Music festivals can be exhausting. Whether it’s getting there, setting up camp, or worrying about set times – but how physical are they really? A new study by French electronics company Withings has worked out how much energy an average UK punter will burn and how far they’ll walk over the course of a festival.
Glastonbury takes the cake by far, with each punter burning around 3,400 calories and walking 8.16 km per day. Keep in mind that it’s a 3 day long festival and that’s over 10,000 calories! V Festival – which is also a weekend festival – came in a close second, with 3,100 calories burnt and 7.36 km walked each day. T4 On The Beach, a one day festival, was last on the list of results, but only I imagine because it doesn’t span nearly the size of the others. It’d be like comparing Splendour to Laneway.
Check all the results, and potentially get involved in the survey here.
The study also found that each day the average punter dances for eight hours, burning off an average of 400-700 calories per set.
We like to move it move it.
For someone who doesn’t do nearly as much exercise as they should, and spends more time and money on shows than they probably should, this is very welcome news. Gyms should start having rave-caves as alternatives to the other machines. The next step should definitely be a study comparing physical exertion by music genre. I imagine that people headed to Defqon.1 would be burning way more energy than those headed to Blues Fest – and with Splendour around the corner, that’d be a very enlightening study for the start of festival season.