Glastonbury tickets for this year may be all sold out, but there are still plenty of alternative festivals to choose from.

If you have had your fill of trudging round a muddy field in your wellies and would like to try broadening your horizons, why not consider giving Glyndebourne a go?

The style stakes are high for Glyndebourne festival goers (Leigh Simpson)
The style stakes are high for Glyndebourne festival goers (Leigh Simpson)

The opera festival, which has been going for 80 years, is a black tie affair at which you can spend an evening sedately dining in the Sussex countryside before taking an actual seat to enjoy the music.

Don’t be mistaken, this is not an event for fuddy duddies and opera snobs. Glyndebourne has special evenings solely for the young to enjoy its magic. Anyone aged 16-29 can sign up to the festival’s G>30 scheme, and book tickets for just £30.

It's picnicking with panache (Leigh Simpson)
It’s picnicking with panache (Leigh Simpson)

Dressed in your finery, watching the sun go down over the glorious grounds, filled with the sound of tweeting birds and the pop, pop, pop of champagne corks, an evening at Glyndebourne can make you feel like you’re in the middle of your very own fairytale.

Some may have misgivings of opera. They worry that they won’t be able to follow the plot if the words are sung in Italian or German and they don’t know the story or speak the lingo.

Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats (Leigh Simpson)
Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats (Leigh Simpson)

But it is a futile fear. Not only are subtitles projected above the stage, but the power and emotion of these masterful pieces of music are all you need to understand.

As the beautiful courtesan Violetta lies dying in her lovers arms at the end of La Traviata, her voice will move you to tears, not her vocab.

And who needs to be fluent in French to be seduced by Carmen’s rousing aria?

But the opera is just one element of Glyndebourne.

Strolling the gardens before the show or in the interval, there is something surreal about the sight of all the exquisitely dressed guests, sitting amidst blossoming flower beds and box hedges, with a backdrop of sheep-filled rolling pastures.

Eating outside doesn't have to be uncomfortable (Leigh Simpson)
Eating outside doesn’t have to be uncomfortable (Leigh Simpson)

There are several restaurants on site, but picnics at Glyndebourne are a full on affair. Watching people set up their folding tables and chairs, before setting them with a linen tablecloth, full set of silverware, crockery and even candelabra, all adds to the sense of occasion.

There’s even a romantic love story behind the whole event. When owner of the house John Christie fell in love with and married Canadian soprano Audrey Mildmay, he didn’t want to be parted from her for months on end while she went on tour.

So he built her a theatre in the grounds to perform in, and the first Glyndebourne festival took place in 1934.

Glyndebourne opera house in the grounds of the Sussex country house (Leigh Simpson)
Glyndebourne opera house in the grounds of the Sussex country house (Leigh Simpson)

You can glamorise it up all you like, but glamping is still sleeping in a tent. With a shuttle bus between Glyndebourne and Lewes station you can have an evening of festival fun and still be tucked up in your own bed.

Through the G>30 scheme £30 tickets are available for Saul on Tuesday August 25 and The Rape of Lucretia on Tuesday August 4.

Who says only oldies go to the opera? (Leigh Simpson)
Who says only oldies go to the opera? (Leigh Simpson)

There are also £10-£20 standing tickets available at every performance if you use the Promotion Code 11648 when you sign into the website.

Public booking for the festival opens on Monday March 9, with this year’s calendar including Carmen, Mozart’s Die Entfuhrung aus dem Serail and Benjamin Britten’s The Rape Of Lucretia.