There's nothing like being up to your ankles in mud to get you into the swing of things at a festival intended to celebrate the sun.
Navigating the deep, muddy troughs in the grass made by tractors and cars at the Lizard '99 music festival in Cornwall yesterday, the trick was to duck inside one of the tents in the rain.
If the meteorologists are right, Cornwall might have a lot of bad weather tomorrow, on E-day, as it is being called by the locals in this county of England.
The eclipse is on everyone's mind. At the moment Cornwall has a 40 to 60 per cent chance of witnessing the magical eclipse of the sun by the moon.
The estimated two million visitors have failed to materialise. Authorities estimate that the figure is probably closer to one million.
Businesses are predicting massive losses because of the low turnout. Yet, due to the less-than-brisk business, Cornwall appears a much calmer place than anyone could have expected.
Smoking a cigarette in the rain while waiting for his girlfriend to get a tattoo from one of the festival's New Age henna artists, James (31), from Sheffield, was still hopeful that the skies would be clear for the eclipse.
"We're staying in a campsite," he said. "It's wet and it's cold at night but I don't care. I wouldn't miss this for anything."
Hayley (8) wore a huge pair of yellow sunglasses when the sun eventually appeared. She had travelled to Cornwall on Saturday from Bristol with her mother, Heather, and a group of friends. They were excited about the eclipse, "but this mud is just like Glastonbury," one of them said.
"I saw lots of signs for vacancies driving down from London," said Janet, who has been visiting Cornwall with her husband for the past 15 years.
She said she believed hotel managers were holding back the rooms, waiting for a last-minute rush.
"We were told that most of the small hotels were full, but on the drive down here at the weekend, we saw many vacancy signs that local people had told us appeared only within the last few days."
There is further evidence that not all of the planning has gone smoothly. The vegan campsite near St Keverne in southern Cornwall might have attracted a great number of visitors, and guesthouses in the tiny fishing village of Porthallow on the Lizard may be full. But four miles inland near Goonhilly Downs it is a different story. Campsite managers are worried they will not break even because the campers haven't turned up yet.
"We thought there would be millions of people, but they haven't come," said Sam, who runs a campsite. "They may come at the last minute but I don't know. The fields around here are empty and we're all losing money."