As festival season ends, let’s celebrate their communal magic – and the fact they’re a rare national asset | John Harris

Gatherings with music and dancing have gone on for millennia. After a terrifying summer, such simple joy felt almost utopian

This column was completed in a tent on the borders of Dorset and Wiltshire, during the somewhat bleary morning that followed a brilliant Saturday night. I was among 17,000 people trying to hang on to the remains of summer in a set of fields, woodland and Victorian gardens, over four nights and three days of dizzyingly eclectic music that spanned an array of textures, genres and cultures.

As sometimes happens at such events, I regularly looked around and marvelled. Most of us worry about how much human beings directly interact with each other, and the way that social media has sown misery, division and mutual loathing. But here was something completely different: a temporary town where people happily chatted with strangers, and enjoyed themselves to the full while respecting the necessary rules. In the context of a toxic and often terrifying summer, such a peacefully joyous weekend felt almost utopian.