Make a note of where you’ve pitched your tent (or better still, use a GPS app on your phone) so that you can find it in the dark, when lots of other tents have been pitched near it and some twunt has broken your identifying flag pole.

1) Drink cider – its more tolerable than warm lager, take vodka for late night sessions

2) Don’t bother with guide ropes on your tent – they wont last

3) Take a disposable camera and a cheap £10 pay as you go phone (unless you really cant cope without facebook, snapchat etc and end up being the losers queueing up to charge smartphones – so easy to get them pinched)

4) Cheap sunglasses

5) make sure your bag(s) are easy to carry – the fewer the better

6) Wet wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer

have fun

Tuborg

If you’re lucky. It tends to be Carling in my experience.

The best pint I’ve ever had, was a Carling Extra Cold at the Ozzfest, immediately after Hundred Reasons, watching Zakk Wylde playing Mr Crowley. Beer is very context dependent, if it’s not nice just have another.

(if you’re taking spirits, you might have trouble with glass, decant it into plastic. Lighter, anyway. If you’re a wine man, get a box of red and take the cardboard off, drink it out of the colostomy bag)

glade07

the most rain eva

Top-tip: If decanting entire bottles of spirits into plastic water bottles for ease of sneakage – make sure you know which one is actually water as accidentally downing several large gulps of gin first thing in the morning after a heavy session can come as quite a shock. Although it does get you over that second day malaise quite effectively & instantly removes the urge to wash / brush your teeth / not drink anything for a while…

Lessons learned the hard way #163

Following on from Binners’ brilliant piece of advice, I’d add that 2 litre camelbaks make a wonderful delivery tool for 7% cloudy cider, and it should be worn and used for the duration of your stay.

The festival drink of choice among my friends is Taurus. Aldi’s dry cider which tastes like it has never been near an apple in its production.

If you need to plug your goodies, use a vicks vapostick tube, and not a kinder egg shell.

A couple of vaposticks slide in and out easily, kinder eggs can pop open and then you find out their edges are quite sharp, or so I am told.

Vapostick tubes screw together as well, unlike chapsticks which look similar but again can separate if your are unlucky, or lucky depending on what is being absorbed by your bum.

dazh – Member

Following on from Binners’ brilliant piece of advice, I’d add that 2 litre camelbaks make a wonderful delivery tool for 7% cloudy cider, and it should be worn and used for the duration of your stay.

Most festivals now won’t let you into the arena with a loaded camelbak 🙁 You can still luck out sometimes or equally you might have to tip it. (or sit outside the gate til it’s drunk. I had a great time at Leeds one time, in the “can’t carry the beer any further” party)

T in the park banned them entirely, not sure if they’ve gone back on that or if anyone else does it but, not impressed.

as others have said plus earplugs, golf umbrella (great if it’s heaving it down to watch bands in the relative dry), cheap folding camping chair, portable battery thingy to charge you phone (most festival have charging / battery exchange points but the queue are huge), shorts (if too cold for shorts – walking trousers / combats as they dry quicker than jeans)

oh, and twice the booze you think you need then another 20% on top of that in rum

Don’t take anything valuable – my niece went to reading for her first festival, persuaded me to let her borrow my gopro, which was promptly nicked from her tent on the first night, whilst she was asleep next to it. She now owes me big! Putting valuables at the bottom of your sleeping bag was advice given to her, albeit too late for my camera!

Head Torch
Box of wine

Ps if it is really raining will taking K make it stop?

It will stop. But it will stop mid-air. Then it will turn into crystal shards, which you will slowly navigate and observe in childlike wonder, on some kind of unseen mid-air conveyor belt. Then you will wake up in a puddle covered in mud, asking passers-by if they have any more K.

Considering this forum would be horrified at people littering trails, using wetwipes and dumping a tent are both bad ideas. Take yourtent home (for the next time and all the other times you’ll use it) and just have a proper wash with water.

