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Photos of Glastonbury 2022 at Its Silliest and Strangest

The joyful weirdness of Glasto is what elevates it beyond every other music festival on Earth.
A performer dressed in a skull mask at Glastonbury 2022
All photos: Chris Bethell

Glastonbury is finally over, and if you feel like your entire body has been run over by a truck, you’re not the only one. But if you think the music festival is solely about whoever headlines the Pyramid Stage, you’d be wrong – the real joy of the blow-out extravaganza comes from all the bizarre and truly strange moments you fleetingly encounter over the course of your five days in a massive field in Somerset.

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The sheer weirdness of Glasto is what differentiates it from other similarly huge festivals around the world. Would Coachella ever have anything like The Rabbit Hole, a secret party spot exclusively hosted by people dressed as Alice in Wonderland characters? Does Primavera have anything like NYC Downlow, a queer club set in a fictional meatpacking warehouse, with entry guaranteed only if you acquire a silly stick-on moustache? Is there any other festival at Earth where you can overhear someone discuss dropping a pill at Paul McCartney before you wander off to an area known as the “Naughty Corner”, which plays head-pounding dance music until 7AM in the morning?

Only at Glastonbury will you see 200,000 punters from all over the world gather in the pursuit of gloriously stupid hedonism. It will ruin your week after. It will annihilate your serotonin levels. You will have made best friends with costumed freaks and people you will never meet again. My friend once spent an entire night talking to a pole.

All these reasons and more make Glastonbury one of the greatest places on Earth. VICE sent photographer Chris Bethell down to the festival to document some of its strangest, silliest and most surreal moments.

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Two attendees dressed as scary nurses at Glastonbury 2022
People hugging outside the fence at Glastonbury 2022
Two people dressed as Mona Lisa and Van Gough at Glastonbury 2022
Child looking at rude poster at Glastonbury 2022
A man drinking beer under giant Unfair sign at Glastonbury 2022
A poster warning about a todger tickler at Glastonbury 2022
A performer holding a knife at Glastonbury 2022
A t-shirt reading Tory Scum at Glastonbury 2022
A man lying in a giant hay seat at Glastonbury 2022
Two women dressed as police officers at Glastonbury 2022
A man holding a weird doll at Glastonbury 2022
A man wearing a shirt with someone's face on at Glastonbury 2022
A missing cat poster at Glastonbury 2022
A giant weird baby statue at Glastonbury 2022
A huge Nat has Herpes graffiti tag at Glastonbury 2022
A t-shirt reading Este Arrivee at JD Wetherspoons at Glastonbury 2022
Giant Genosys stage at Glastonbury 2022
Two people in alien glasses and whistles at Glastonbury 2022

@misszing / @christopherbethell