You Can’t Afford the Revolution Anymore

There was a time when festivals were for the freaks.

Not the influencers. Not the hedge fund kids slumming it in a £6,000 tipi lined with reclaimed driftwood and artisanal yak wool throws. Not the ones coming down in a blacked-out Audi with ‘Artist Guest’ wristbands already stapled to their wrist before they’d even parked. It was for the people who lived hard, worked harder, and wanted—no, needed—one long, messy, beautiful weekend to forget it all. For the ones who’d been grafting in kitchens, behind bars, in warehouses, or glued to a fryer station for ten hours a day. They saved all year for that muddy field, that half-eaten hash brownie, and a once-in-a-lifetime gig at 2am on a stage held together with gaffer tape and Red Bull.

But try and do that now?

Try and go to Glastonbury with your partner. Just you and your missus, trying to chase the same buzz your older brother had in ’98 when he saw Roni Size tear it up from a pallet-built DJ booth at the Lost Vagueness stage. Try getting there, paying for the tickets, travel, food, boots, a second-hand tent that won’t collapse, a sleeping bag that doesn’t smell like damp dog, and maybe a beer or two while you’re at it. You’re looking at two grand. Two grand. And that’s if you don’t buy a single overcooked halloumi wrap or god forbid, need a new camping stove when your Tesco one explodes because you bought the wrong gas canister.

You could go to Spain for a week. You could put a down payment on a second-hand car. You could get your boiler fixed. But you won’t. Because festivals used to be the release valve. Now they’re a lifestyle accessory for people who’ve never bled for minimum wage. It’s like someone took the spirit of rebellion, packaged it in an Instagram reel, and sold it back to you with a VIP wristband and a curated brand partnership.

And it’s not just the festivals. Oh no. The same disease has crept into the bars. Into our so-called “third spaces.” Once upon a time, a bar was the great leveller. Dockworker or dentist, you sat next to each other, drank the same lager, maybe threw up in the same alleyway. But now? It’s £14 for a cocktail you can’t pronounce, made by a bloke with a mullet, sleeve tats, and an ironic mesh tank top, shaking like his rent depends on it (it does), while his manager is telling him to upsell the “craft vermouth float.” Don’t ask for a pint of bitter, unless you want to be publicly shamed by the 22-year-old barback who thinks Stella is for racists.

You want to drink without feeling judged? You better hope there’s still a real dive bar left in your town. Not the faux-dive, the kind curated by some ex-brand consultant who bought a neon sign that says “Take Your Top Off” and slapped it above a reclaimed urinal. I mean the real ones. The sticky floor ones. The slightly-too-loud jukebox ones. The ones where the toilet graffiti teaches you more about politics and human nature than six months of scrolling Twitter.

But here’s the thing. Those places are dying. Because everything’s been monetised. Every space where the working class could get together, where they could afford to feel good, has been slowly colonised by taste-makers, PR firms, and middle-class grifters who learned to say “hospitality” without ever doing a 12-hour shift. The festival is now a fashion show. The bar is a portfolio piece. Everything is a vibe, and nothing’s got soul.

So what do we do?

We fight back. That’s what. We run businesses that actually see the people who are being priced out. We pour good pints for a fair price. We make cocktails with flavour, not just foam and fucking buzzwords. We play tunes that people actually know the words to. We let people be messy, be free, be themselves. We don’t chase the luxury pound while pretending to be “authentic.” We open our doors wide. Everyone’s welcome. But we never forget who built this culture. Spoiler: it wasn’t the bankers. It was the barbacks, the pot washers, the electricians, the girls who used to pull pints on a Friday night before heading to a free party under the flyover.

If you run a dive bar and it doesn’t have at least five working-class lifers who drink there three times a week, it’s not a dive bar. It’s a costume shop.

I’ll die on this hill. Hospitality is for everyone, but especially for the people it came from. The ones who can’t afford £7 cans of Red Stripe at a festival that used to be a revolution. The ones who work their arses off all week and just want a cold one and a few laughs. They deserve beauty, too. They deserve joy. They deserve a bar that won’t make them feel like imposters in their own culture.

And that’s why we do what we do.

Because you shouldn’t have to earn six figures to afford a fucking party.