I had friends in the cast of last year's Festival, and they had no transportation of their own... and there are many other performers (especially from overseas, who don't own cars in the UK) in the same situation.  If it works for them, it'll work for you...  after all, without the cast there wouldn't be a show

Prepare yourself morally, though, Tinners - the Glyndebourne audience are the people who own Britain. If you ever laughed-off stories about the world being run by a conspiracy of bankers, lawyers, arms-dealers and politicians, Glyndebourne may give you pause to reconsider     However, I presume that the Eotvos piece might attract a slightly less conventional crowd...  I wonder if the Dress Code will be in force for this piece?    But do enter into the spirit of the thing, take a picnic,  and enjoy it for what it is, especially if you've shelled out your own spondulicks for a ticket    In its own strange and unreal way, it's very charming...  although I'm uncomfortable with a lot of it,  the unerring sharp focus on doing things to the highest achievable performance standards without regard to what it costs is (probably) admirable

But your first time there is a bit like the experience that the Revolutionaries had when they broke-down the doors of the Winter Palace in St Petersburg in 1917,  and saw "how the other half had been living"   Well, partly that, and partly like being an on-set extra in MISS MARPLE INVESTIGATES AGAIN.

The few times I have been, I've managed to wangle a Dress Rehearsal Pass  (at one point they were trying to head-hunt me - like a twit I politely demurred out of mistaken loyalty to the music-hall down St Martin's Lane) and that's a slightly different thing.

from HELLO magazine:

I thought you'd like that, o Green One    I merely cut-and-paste - others must answer for the content thereof.

They probably thought it was part of the Eastleigh Egg-And-Spoon-Race

Don't forget to get some business cards, Tinners - you'll need a name like Fenella, Phaedra, Penelope, Gus, Alastair or Tremayne to fit in with your new friends

PS Tinners, you've probably known this since you were seven, but nonetheless - Britten's ALBERT HERRING (notably the first act) was (allegedly) written to satirise the world of Glyndebourne and the people who work there, run it and own it.  The Christie family - who had unwittingly commissioned it from Britten - were so mortally offended by the barely-veiled sideswipe at their feudal fiefdom that they were in high dudgeon with the composer for years afterwards, and never really forgave him for it (nor, indeed, allowed it to be staged at Glyndebourne either).

The almost the only thing I remember about the audience the only time we went there to see/hear The Second Mrs Kong, was that a large number of them were not there for part two.

We brought our own smoked salmon sandwiches (wholemeal homemade bread, probably, and no butter) and tried to get a bottle of wine in the interval, and to our surprise found the staff were as sweetly vague and impractical as National Trust volunteers, and indeed the same sort of people.

I would know better than to drink in the interval of a Birtwhistle opera now.

I was not remotely intimidated.

The theatre is wonderful.

Hope it doesn't rain when you go.

In the Good Olde Dayes when young Reiner still had red glasses (yes, I'm afraid so, but I had them before Christopher Biggins) and some residual amount of cred, the "done thing" by people in the know (by whom I mean the Glyndebourne Admin Staff who'd invited me) was to tether your champagne bottle to a piece of rope, anchor it to the bank by means of a one of those pins for securing guy-ropes on tents, and then plopping it gently into the water.  You'd then leave it there to chill, set out your picnic spot (rather in the manner of German holidaymakers at Alicante), and toodle-off to watch Act I.  By the time of the Long Interval, your champagne ought to be optimally frais.  Of course, this may all have changed since then - but I can't imagine you are actually forbidden to take your own wine, when bringing of your own picnic is such an integral part (indeed, for some people it's the main attraction..) of the Glyndebourne Experience?

I went to Garsington two years ago, which I found to be considerably more anally-retentive than the very thing on which it was modelled (ie Glyndebourne).  The Garsington mob seem much more obsessed with the Parade of the Parvenus than Glyndebourne, which has nothing to "prove" on that score.  The musical level was frankly barely above Holland Park Opera, and the performing conditions rather worse (a very tacky plastic tent).  However, the hooooooorsepitality, my dear, was something quite extraordinary.  It poured with rain all afternoon, so we found ourselves in tents set up for shelter.  Our neighbours - who were quite nice, and the only people who didn't obviously shun us - were French.  When I asked them if they'd had a difficult journey,  they replied that they'd just flown directly to Garsington - their private plane was at an airstrip 10 minutes walk down the lane.  "Will you be staying long in Britain?" I asked, to which they replied they'd only come for the opera and the picnic, and then would be flying back to the Dordogne.  I'd been invited at the last minute, and didn't have a DJ with me - I was, quite literally, the only man at the entire event who wasn't wearing one, and worse still I was in a powder blue suit.   DER STEIN DES WEISENS has, err, three numbers by Mozart, which is why they'd done it for the Mozart jubilee year.  "We didn't want to be, ehem, so obvious as all the others!" they told me...   You can instantly hear why this opera has rested in well-deserved obscurity for so long...  the "Stork from Butter Test" was a pretty easy game to spot.

Strange then that this coming Saturday's performance at Glyndebourne advertises itself as the 75th performance either there or on tour by Glyndebourne Touring Opera?

The thing about the toffery is that everyone there thinks that everybody else (except themselves) is an appalling toff so everyone goes round scowling and giving their best Jacobin glare to people who are, of course, doing the same back and for the same reason. My theory is that there are no toffs there at all but lots of opera-loving proletarian non-toffs who have saved up to be there.

So no one except me is going on 13th then.  

Some more advice on getting there.

This year the bus is still £6 for the round trip.  However, it's now £6 EVEN IF YOU ONLY TAKE IT ONE WAY, as I discovered last week when I arrived at the pick-up point after Eugene Onegin having earlier arrived by cab after missing the recommended train on the outward journey 

If there are three or more of you, it will be the same price or less to take a cab both ways.  Book in advance (once you're on the train should suffice) and if possible, ask to be collected from the exit into the Lewes station car park - a direct exit from the platform at which the London train arrives.  (If you're getting the coach, you will need to take the main exit.)  However, as David says, one major advantage of taking the coach is that if there is a known problem with the last London train from Lewes on the return journey, you'll automatically be taken somewhere where you can get a train.  This policy has worked in my favour on two occasions in the past.

In terms of getting to Lewes in the first place, if you are travelling from London you will probably find that the cheapest option is to use Southern Trains' Daysave ticket, which gives you a day's unlimited offpeak travel on all Southern services for £10.  To obtain such a ticket you need to register with the Southern Trains website (www.southernrailway.com) and book the ticket at least 7 days in advance.  The price undercuts an ordinary return fare from Victoria, even with a railcard discount.

I know this is off-topic, but for a while as an undergraduate I was under the impression that our library contained NO Birtwhistle scores. I was right, because as it turns out, Birtwhistle is really Birtwistle and has no H in it, and has nothing to do with whistling.

Don't mean to single you out, DB, but to share an anecdote of my stubborn density.