Advice for festival virgin

I’m off to Isle of Wight for the Bestival next weekend. Looking forward to seeing Chemical Brothers, Leftfield and Underworld plus lots of groups I don’t even know.
I was planning on using a friend’s tent ( expensive carp fishing job by Fox RRP £399 !) but my nephew has put some doubts in my mind. According to him tents get wrecked by drunk people falling on them and apparently the thing to do is just buy a cheapie and leave it there.
Does it really get that rowdy in the camp site? I’m now also a bit curious about security, do people actually raid others tents while ones away?

Apart from the above concerns what advice and tips can the STW festival gurus share ?

Just get hammered on the first day, and keep going. Any tent worries will soon fade.

Alcohol. Wet wipes. Earplugs. 2L bottled water.

Don’t park the tent anywhere too convenient, reducing the number of people who might fall in.

Festival rule number 1: From the second you arrive, just take so much MDMA that you wouldn’t give a toss if someone murdered your family in front of your eyes.

Festival rule number 1: From the second you arrive, just take so much MDMA that you wouldn’t give a toss if someone murdered your family in front of your eyes.

Or acid. That works too.

Bestival should be pretty chilled. Festivals ALWAYS attract a couple of scallies / undesirables.

Camping areas are very cramped. Lot’s of guy ropes crossing each other. People worse for wear (not necessarily completely langered) may trip on ropes and stumble on tents. Happened to us a few years ago, pole snapped and tore a little bit of the tent where you guide the pole through.

My advice:

Don’t take anything you can’t afford to lose.
Take wellies (although I think you’ll be OK with the weather).
IT GETS COLD AT NIGHT take some pullovers and a woolly hat.
Be prepared to get a bit unclean. Take wet wipes and a bit of deodorant spray for a wash.
Take some of that antiseptic gel and WASH YOUR HANDS before you eat.
Take plenty of cash for food / drink
Don’t rely on being able to charge your phone while you are there.

HAVE A GREAT TIME!

wot binners sed, sort of.

dont take anything with you that you will care if you lose.

wet wipes
hand sanitizer
bog roll
snack food
camp on high ground, not too close to the loos, but not too near, away from a throughfare
take your own drugs/booze, will be overpriced in there

If you get caught in a Hungarian thunderstorm with a load of K in the tent then the K is absolutely, definitely what’s making it rain.

And the rain will stop when it’s gone, obviously.

I think it’s disgraceful when people just leave the tent on site

Don’t park the tent anywhere too convenient, reducing the number of people who might fall in.

+++++1000. Pitch tent as far away from stages as you can. Reduces the passing footfall.

Also don’t be too driven by timetable to see bands. Pick your headliners but spend a bit of time wondering the smaller stages and see stuff you haven’t heard of.

sziget scaled?

Can’t help, I’m afraid. Last festival I went to way back in the day (as a punter) it was all benders made out of twigs and polythene, group sex, a trench for a toilet and bands who were too stoned to play….

apparently the thing to do is just buy a cheapie and leave it there. take it back home with you.

Was driving past latitude festival packing up recently. Can’t believe how many twunts just leave tents etc. 👿

Thanks some good advice so far.
Looks like I will buy a cheap pop up , and I will bring it back don’t worry!
Saw a program recently where the tents that were left after a festival were donated to a charity.

And from my most recent festival trip – be the guy in front of the guy who’s told the breakfast tent just ran out of supplies. Wonderful feeling.

Was driving past latitude festival packing up recently. Can’t believe how many twunts just leave tents etc.

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

“where the tents that were left after a festival were donated to a charity “
Which is good but would you really want to be the desperate recipient of a tent that has been dismantled and packed away by someone on minimum wage who is in a rush and whose primary job is to clean a site as quickly as possible. Take tents home then give to a refugee charity.

Camp on high ground and a sensible walking distance from the stages. We went to Glade in 2007 I think it was. There were moans from my mates when I picked a camping spot away from the main stage at the top of a hill. They were not moaning quite so much when the floods came and we were dry.

