What? Pharmacy at the Glastonbury Festival?

Many people don’t realise that there are pharmacy services at the Glastonbury Festival.

I certainly didn’t at my first Glasto in 1998, when I wallowed in the mud with everyone else, blissfully unaware that one poor pharmacist, Tony Guest of Festival Health Ltd, was running the pharmacy almost single handedly for the festival medical services.

Since the temporary population peaks at over 150,000 it is hardly surprising that medical & pharmacy services are needed on site.

The first on site pharmacy was registered in 1994 but when I joined Tony in 1999 we knew we had to drastically develop the facilities and service to stay safe and professional. We also saw no reason why it shouldn’t be a lot of fun!

Over the next 9 years, we had a team of wonderful pharmacists and staff who came to have fun and still provide a professional pharmacy service.

We ran Festival Pharmacy, a 24hr pharmacy attached to the Festival Medical Services ‘field hospital’ and Arena Pharmacy, a second pharmacy in the market place selling & advising for self medication.

This was now ‘RocknRollPharmacy’ and some of our legendary stories have been published in several pharmacy magazines.

The Festival Medical Services pharmacy and pharmacy team is now run by Phil Allen from the local pharmacy in Evercreech, and the market pharmacy is Med Man Pharmacy run by James Powell.

The RocknRollPharmacy blog has run for several years and chronicles my own thoughts and experiences, with input & observations from the other RocknRollPharmacists. This year I will be working for James in the market pharmacy again, but I’m looking forward to getting together with my friends from the medical centre pharmacy too.

My experience & reports may be coloured this year by the fact that I am taking the children along. I will be camping outside with the general public for the first time since 1998, instead of inside secure staff areas. Hmmm.

I’ll let you know how it goes!