I’m taking the Family to Rewind North in a couple of weeks.

We’ve never been to a festival before or camped. So far, I’ve borrowed my Sisters tent and that’s it.

What are the essentials we need to take?

ear plugs.

inflatable mattresses

sleeping bags.

I just copied this brief list from GoOutdoors’ website: 😀

A charged mobile
Change for the car park
Spare batteries
Numbers of all your mates
BBQ/Stove
Food
Duct Tape
Programme, Directions, Tickets
Waterproofs
A hoody/thick fleece
Comfy t-shirts
Something to sleep in
Sleeping bag
Roll mat
Tent – with pegs, mallet and poles!
Poncho
Suncream
Aftersun
Hand sanitiser
Water bottle
Thick socks
Wellies
Earplugs
Snacks
Wheel Lock
Sturdy Boots
Flip Flops
Underwear and socks for the duration of the festival
Cash
Food and drink
Medicine as well as personal items- glasses, condoms, pills, contact lenses.
Mini Travel Products – e.g Mini Shampoo / Soap/ Face washes / Face wipes and hand sanitizer
Toilet roll(s)
Camping furniture (if allowed on site)
A pillow
A cool box
A small radio or stereo
Sunglasses
Insect repellent
Stove
Fuel source
Lighting materials (matches, lighter) – Plus spares kept in a dry environment
Pot – 1 per two campers
Pan – 1 per two campers
Cups (Per person)
Plates (per person)
Bowls (per person)
Tumblers / Plastic glasses (per person)
Cutlery including extra extras, allow two items per person.
Food and sauces/condiments/oils, including seasoning and dressings
Corkscrew – Can be found on a Swiss Army Knife
Tin opener
Scissors and a firm knife – for cutting meats or opening packets – A Swiss Army Knife may provide these
Stirring Spoon made from wood or plastic
Serving Spoon for items such as salads or sauces
Skewers or prongs for toasting with
Plastic bags for rubbish storage, or an area to chop on
Cloths to strain food through or tidy up

That should get your started.

credit card

In addition to that list:

Self-inflating mattress,

Nothing you’d be gutted to lose,

Nothing made by Gellert.

Red wine,
more red wine,
Whisky.

Oh, and a few loo rolls.

All will go swimmingly.

(screw top to save on bottle opener)

Baby wipes.
Battery banks for charging of the gadgets.
As your going with the family leave the recreational drugs at home.
Snacks.
Ale.?
Extra bedding, sleeping bag liners are a good idea as they pack down really small and can be a god send on a cold night.

As above take wine, it gets you pissed much quicker and less trips to the toilet compared to lager.

Wet ones.

Arrive early, pitch your tent, then pitch 8 empty tents in a corral around your space.

That should cover it

Been to many festivals. If your going with family take..

Baby wipes
a bucket to pee in in the middle of the night.
lots of money (split up)
nothing you mind getting muddy
walking boots
waterproof coat / hat
some warm clothing for the nights.

Youll be happy with that

Poncho better than waterproof coat/trousers ime

better off with a coat and shorts imo

Head Torch
Booze
Bog Roll
Drugs
Booze
Lighters x10

socks. plenty of socks

Read the list of forbidden items, traditionally there’ll be at least one thing that’ll catch you out. For example, Reading festival, not allowed to take deodorant. You can buy it once you’re inside, you just can’t take any in.

Mine is like this:
Tent
sleeping bag
air mat
extra fleecy blanky that I bought at about 4am at Reading one night to fend off death
Wee first aid kit of convenience things- there’ll be first aid available but blister plasters, stuff like this.
Wet wipes and some disposable cleaning stuff
BOG ROLL.

Sun cream
Waterproofs- if you’ve got a pocketable bike waterproof, ideal. Lots of bike stuff is good- thermal baselayers, ace. Some festivals have now banned camelbaks which is a right bollocks, they’re perfect.

If it rains, waterproof footwear will make you feel like a king. I love my Official Festival Goretex Shoes.
Slightly more clothes than you think you’ll need- many more socks.
Very well wrapped weed- beat the sniffer dogs.

If you’re taking your beverages in, red wine in a box, dispose of box. But I used to just take one can, for tent pitching refreshment, then nip out and buy some. Works better some places than others. Same with food, basically the less crap you’re carrying, the better. Even if you’re driving it can be a route march to get into the camping area.

Wellies
Sturdy Boots
Flip Flops

Are you going to the beach, the marshes or the hills?

