A quick google suggests Boardmasters tickets are about £200. Then you've got the cost of getting there, unless you're local, and food etc. while you're there. Accommodation, or buying a tent. And all that assumes that you are either not working, or you're lucky enough to be able to get annual leave at peak holiday times (unlikely in a lot of min wage or student temporary jobs).
There's absolutely no way I'd have been able to afford that sort of outlay before the age of about 30.
we are a FSM family.
Ds got PP and sixth form bursary as we are low income.
He buys all his own clothes and pays for all his own social life.
He has a job. He has worked in a phone shop since he was 16. He worked Saturday and Sunday and every single spare holiday day that he could get. His boss likes him because he works hard and is reliable.
Last year, even with Covid and the shop being shut, he earned enough to buy himself a second hand car and insure it.
He has saved up loads for uni next year, and he paid for Broadmasters himself. He negotiated the time off with his boss for whom he has worked bloody hard for the last 2 years.
Most of his friends who went paid for it out of their earnings. We have a tent already that he has used dozens of times after we bought is second hand for about £20 4 years ago. He drove himself there, and the car had 3 passagners and they split the cost.
Why on earth would you assume that it is an expensive middle class exercise? Ds works hard, very hard, and is enjoying the fruit of that.