More about: Glastonbury Festival

Next week Glastonbury is back. The UK’s biggest festival always comes with the biggest rumour mill, and a very high number of secret sets. But when you’re in a makeshift city with little phone service, no battery and (likely) a massive hangover, how do you keep up with what’s going on at any minute?

This is Gigwise’s definitive guide on how to have the best shot at knowing what’s going on at every secret set...

Keep an eye out around campsites and the festival itself

In previous years, cryptic (or explicit) posters have been placed in campsites the morning of secret sets, giving you an answer to the rumours or maybe sparking more mystery.

Some stages, like the BBC Radio 1 Introducing stage will always have a chalk board lineup each day, usually they confirm their secret set on here, so just swing by every morning.

The electronic boards dotted around to give updates sometimes update with what’s going on, they always update for the surprise Sunday Pyramid Stage guest, even when that guest changes days, and you can make sure you won’t miss out on David Attenborough or Greta Thunberg.

Grab the Glasto Free Press

Yes it runs out quickly, but the daily newspaper printed on site does often come with more than a few insights as to what’s going on around the festival.

Get into the Facebook groups and set up Twitter push notifications

I’ve found that even if my phone signal isn’t great, Twitter push notifications still get onto my lock screen. Follow a bunch of Glastonbury related fan accounts and put your notifications on, most of it will be irrelevant to you, but it’s worth it for the one tweet that derails your day in the best way.

Make friends 

Glastonbury is famously friendly, laidback, everything you could want from a festival in truth. You end up chatting to people every couple of minutes and this is your best way to trade knowledge! In 2019 I was agonising about the presumed Foals secret set clashing with Lizzo. I made a friend in the crowd earlier in the day, he was 100% going for Foals but advised me on the best route to run from Lizzo. We made it in time for the last few songs of the set, and in the post-Foals rush, I found him again, overjoyed that we’d managed to make it.

The spirit of the festival is in sharing and building a community for a few days, take part it in and your experience will only be richer.

Roll with it

You’re gonna miss so much good music at any point at Glastonbury. If you miss all the secret sets, who cares, you were probably doing something equally as amazing elsewhere on site. 

Big secret sets to keep an eye on

Friday 23rd June 6:15-7:30pm – The Churnups, Pyramid Stage

This is the one all over social media right now. To put it simply, ‘The Churnups’ do not exist. And that’s a huge slot for some non-existent band. The most likely ‘Churnups’ are Pulp (what do you get when you ‘churn’ fruit?) and Foo Fighters.

Our money is on Foo Fighters, with good reason:

• There’s a hawk in the 2023 Glastonbury artwork, a motif tattooed on late Foo Fighters’ drummer, Taylor Hawkins. The hawk has more recently become a symbol in tribute of him
• In 1998 Foo Fighters made their Glastonbury debut on the Pyramid stage in the exact same spot
• Most convincingly, Dave Grohl posted a handwritten note on Twitter which said ‘churning up these emotions together.’

Friday 23rd June 7:30-8:30pm – TBA, Woodsies

A new stage means new rules, speculation is running rife. 

Saturday 24th June, 7:45-8:45pm – TBA, The Park

Rumours swirl yearly, with a secret set at the Park seen as a blessing to headline at a later date. Expect headline level acts and a near impossible chance at being close to the stage. Dua Lipa has been a rumour, with her intending to headline the Other Stage in the cancelled 2020 edition, now she is a real contender for a Pyramid headliner.

And there are a boatload of others on smaller stages, with varying degrees of rumours going around!

Grab your copy of the Gigwise print magazine here.

More about: Glastonbury Festival