Other than that take as much beer as you can carry as paying £5 for a Tuborg in a paper cup always hurts. I don’t know how old you are but if you are one of those youngsters who insists on inhaling nitrous for the entire festival at least clear up the cylinders when you are finished. It’s a rubbish drug that causes too much rubbish.

Lube, a lot of lube

sziget scaled?

Ozora

Make sure you go the loo as soon as you can. Once you have seen them after the first night you may struggle to go!

Alternatively have a good clear out before you go then don’t bother with food for a couple of days, thus avoiding needing to poop.

sputnik – Member

apparently the thing to do is just buy a cheapie and leave it there.

No, get a reasonable but not expensive tent, and take it home. Or if you don’t want it, either pack it well and give it to the tent charity people, or take it home and do the same.

You don’t want a super-cheapy imo, spending a wee bit more gets you better waterproofing and durability. But nothing fancy either. My old eurohike’s done probably 30 festivals and has had the crap kicked out of it but it’s still good (got driven over by a poo truck at Reading, just popped back up!). And has kept me dry in terrible conditions too. Pain in the arse to pitch, mind.

And yep… Take nothing you can’t lose. Theft is genuinely pretty rare but it does happen.

Ideally (imo) pitch not too far from the arena, you want to be far enough away to not be mobbed but not so far as to feel away from the throng. I like being beside a path/road (but with the tents a bit circled so we’re not sitting right by the path, you get a higher class of passing nutter that way. NOT right beside a wall or fence, everyone’ll piss on it, NOT too near a water tap as everyone’ll leave it running.

And yeah, I don’t know why it is but festival camping is colder than normal camping. I’ve winter camped in my kit no bother but august bank holiday at reading, I thought I was going to freeze to death.

Hmm what else. Lots of mtb stuff works well- packable waterproofs, compact food etc. Camelbaks if you’re allowed (just because getting back and forward to water is a pain especially for headliners)

Festivals are the best form of modern life, lovely.

Scaled that looks awesome
Ps if it is really raining will taking K make it stop?

A sensible suggestion would be to keep your valuables in the bottom of your sleeping bag at night.

Tent thefts whilst you sleep happen with alarming regularity. It’s all too easy and silent to slash through a tent with a stanley blade, to rummage through your things whilst you’re unconscious (from sleep/alcohol/whatever).

Make sure you go the loo as soon as you can. Once you have seen them after the first night you may struggle to go!

This tip can be easily modified to another good one if you are on the pull.
RM.

I paid 30 quid for a 2 man festival tent in mountain warehouse, worth it for peace of mind rather than borrowing a mates.

Tent – Something that’s not going to leak byt equally you won’t shed a tear if it’s wrecked. A £400 tent belonging to someone else would not be on my list.
Cash – Takes lots of it, if there are cash machines the queue will be huge.
Clothes – My festival attire of choice was always wellies, shorts, hoodie and rain jacket. And long socks, a wonderful thing when wearing wellies. Adjust your attire to reflect the weather but that’s a reasonable start point.
Drink – Take lots. Beer, lots. Spirits, lots, Water, lots.
Food – I generally took very little but some cereal bars or such like a quite nice when you don’t fancy queuing for an overpriced bacon roll.
Other – Loo roll, hand gel, baby wipes, chewing gum, ear plugs, eye mask, imodium, paracetamol. Portable phone charger could be useful, old and very basic mobile phone that only texts or takes calls and the battery lasts forever is better still. And as above, take nothing you aren’t prepared to lose.

Festivals are the best form of modern life, lovely.

No. Just look at the faces of those leaving the portaloos.

For the sake of science you need to do this experiment now

What they say take good enough to not get wet if it rains tent but not so good you will be pissed of it gets wrecked

I personally like big fishing type brollies to hide under for when it rains rather than waterproofs but YMMV on that one.

Wet wipes and ear plugs are essentials

I assume K is ketamine? Why on earth would you take Ketamine? Fair play if you do but that is one drug I don’t understand.

wordnumb – Member

No. Just look at the faces of those leaving the portaloos.

