This Couple Flew to a Wedding and Back Again During Glastonbury

Leaving Glastonbury inspires several profound feelings: sadness; relief; discombobulation. Most people negotiate these by spending 24 hours prostate on a sofa, posting pictures on a “MASHEDonbury” WhatsApp group and sobbing softly as they scroll through three-year-old email conversations with their ex.

Spare a moment’s reflection, then, for Conor Gallagher and Lynne Gibson. This couple – a pair of architects in their late twenties who traveled to Glastonbury by coach on Wednesday – left the festival at dawn on Saturday to attend the wedding of Lynne’s oldest friend in Ayr Town, 45 minutes south of Glasgow. The following morning they jumped on a plane back to Exeter, getting back to the festival on Sunday afternoon. To anyone else who fears the callous anxiety of a post-festival comedown, this plan plumbs the depths of insanity. So I called Lynne and Conor while they were in a taxi back to the festival on Sunday, to hear how they fared.

VICE: Hi guys. On a scale of one to ten – one being you might die right now – how are you feeling right now?
Conor Gallagher: I reckon about a seven or an eight.
Lynne Gibson: I actually feel a lot better than I expected. I’ve had a shower and I’ve slept in a bed.

I did not expect you to say that. Conor, you sent me a picture of you both waiting for the taxi out of Glastonbury. You’re not having fun.
Conor: Yeah, we’d been in Arcadia just before that. The taxi was booked for 4.45AM and we hadn’t been to sleep. That was the worst bit of all.

Lynne: The sun was just coming up just as we were leaving.
Conor: It was a bit like when you come out of a club and the sun’s coming up and you think, ‘Why have I just done this?’

And normally you’re going home after that.
Conor: Exactly, we were basically flying to another club.

How much sleep do you think you had over the three days?
Lynne: For me, I reckon cumulatively about ten hours.
Conor: Nothing on the Friday and an hour or two the first two nights; it was so hot I couldn’t stay in the tent.

Glastonbury first-timers think you take it easy the first two nights. Like it’s a warm-up. It’s not.
Lynne: Yeah, I hadn’t been before and I assumed before coming that you could, like, go back at 11AM. Turns out you can’t.

So you got in the taxi. What was your journey after that?
Conor: We got the taxi to Bristol airport and a 7AM flight to Edinburgh. Lynne’s parents picked us up and drove us to a hotel where we’d done a day booking to shower and change. We were then driven to Ayr Town. We had the wedding then got a taxi back to Glasgow, stayed in a Travelodge next to the airport and got to bed about 2AM. We then had a 10AM flight to Exeter this morning and are now in a taxi to Glastonbury.

That sounds exhausting. Did you bring all your wedding gear with you to Glastonbury?
Conor: We had been up to Lynne’s parents house in Patna [Ayrshire] a month ago, so we took our wedding clothes there. They picked us up in Edinburgh and took us to the hotel to change.

There must have been some pressure on you to be on good form at the wedding?
Lynne: Yeah, but the adrenaline pulls you through. Also, I had this thing where I could just hear music all the time, like it was ringing in my ears. So I spent a lot of time dancing. I hope it clears up when I get home!
Conor: Lynne kept going really well but I definitely felt worse during the wedding than now. It took me a few drinks. But you can’t really say, ‘Hey, we’ve been in Glastonbury for three days but now we’re just going to sit here hungover and dying.’

Was there not a point where you thought you should just sack the operation off?
Lynne: We were standing under the cranes at Arcadia and our friends were saying, ‘Just stay, it’s fine.’ And you do start thinking this is a very different world to where you’re going to be tomorrow night.

Leaving a festival is always quite discombobulating. So leaving then coming back is quite a strange mindset?
Conor: All of Saturday I felt extremely discombobulated. But now we’ve got the flight out the way, we’re ready to get back into it. The stressful part is done.
Lynne: Also, we’ve got Miley Cyrus to bring us back to life!

One very important question: why did you do this expensive and complicated operation?
Lynne: We booked the Glastonbury tickets before I realised the date clash. I said to Conor, “We can’t go anymore, the wedding’s on.”
Conor: But I’d been involved in the planning and getting a big group of us to go. I was adamant I didn’t want to miss it and Lynne was adamant she wouldn’t miss the wedding. So we said we’d do both.
Lynne: And it’s a five-day event so it would have been too short if we left on the Saturday.

As a journey, it’s obviously emitted quite a lot of CO2. Did you know you can offset it with a donation to Energy Revolution ?
Yeah, obviously it’s not an ideal situation having to fly both way, due to the time constraints. But we’ll look into that when we’re back.

Lastly, would you do it again?
Lynne: I’m going to say yes, but depends whose wedding it was.
Conor: Ha, no…

I don’t blame you, thanks guys.


@dhillierwrites