our fifth year of missing out on Glastonbury tickets
It should have been sooner, really, but there was a lack of confidence back then.
There was this realisation that it’s likely we could never go.
That time keeps ploughing forward and we retain our high score of being denied access.
It’s then that something kicked in. Have you felt it before?
It’s that burst of adrenaline that hits you like a kiss. You suddenly become a visionary. You’ve gone from being in a pit with no exit to becoming a library of ideas and possibilities. There’s this sense of eternal optimism and possibility.
Do you know how to get there?
By sitting on your problem for long enough that it starts to feel comfortable.
Y’see, it’s not what you have that brings you victory, it’s how you use it. When you have less you are naturally more inventive.
And when you’ve been battered repeatedly, you either get creative or die.
Here’s how the stars aligned themselves for us.
It was October 2019 when we missed out.
“There HAS to be another way?!”
After trawling through the Glastonbury festival website, we stumbled upon a third release of tickets. A set number of tickets that are released for the press and media outlets. This. This is it. This is our way in.
I remember it as clear as day.
I jumped on the phone and pitched the idea to the gang. Hesitant at first, but the energy made the sale.
No Taste was born. The reason you’re reading this now.
We spun up the website in days. Reached out for volunteers to help create content by reviewing gigs and going out ourselves most nights of the week. We had press and professional photo passes within weeks of starting and were churning out high-quality content at a rate that had us lined up for the media release in February.
Honestly, I’ve never felt more alive.
Here I was navigating a media site, with no real idea of the etiquette or any idea of how to do anything in this space for that matter.
Just weeks before I was slumped in bed after another failed attempt to buy tickets. Now we have something as big as Glastonbury, at least in my mind.
We had the logo tattooed on our chest to ink it into existence. (In the same place, which, of course, we later came to regret when going on holiday together.)
In February 2020, we submitted our press application.
In March 2020, everyone had No Taste and COVID-19 closed down the UK, cancelling the Glastonbury festival. For about two years, there was no live music and the festival that ignited No Taste paused.
No Taste still lives on, evidently, and I still get that buzz each time we review a show.
We’re yet to get in as press but watch this space.
And that’s not it. It gets better.
We missed out on tickets in 2023 as well – obviously. It should be fairly clear that fate doesn’t let me buy tickets.
But we were going and we were telling everyone that we were going.
“Oh lucky, you managed to get tickets”, people would say.
“Ahh…, we’re actually missing that part”, we’d confidently return.
There’d be an awkward, confused silence.
We’d then explain how we’re going to be there, we just don’t know how. And people just believed us.
It’s that conviction you get from having a clear vision. A visceral desire.
People might be sceptical, but they’re still going to watch.
And you just have this infectious vitality that opens up things you’ve never even dreamt of.
I’d watched a video beforehand that mentioned ‘throwing your bag over the fence’. It meant more metaphorically, but it works in reality in this context too. Essentially it’s saying that if you throw your bag over the fence, you’ve no other choice but to scale it to get it back.
On the big day, we set off with our packed bags and not one iota of an idea of how we’re getting in.
There’s a long, insanely serendipitous story of how we managed to walk in here, but that’s exactly what happened.
We just… walked in.
It may have taken us over ten hours, but we did it.
And it was easily one of the greatest moments of my life, all from being unable to buy tickets.
So not all is lost if you were also unable to get tickets. Hopefully, there’s been some inspiration in here.
- Find a problem you’re willing to stare at, head-on until the vision takes over you, don’t use AI as a shortcut to solving it.
- Throw your bag over the fence and go all in on it at least once.
Sometimes the ‘airy-fairy’, coincidental stuff hits you too hard to brush off. Trust persistence.
And guess what, it’s 2024 and that’s right, we missed out again.
We’ve already spent the same amount as the tickets on Tony’s Chocolonely, started drinking at random times of the day with Brothers cider and lost half my friends by spamming them with instagram tags to no avail.
Sneaking in is off the cards as that was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, but it hasn’t stopped the scheming and plotting.
In fact, as mentioned, this is part of the plot.
Maybe you, or someone you know, can help us this year? Or help us spread the word at least?
If not, follow us to find out what we get up to this year.
Unless you’re the police xoxo