Middle Class Problems: Who needs authenticity when you can enjoy the heights of luxury that festival glamping offers?

Essentially it's a boutique hotel that happens to be pitched up near a very good outdoor party

(Corbis)

Remember the days when festival camping – replete with dirt, sweat and lukewarm Strongbow – was something you actively sought out? Not showering for days and flinging yourself through the mud and around the mosh pit became a badge of honour, the mark of an "authentic experience".

But who needs authenticity when you can enjoy the dizzying heights of luxury that festival glamping offers?

Your comfy pitch becomes a gilded oasis away from the madness, complete with showers, cotton sheets, breakfast in bed and complimentary body lotions. Essentially it's a boutique hotel that happens to be pitched up near a very good outdoor party. Pay a bit more and you're in the realm of saunas (oh, go on, then) and make-up artists on demand.

You do your best to ignore the naysayers barking on about the "real" experience, accusing you of some sort of spiritual defection as you peer out through the fog of your Cowshed-scented candles.

Yes, you realise it's at odds with the rough-and-tumble of actual festival camping, the warm soulful connection with nature and your fellow festival-goers. But you can get your injection of soul on the main festival drag, you tell yourself – and then retire for a restorative face mask and a Moscow mule back at base camp.

As darkness falls, and you find yourself outside your yurt, lining up your monogrammed wellies next to everyone else's, sure, you feel a pang of regret. But it's only the slightest of pangs. And it doesn't last long as you slip into peaceful slumber.