BARAC UK at Glastonbury 2025

A report from BARAC UK Team Member Natalia Levene, about their second year volunteering for us at Glastonbury Festival for Workers Beer Company. We are grateful to Natalia, team leader Leroy and the entire team for all their hard work raising funds for us while enjoying Glasto.

This was my second year attending Glastonbury as part of the BARAC UK team, volunteering with Workers Beer Company and it felt so good to be back.  One of the things I was most looking forward to, was being reunited with my teammates from last year. We were an inter-generational team aged between 20-60, and we travelled from Birmingham, Brighton, Edinburgh, London, Manchester, and Newcastle. 

A gorgeous blend of accents, from all walks of life united in our love for music and our commitment to fundraising. It was also great to see some of the volunteers from other organisations returning to the festival.  As volunteers we had a dedicated campsite, and the feeling of being surrounded by new and familiar faces, excited about what the week will bring is quite hard to put into words. There is a real sense of pride and purpose in the small roles we all play in contributing to the Glastonbury experience for over 200,000 festival attendees.

 This year the BARAC team worked at the Solstice Bar, which was next to the Other Stage. Positioned perfectly to listen to the live performances and catch a glimpse of the stage on our breaks. Although being so close to a main stage meant that we were put through our paces in between acts with lots of thirsty customers queuing at the bar. You don’t find out your shifts until you arrive at the farm, so we prayed to the festival gods that our rota would align with the acts we wanted to see. There was some heartbreak for our team missing out on Charlie XCX, but I was so grateful to be able to see Busta Rhymes, Fabio & Grooverider’s history of drum & bass set with a live orchestra and the performance I waited all weekend for, The Prodigy. I still get goosebumps when I think about the atmosphere during their performance of Firestarter. 

This year it was also great to see the Black at Glasto presence in Silver Hayes, a hub of connection for festival attendees of black heritage. I had the honour of facilitating an African-centred healing circle in the space and another teammate Jodie, led a yoga session. It was such a gift to share our skills and offer a moment of solace and connection to our community. 

Glastonbury really is the festival of all festivals, and to be able to enjoy it with a great group of people whilst fundraising for an incredible organisation like BARAC UK made it even more special. Thank you, BARAC UK, for the opportunity and thank you to Amos, Ettie India, Issy, Jodie and our team leader Leroy for being the team of dreams.