Gareth has a blast-o at Glasto!

AS the world-famous Glastonbury Festival closes for another year, with many a weary festival-goer now back down-to-earth with a huge bump following the weekend’s euphoria, a former local man who was instrumental in making the magic happen, has reflected on the musical extravaganza.

Bready native, Gareth Turnbull’s refrigeration business was out in force all around the mammoth Worthy Farm compound at the weekend, with walk-in fridges, freezers and pop-up cold rooms scattered throughout, keeping over 200,000 revellers cool in the sweltering summer heat.

Gareth, who runs Wessex Refrigeration Hire commented, “The whole weekend was absolutely amazing; a brilliant experience.

“It only ended last night (Sunday), so I’m obviously still feeling the effects of it. I’m still very tired, but what a weekend. It took three months for us to prepare for Glastonbury, and it’ll take another month for us to take the whole thing down! To give you a sense of the vastness, it’s said that the population of Glastonbury weekend is more than the population of Derry, which says a lot, if true.

“To be honest, after everyone had completed the set up, we were all exhausted, and ready to walk away and have a well-earned rest, but it’s Glastonbury – you can’t just walk away from that, so you had to take it all in and enjoy, despite the exhaustion!”

The world-famous festival attracts the cream of musical talent every single year. Notable luminaries this year included Sparks, Guns N Roses, Foo Fighters, Lana Del Rey, The Arctic Monkeys, and taking on the closing night during his farewell tour, Elton John.

Gareth was there for it all but admits his favourite act of the weekend was of a local flavour.

“My favourite act of the weekend was seeing Cara Dillon, who filled up an entire tent of music lovers, a lot of whom were local to Ireland.

“She wasn’t a headliner, but I always find acts on the boundaries a lot more interesting, to be honest.

“Cara was wonderful, and brought her family on stage to perform with her, which I thought was absolutely lovely. They played brilliantly, and Cara gave us a taste of some new music.”

Finally, I ask if Glasto 2024 will come a-knocking…

“I hope so,” Gareth said. “We’ve been supplying the refrigeration for the event since 2017, and work very hard to make it perfect, and make ourselves invaluable to the organisers. I hope that would get us an invite back.”