I went to Slam Dunk Festival this weekend. Once upon a time, festivals were lawless temporary cities populated entirely by sunburnt teenagers drinking warm cider from a shoe while somebody vomited into a tent nearby.
But oh, times they have a-changed.
My friend drove up in her camper van the night before and secured what can only be described as the holy grail of parking spaces: free, on-street parking less than a ten minute walk away from the entrance and, crucially, nowhere near the inevitable multi-hour queue to leave the official car park afterwards.
Of course, because festivals remain determined to preserve at least some level of chaos, there was absolutely no phone signal whatsoever. Our careful ‘we’ll meet back here later’ plans completely collapsed by the end of the night (I won’t speculate here as to whether beer had anything to do with this) and the only reason either of us made it home was because we had both pinned the van location on Google Maps beforehand.
Twenty years ago I went to festivals with no plan, no money, no water and no survival instincts (and had a bloody great time doing it, probably. Memories are hazy), but the thing that struck me most about Slam Dunk 2026 was that everybody there seemed to have collectively accepted that we are no longer teenagers.
1. Everyone has sun cream now and uses it sensibly
Even with 33 degree heat, at no point during the day did I witness anyone sunburned beyond repair.
People were gathered under any small patch of shade and entire friendship groups periodically stopped to apply SPF 50 to the back of each other’s necks and refill their water bottles.
2. Electrolytes have replaced drugs
Who wants to be off your face in a field when you could be super-hydrated instead? Apparently electrolytes now come in soluble tablet form and taste vaguely like Vimto, which feels like exactly the sort of thing the body of a 40-something-year-old former pop-punk teenager requires in order to survive standing in a field for eleven consecutive hours.
3. We’re still rebels… Just financially responsible ones
In fairness, not ALL festival behaviour has matured. I did still smuggle two cans of Lidl cider into Slam Dunk because I absolutely refuse to pay £8 a pint for warm beer after queuing for 40 minutes.
Obviously bringing alcohol in is banned, but who exactly was going to search me? I no longer look like a festival risk, I am a flustered mum with an HRT patch.
This is one of the unexpected advantages of ageing out of alternative fashion. Mentally, I’m still absolutely there in the pit with the emo kids, but physically and aesthetically I am dressed for heat, comfort and the possibility of needing to sit cross-legged on grass at any moment.
I never really mastered punk/metal chic anyway. I can’t pull off black clothing because it does nothing for my complexion, and also I have a yellow lab and the two just don’t mix. And certainly not in 33 degree heat.
I threw all my band t-shirts into a skip many years ago because at some point during my late twenties I briefly convinced myself I should probably become a proper adult. A terrible decision, in hindsight – god knows what I could have got for them on Vinted nowadays.
So instead I attended Slam Dunk dressed less like an ageing pop-punk fan and more like somebody who had accidentally wandered in while looking for a garden centre café, which, as it turns out, is apparently the perfect disguise for low-level cider smuggling.
4. Nobody is there for the new album
Every band technically has new music out but the harsh truth is that very few people care. We are here exclusively for the songs released between approximately 1999 and 2002 and everybody knows it.
The second a band says: ‘Here’s one from the new record…’ you can physically feel thousands of people deciding it might be a good opportunity to go and get chips.
I don’t want artistic growth, I want emotional regression. I want to dance to something I wasn’t even conscious I knew the words to and pretend I’m 19 again. Thanks.
5. The bands have aged, it’s not just us
The strange thing about seeing bands you loved 25 years ago is that they no longer look like impossibly cool rock stars. They look like accountants, IT consultants and tired dads you’d see on the school run. And, very respectfully, so did the audience.
At one point I looked around and realised the entire field was basically full of people who probably own air fryers (maybe the cool kids were at the other stage but whatever, I was in the right place).
6. Standing still is somehow worse than excercise?!
The day after Slam Dunk I walked almost 20km in the same heat and felt significantly better than I did after standing in one place watching bands all day.
Everything hurt; my hips hurt, my legs hurt, my feet hurt. And yet somehow walking endlessly the next day, in the very same shoes, felt restorative.
The middle-aged body is a mystery.
7. Shade and back support are the most valuable commodities
Nobody was fighting over barrier spots, everybody was (politely) competing for spaces under trees, fences, barriers and literally any other area not directly under the blazing surface of the sun, and even better if you could lean back and your spine could briefly experience relief. The true VIP section is anywhere with intermittent cloud cover and a back support.
8. Nobody is catastophically drunk anymore
This was perhaps the most shocking part: I did not see a single person unconscious in a hedge, crying outside a portaloo or setting fire to anything, and only one person being escorted out by a pissed-off security guard.
It seemed like everyone was being fairly sensible.
This may or may not have had something to do with the 40 minute bar queues, but I’m being optimistic here.
9. Festival toilets still smell like death
Some things, thankfully, remain timeless and no amount of ageing, maturity, hydration awareness or emotional growth can change the fact that festival toilets continue to smell like fishy piss and Satan’s arsehole.
Nature heals.
Despite the aching joints, the heatstroke-adjacent conditions and the fact that I now apparently attend festivals armed with electrolytes, map pins and contraband cider, I had a great time.
We all still knew the words. We all still got excited when certain intros started. We all still briefly became teenagers again for three minutes at a time.
Just teenagers with SPF 50, practical parking arrangements and a deep appreciation for sitting down occasionally.
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