All three by the looks of things.

Wellies are crap for festivals imo… Can’t jump around in em properly, generally either cold or sweaty, can be uncomfy, cheap ones aren’t all that durable in a crowd and have no toe protection… Decent walking boots are the ideal imo.

Wellies are crap for festivals imo… Can’t jump around in em properly, generally either cold or sweaty, can be uncomfy, cheap ones aren’t all that durable in a crowd and have no toe protection… Decent walking boots are the ideal imo.

+1

They’re also a sod to get on/off.

Hip flask. This may need strapping to your inner thigh to get past security.

Wellies, if big enough, are handy for smuggling too. My mate had a festival top hat that he could sneak beer in.

If you can’t park by your tent and have to walk from the carpark to the campsite, then a fold down trolley is the business.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/wolfcraft-70kg/76279

By one of the above and feel smug as you pass all the people mauling their tits off trying to carry/dropping their stuff all over the show.

LSD
MDMA
Ketamine
Cocaine
DMT
DXM
Methadrone
Salvia
Bromo Dragonfly
Nitrous Oxide
2CI
2CB
2CE

*joke

Pick up a bunch of good waterproof ponchos, ex-military are best. Much better than carrying or wearing waterproofs, cheap as chips, you can get Swiss camo ones for a fiver, and if you have showery weather, the poncho becomes a groundsheet, and you don’t care about it getting skanky and muddy.
If they get ripped, (unlikely, but you never know), then at a fiver, you don’t really care, and you can patch with some duct tape.
Loo rolls, wet-wipes, torches/head-torches, hats, several pairs of clean, dry socks, earplugs, ibuprofen tablets, a couple of kitchen rolls, batteries for torches.
There’s a real tendency to take far too much, so try to keep things to a minimum.

Something for the ladies to think about?

Leave a clean change of clothes in the car for the journey home.

What you really, really need, is one of these, especially if it gets a bit muddy…

Listen to Northwind. You will do well there.

get a bag of red wine, and one of white. freeze them both. use as ice packs to keep beer cold for fri. drink white on sat while still cold, drink red sunday when there is no cold left in the cool box.

double post

a van, 4 or 5 ice buckets, loads of ice, an utter shedload of beer, be amazed how long the ice lasts if you do it right. cold beer on the last night is a beautiful thing. And treble the amount of weed you think you’ll need! 😀

Danny79 has hit the nail on the head.. Although would include a coat that you trust to keep you warm and dry when you pass out in a ditch, and the ingredients for an endless supply of really good, strong, rustic mojitos

We did our first family festival a couple of weekends ago. Two things we really could have done with were more clothes for nighttime, it’s amazingly cold in a tent, and also a bucket to pee in. Everything had been covered but key things I would say:
Wipes
Head torch
Mattress and pillow or make pillow by stuffing sleeping bag carrying sack with some cloths. Saves you carrying pillows
Credit card and cash, check to see if cha machines are on site, these will cost you about £2.50 though.
As few clothes as you can live with, I stayed in the same layers all weekend and didn’t smell that bad.
Consider the distance you need to transport all your stuff, car park was close for us.
Hunter wellies! I felt like an outcast as I don’t have any and everyone else did.

Wet wipes

Sleeping bag

Everything else is optional

headtorch

be prepared to get split up all the time, don’t spend the whole weekend bothering about who is where – on the first night, have a plan about what bands etc you definitely want to see and use these as meeting points. Always meet by the mixing desk because it’s easily navigable and the sound is the best from there

if you see a clean toilet, use it

don’t camp right next to the stages, don’t pitch next to the paths, don’t bother with camp chairs or any thing you don’t absolutely need, no valuables and switch your phone off when you are pitching the tent, only switch it on when you really need to use it cos the signal and internet service will be pants anyway

pack light

no flipflops (cut feet) no wellies, walking boots

take apples and bananas to offset the booze and junk food 🙂

Stay with a most glamping outfits and you can take the tent / chairs / sleeping bags home with you at the end – most of them don’t publicise that. The fact that the pitches are set up before the melee arive means that they’re more than likely to be in good enough condition to keep – most other tents I saw at the end of the festival looked fit for the skip..

I’ll see the previous comments re: fold down trolleys and raise that to a lightweight wheelbarrow.

Thanks for all the advice. I’d better get to Go Outdoors this weekend.

Sonia had better be bloody good after all this….