Festivals Are For Old People

Sure, you’re outside, the sound is lousy, and he bands are terrible. But if you’re one of the attendees at a European music festival, you have to admit that the experience has gone from “stuck in a torrential downpour in a field full of fecal matter” to something more sophisticated.

Festivals in Europe have caught on a little quicker to their shifting demographics, with the middle-aged desperately trying to grab on to their last shred of coolness by trekking out to Glastonbury and the like. So it’s time to roll out the creature comforts!

“They still want to experience the buzz of the festival, they still want to have the excitement of the festival, but they don’t want to sleep in a two-person tent anymore,” says Melvin Benn, managing director of Festival Republic, which promotes the Leeds, Reading and Glastonbury festivals in the U.K. “They don’t want to rough it in quite the same way.”

Many of these huge annual events are now offering more comfortable sleeping arrangements, from already set-up tents to luxurious yurts, as well as a healthier and more sophisticated food selection and entertainment programs for young children and even babies. Rock Werchter’s upscale eating options this year included, for the first time, an oyster bar that also sold steamed mussels and glasses of chilled white wine and cava. Some festivals, like Electric Picnic in Stradbally, Ireland, don’t sell tickets to 13- to 17-year-olds, in an effort to create a more grown-up atmosphere.

Can’t find a sitter? Want the kiddos to catch Death Cab on the main stage later, but don’t want them to cramp your style while you’re grooving in the dance tent? Problem solved.

Latitude is more than just a music festival. “I wanted it to reflect the contents of a Sunday broadsheet newspaper,” says Mr. Benn. It has a theater stage, literary and comedy arenas and an entertainment area for children. This year, the kids’ arena will employ a staff of more than 500, expected to keep around 4,000 children busy with activities like wildlife explorations and puppet shows starting at 8 in the morning.

Families can sleep in a separate family camping area, guarded from the loud noise and other potentially disruptive activities of more uninhibited festival-goers. Music fans who have grown tired of leaking tents and camping mats can rent podpads, small wooden houses powered by solar panels on their roofs, or yurts, complete with double beds, their own little patio, flowers and chocolates on the pillow — at a price of up to £745 for four nights.

It was a similar kind of family-friendly environment that first attracted Tanja Raab, 37, and her partner Tom Osander, 41, to Electric Picnic, another boutique festival where parents can drop off their kids at baby yoga while enjoying a Thai massage or tarot reading. At the age of three, their son Ben is already a seasoned festival-goer and Ms. Raab has worked out a system to keep track of him among the other 35,000 people at the outdoor event. She writes her mobile phone number on his arm and, if he spends time with his parents’ friends, they get a token hair-scrunchy so they know they are in charge of watching him.

Next year, Raab is hoping to upgrade to a VIP hair-scrunchy for the kid, since she heard wonderful things about the buffet back there.

All of these seems to mark a transition toward making festivals more “lifestyle event” (Thai massage?) than “collection of performances,” and you’d have to think that domestic counterparts like Coachella and Bonnaroo won’t be far behind, offering premium lodging and food slightly improved over state-fair fare. Is the festival as we know it going to appeal to anyone outside of the SUV crossover set in a few years? (Does it now?)

A Grown-Up’s Guide To Summer Rock Festivals [Wall Street Journal]