There's a couple of messy festivals around the globe, sadly nothing I can seem to find here in the US.
For example, there's Songkran in Thailand, which is basically a week long water fight, great stuff if you're into wetlook.
Japan and Korea has Gatalympics and Boryeong, which are mud festivals. Based on the pics, the mud in the Japanese festival looks way better (thicker and sloppier), but the Korean festival seems to be more touristy. Then there's La Tomatina in Spain, which is a big tomato fight, and they use overripe tomatoes so it gets messy.
Has anyone been to any of these messy festivals, or taken a vacation trip just to visit them? Personally I would be very interested in checking them out, but I'm a bit of a closet WAMmer, so I can't really ask my normal friends if they want to take a trip.
Also Bloco de Lama black tidal mud party at Carnival, some Spanish mud fight festival, mudpits at Rock Otocec, Dead Sea mudbaths, Kwallenballen, and the German(?) Mud Olympics.
I have been to the Boryeong mud festival twice about 10 years ago. (And...it's currently about a 30 minute drive from my house!) I haven't been back because of both of the things you mentioned. It's super crowded and the mud is thin. But also, it's uncomfortable for me as well. (In a voyeuristic manner). Certainly an enjoyable experience and something to do at least once.
Glasontbury??? But the mother of all the festivals has to be Woodstock. I remember Rob and Daizy went to Woodstock 99. I did see one picture of Daizy in the mud, but that was it. If anyone had the picture set from that, please share. They are doing the 50 th reunion next year, could you imagine if it rained? OMG!
What makes me the most sad is that there isn't something messy going on in Hershey PA. They even have a theme park, but nothing with chocolate. If you stay at the hotel though, you can do a chocolate spa.
The pillow fight sounds great, but it's 3000 miles away in California. People in the UK complain about it being to far to go to other events in the UK, in the US, it's immeasurably worse due to the size of the country. The closest WAM producer friends I have are still a 13 hour drive away.