Pre-roll before you leave home, when the suns coming up and you want another smoke, you really won’t have the energy to skin up… Pre-rolling for the win 8)

Pack your stuff then fling half of it away. Be ruthless just take what you need. You don’t need much.

This isn’t exhaustive but you’ll not need much more than a 15 quid Tent, roll mat, sleeping bag, enough clothes to keep warm at night and a few changes. Waterproofs(head to toe). Baby wipes, bog roll, Beer, spirits, mixers, weed, mdna, fags, skins, lighters, Money, cards, Phone, phone charger. Chair. Painkillers, immodium, sun cream. Not really much else you need.

Figure out how much trekking you need to do, some festivals you can walk for miles. So take a trolley of sorts, this will enable you to carry more beer. If you want to be really smart make sure said trolley can turn into a sledge if it gets muddy! 😆

Keep your valuables on your person at all times. Don’t take anything you don’t want to lose.

I’m guessing they have to do a massive clean up anyway, I don’t suppose the tents make it much worse

This is why I always carry my own litter until I find someone else’s to dump mine next to.

Someone else will have to deal with it anyway. So I figure, **** it, mine won’t make much difference.

(I also use the same “logic” for fly tipping)

🙂

Quirrel – Member
If you need to plug your goodies, use a vicks vapostick tube, and not a kinder egg shell.

A couple of vaposticks slide in and out easily, kinder eggs can pop open and then you find out their edges are quite sharp, or so I am told.

Vapostick tubes screw together as well, unlike chapsticks which look similar but again can separate if your are unlucky, or lucky depending on what is being absorbed by your bumare you actually serious? 😆

Pretty much everything has been said! Cheap tent and bin it afterwards because it gets disgusting in there after 4 nights of mud and beer. We got ours for reading from go outdoors for £70 so didn’t mind chucking it afterwards for that price. Camp far away, we were in white camp this year at reading and it was so much better than even last year in brown camp which is the next one down. As in the fields were still grassy rather than a bog of mud/water/bodily fluids. It seriously stinks around the camps closer to the arena. Moist toilet tissue wipes are a godsend. And if you’re taking “sweeties” in then don’t leave them in your wallet which may get searched. I hear tucking them in your belt is a better option.

using wetwipes and dumping a tent are both bad ideas.

Flushable wet wipes (eg, the Andrex moist tissues) are biodegradable. I’d take all my crap out with me, but if you’re the sort of neb who thinks nothing of letting someone else deal with it then they’re at least a little environmentally friendlier to leave lying around.

It’s a festival the site gets cleared anyhow and 90% of people leave alsorts. I think youse are being a little precious.

Strategise your shits.

Massive one at home Friday morning. Find a fresh portaloo Saturday morning. Eat **** all and drink like a fish for 3 days. Portaloos become apocalyptic after that.

The things I’ve seen working on site for TITP & Isle of White festivals still haunt me. How do you manage to contribute to a pile of poop rising above the bowl like an organic scatological custard I’ll never know.

Try to use a portaloo after a woman, they are generally less likely to leave a turd on the seat.

If you lose your tent don’t panic, just befriend singer randoms till the sun comes up and realise you’re only 5m from your tent.

Hip flasks are easier to smuggle in to the arena.

Take a hipster bumbag, one big enough to fit a hipflask ,lightweight jacket ,fags, a lighter and a small water bottle and dance!

get a box(es) of cider and freeze them before you go

also, have a massive shit before you go then eat a dozen hard boiled eggs, just about enough nutrients for a weekend and you wont be able to visit the portaloo

Most festivals now won’t let you into the arena with a loaded camelbak

What? Why would anyone go to a festival which banned them drinking their own drinks in order to make more cash? Thankfully I only ever go to small friendly ones.

Well I’m back from Bestival and all (well most) of the advice was very helpful.
Camped in the site that was furthest away from the stages which meant lots of walking/planning but the up side was clean loos.
Wow it was LOUD!
Will add lip balm and eye drops to the list for next year.
Flying Lotus was amazing, Little Dragon very good.