As Europe’s largest arts festival draws to a close, Caroline Phillips braves the mud and rain to rub shoulders with the clever, the famous and the passionate

‘Bill Clinton said Hay is like Woodstock of the mind’

The venue for drinks with the “man who used to be the next president” is Top Secret – for security reasons. Guests are to be taken (blindfolded?) by bus to an unknown destination. Given directions just minutes before it starts, I go by car. It’s easy to find. Outside the “secret” location flies a state-sized American flag and security men stand ready to prevent, er, blood and gore.

Al Gore, the former US vice-president and self-dubbed “recovering politician”, is on the lawn outside the Penrhos Court Hotel, an organic establishment where they serve nettle soup. He’s hotfooted it here from Cannes where his documentary about climate change, An Inconvenient Truth, was showing. Now he’s come to persuade audiences at the Hay Festival – Europe’s largest arts festival – of the dire consequences of global warming.

He could also be a presidential contender for 2008, despite assurances that he’s a “recovering politician”. “Are you planning a relapse?” I inquire. He grips his champagne glass tightly and then breaks into a smile. “Very unlikely,” he replies.

Gore is a large man – six foot three-ish with a girth to match – and sports a black suit and cowboy boots. “Cowboy boots!” I point rudely but as he and I are both Hay virgins, I feel we’re kindred spirits.

“I came prepared,” he responds. “Bill [Clinton] said the Hay Festival is like the Woodstock of the mind. There was a lot of mud at Woodstock.”

The festival, brainchild of the energetic and clever Peter Florence, artistic director, started in 1987 with 15 speakers meeting for a weekend in the tiny Brecon Beacons village. Now it attracts megawatt guests – aside from Clinton, Paul McCartney, Susan Sontag, John Updike and Donna Tartt have all been lured here. (When the late Arthur Miller was invited to talk, the response came: “Is Hay-on-Wye a sandwich?”) It is now a scorchingly hot social event – a sort of Serpentine Gallery summer party in Wales.

My first discovery about Hay is that it takes 700 hours to get there in half-term holiday traffic. Some put the time to good use: Bloomsbury editor Bill Swainson bought the UK rights to Gore’s latest book by Blackberry while sitting in a layby.

I was unprepared for the sheer scale of Hay, a Glastonbury for colour supplement readers. Two years ago, the festival moved from the village to a vast tented metropolis in a field. This year, there were more than 80,000 visitors and nearly 400 events with guests including Seamus Heaney, Simon Callow, Zadie Smith and Sebastian Faulks. Virtually everything sold out.

One rule of Hay is that it always rains. There’s a tractor to help vehicles out of the paddy fields. On site, even the Guardian came with a pac-a-mac, which pre-empted jokes about wet liberals. If there are any inaccuracies in this article, it’s because most of my scribblings were washed away. “Being in the mud and rain brings out the best in Brits,” Margaret Atwood told me. At least, I think that’s what my notes say.

Mostly, the weather dictates the dress code. Anoraks and boots. Boots and anoraks. Literary agent Caroline Michel went a little further in waisted lime-green coat dress and, minutes later, a pale silver outfit with heels as high as the Brecon Hills.

Meanwhile, Tanny Gordon, wife of John (he’s the grand fromage of achingly fashionable Intelligence Squared, which runs university-style debates for London’s chattering classes) stepped into the mud in satin Marni pumps. The couple were accosted every step of their regal way with offers to speak in John’s debates.

Hay is a melting pot for political, socio, economic, arty and literary ideas, and its audiences are super-informed. Scary. David Hare gave a stimulating talk on theatre and politics while a few muddy steps away abstract painter Howard Hodgkin “talked” to Simon Schama. Hodgkin answered in monosyllables. Antony Gormley stayed for two minutes then joined the throngs walking out.

In another tent, professional contrarian Christopher Hitchens was in mid-brilliant discourse on Thomas Paine and the rights of man when someone’s mobile rang. “Who the f— is that?” he asked the thousand-plus audience. “We know where you live. We know where your children go to school.” Then he lit another cigarette, drank yet more whisky and donned sunglasses. The line worked less well in his afternoon gig. Ring, ring. “We know where you go to school,” said Hitch, staring unsteadily at the offender.

This ideas fest was punctuated with a visit to Giffords Circus, a psychedelic, bohemian annual spectacular. Even the audience was surreal. Paul Rusesabagina, the hotel manager whose experience of genocide was powerfully told in Hotel Rwanda, sat beside Joanna Trollope and Sheila Hancock. Germaine Greer arrived late, with steam coming out of her ears.

Channel 4 held its elegant party in the grounds of Hay Castle. Security was tight because Gore was on the guest list. But the circus troupe crashed it disguised as “distinguished authors” – all elected to come either as Rosie Boycott or Atwood. Inside, there was a buzz about Nick Broomfield’s Ghosts, a film inspired by the Morecambe Bay cockle-pickers’ drownings.

I’m very glad I lost my virginity. Just like Gore, I can envisage a comeback.