Are festivals turning from hedonism to health kicks?

This is the second year fitness guru Joe Wicks has led a workout session at Glastonbury festival

The sight of hundreds of people doing a workout with fitness guru Joe Wicks, aka the Body Coach, may have given regular Glastonbury festival goers pause.

Times appear to be a'changing, as Bob Dylan could have sung at the iconic Isle of Wight festival in 1969 (but apparently didn't).

Never mind (sex), drugs and rock'n'roll. At festivals across the land, more and more fitness and well-being areas are appearing, as organisers get on board with the changing zeitgeist.

And one festival, held in an area of outstanding natural beauty no less, has put fitness on level pegging with music.

Theo Larn-Jones co-founded Love Trails with a fellow running enthusiast

Love Trails, taking place on Gower, Swansea, this week, offers punters a mash-up of running events alongside music acts to be found on the regular festival circuit.

The idea for combining the two came from co-founder Theo Larn-Jones, whose mother was brought up in Mumbles and who now lives locally himself.

Back in 2015, he was a keen runner living in London and and had got involved with a group called Midnight Runners.

Instead of going for a traditional night out down the pub or club, the group would meet, complete with speakers, and go for a run interspersed with exercise stops to a pumping soundtrack. Some runs would be followed by a more traditional party night as well.

But he also loved music festivals.

So it was a “bringing together of those two worlds which at the time were very much in two separate buckets”.

He said: “Me and the co-founder of Love Trails were running along and we just thought, this is amazing for being a place where we can meet like-minded people where we can do the running and we can do the going out on a Friday night.

"The next logical extension of this is to turn this into a festival – could that even be possible?”

The first year was initially for people who were really into running, and really into music “so it was quite a small niche”, but over time it has become a much broader audience, he says.

Exercise and music are given equal billing on the Love Trails programme

Theo stresses that equal weight is given to both sides of the festival. “We put the music and the running on the same level of programming.

“There’s lots of other music festivals out there that programme incredible line-ups of music and there’s also thousands and thousands of running events that put on incredible experiences within the worlds of running.

"But it’s only at Love Trails at the moment where you can go and listen to a band or DJ that would have played at Glastonbury last week. No running events do that.

“A lot of festivals these days would have a wellness field or give a little nod to it but we really just crank it up to 10 on both the music and the running.

“I definitely think the world is changing, and I think it’s a really positive shift. There’s lots of signals that we’re seeing across the UK festival industry that other festivals are looking at what events like Love Trails are doing and wanting to incorporate some of that into their programme.”

Music is as important as the exercise for the festival

Glastonbury Festival was unavailable to comment on whether exercise and fitness is becoming more important to it in the light of Joe Wicks' session, citing a well-earned break for staff after this year's event.

But Theo points to things like the Bristol-based group Ravers to Runners doing a tour of festivals including Glastonbury and Latitude as well as Love Trails itself this summer and bringing a run to each of them.

His former group Midnight Runners are also offering a run at the Wilderness festival, which heavily advertises its well-being offering.

“Most festivals are dialling up the well-being offering. I think people are realising it feels really good to feel good. Hangovers just aren’t so fun and you can have the best of both worlds these days.

“Trail running is the best type of exercise you can do for your body and your mental health and you do it in a green space, so you get all the benefits of being in nature layered on top of the exercise benefits of doing the running.”

... and the festival goers clearly don't eschew all forms of traditional enjoyment

Part of it is changing attitudes among the younger crowd.

"You see this with the next generation coming through - less drinking, it's cool to be healthy," he says.

"People have got much greater awareness of their mental and physical health and they want to do things that feel good."

The festival has withstood the covid years and has aspirations to keep growing, and maybe even branch out to other sites.

And with Joe Wicks reportedly eyeing the main Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury for his fitness session next year, it seems a healthier version of hedonism is very firmly here to stay.