I Dreamt of a Man in a Star and a Technicolour Wool Coat

Starfields 2026 in Review

Christ, what a queue. Effervescent chatter travels down the human chain, narrowing from the chapel’s main entrance to an imperceptible point at the end of North Street —  summer catch-ups and months-waiting reunions, spilling into the road. Tennent's cans and sequin tops upon cowboy boots stream into Lower College Lawn, each bobbing to the undulating beat within.

It’s my first and final Starfields, a St Andrews institution that I’ve managed (and now failed) to dodge throughout my undergrad. Its formula is quite simple — venue, open-air, music, bar, dance — and this has been the root of my three-year trepidation: why pay a ball-fare for something I can find at a garden party?

The quaking vibration in my inner ear promptly answers my question. On the Lawn crouches the beast, a tent resembling some Spielbergian spaceship or Frank Gehry’s Bilbao Guggenheim. A guttural EDM roar draws us into its jaws — but no, first a drink.

The bar accommodates a fair selection of spirits, beer, and the crowd favourite of the evening, Hooch. Blue tongues beware. Bartenders raise their arms to the evening sky like antennae, card readers in hand, hoping for bank signals to synchronise. The thirsty folk are becoming a tad impatient with this dance, but never mind them — simply order dessert with your main.

In its execution, SF achieves something rare for high-attendance events in St Andrews. A sense of familiar intimacy surrounds me. I was in class there yesterday, just through that window in the Irvine Building. This lawn, I played frisbee on last week. People I attended pres with and those I’ve seldom seen since sub-honours, each face and every name, all are here, beaming. I know every corner of this place.

A certain wardrobe dots the grass — Coachella-adjacent, perhaps. Thanks be to the meteorologists, for the warm weather has accommodated our linen trousers and lace tops. Headscarves and velvet smoking caps float across to the catering trucks. It’s FS, St Andrews Charity Fashion Show, that’s hosting this year’s festival. They’ve done well to find their crowd.

Thwump-thwump-thwump now fills my head again, my fingers vibrating on the front barricade. Smoke machines and strobe lights intoxicate me, distorting my senses, inducing a kind of euphoria. Three headliners rotate off stage — Paris, Italy, Scotland — quite an international group. Funk, hip-hop, house, techno: the crowd doesn’t seem to mind, they won’t stop dancing. Balloons and inflatable beach balls fly across the tent, bouncing off heads.

Dew cools my back, leaned against the Lawn hill, out from the humid dancefloor. From above, we can see the evening scene unfold under the maturing twilight. We’re chatting, laughing as others roll like barrels down the slope. Monoculture is seldom found in this town, but the 2,500 ticket holders below provide me reassurance. All the start-of-term optimism, double-parked and chummy, was brought out tonight. I’m filled with a certain nostalgia — yes, that’s exactly what this evening provided, nostalgia. My first Starfields, my final year, but for the first time in ages I feel young and likewise optimistic, gazing, for the last time, at the term ahead. It was as though, for one final night, I was permitted to experience Freshers’ again, just as I had years ago.

Photos by Noah Lam-Po-Tang