I always look delighted leaving the portaloos (the massive steel tank drop bogs are better mind). Pro tip- go at night, they’re less busy and less warm, hence less rancid.

Festival rules:

1) Once awake brush your teeth (to removing hanging taste of stale beer from mouth
2) Rinse with beer
3) Drink rest of beer, continue throughout the day
4) leave little of value in a crap tent
5) enjoy the company of random people you pick up along the way, I often wonder what these people do when not at a festival as many of them look un-employable!

The secret to K is not taking too much apparently. I little “bump” is fun, a great big nose full is not. I’ve watched a couple of mates hoover the stuff up thinking it was coke then spend the next two hours being propped up or carried by their not quite so stupid mate (me unfortunately).

I’ve not been to Bestival, but I have been to its little brother, Camp Bestival. As festivals go it’s about as gentle, family-friendly and middle-class as you could hope for. Though of course, this is all relative.

Camp sites aren’t necessarily rowdy if you pick your spot carefully; what they are though is absolutely crammed in. I wouldn’t take a £400 tent simply because I wouldn’t want it stood on.

Don’t leave anything valuable in your tent when you’re not in it, and stick your wallet / phone etc in your sleeping bag down by your feet at night. I don’t imagine Bestival being a crime hotspot but it only takes one scrote to give you a bad day and as a wise friend of mine once said, “I don’t care what statistics say, it will be me.”

Take ear plugs, bog roll, bin bags.

Take your shite away with you when you leave, no-one else wants it.

Consider going vegetarian for the weekend. Veggie festival food is usually plentiful these days and a beanburger is less likely to try and kill you. Trust me when I say, absolutely the last thing you want at a festival is an acute case of the shits.

Don’t camp in the first spot you see – that’s what everyone else will do. Try to get as far from the rabble as you can, the premium spots will be the most difficult to get to but almost certainly worth walking an extra five minutes.

Glass won’t be allowed on site – decant spirits into pop bottles. Stick an extra bottle cap in your pocket for when the gate nazis make you throw away the one on the bottle.

If you try to record the entire festival on your iPad, expect to be bottled.

Pro tip, look for the road less travelled. If you’re in front of a stage where the main thoroughfare in and out is on the left, there will be no bugger at all standing on the right. People are inherently lazy bastards (see also, choosing your camping pitch). You will often be able to get fairly near the front of a stage simply by not standing directly front and centre like everyone else.

If you do stand front and centre before an act comes on, finding a nice quiet spot with a good view and a bit of elbow room, expect to get 20,000 people in the small of the back as soon as the band comes on.

Don’t wait until five minutes after a set has started to head into the crowd looking for somewhere to stand. If you do this, you are a nob. Get there early, with an empty bladder. Plan ahead, sort out your schedule before then you don’t miss any must-sees. Remember that if you’re wanting to move between two stages between sets to catch two different popular headline acts, so will everyone else. This is crowd management again, it’s worth missing the last couple of songs to get out of there, go for a pint and a tactical and get to the next act.

It’s not all about the headliners. Some of my best festival moments have been when tripping over little bands I’d never heard of before. Mix it up, explore, check out the other attractions, it’s well worth it.

are you over 30?

if so 1)bring a pillow instead of using a folded-up hoodie and 2)switch the Stella for some tolerable whiskey

my top tips for festie comfort there

We went to Glade in 2007 I think it was. There were moans from my mates when I picked a camping spot away from the main stage at the top of a hill. They were not moaning quite so much when the floods came and we were dry.

i performed at that Glade. the cost of my destroyed tent, camera and clothes, plus a hotel room in Reading on the Friday night, plus the cost of buying a load of new clobber from primark and millets on saturday morning came to substantially more than my fee 😆

apparently on that friday morning they were about 20 minutes away from cancelling the whole fest – the production areas were knee deep in water and it was starting to get a bit hairy

You know what though Doris5000? It was one of the best festivals I have been to. The British Spirit really came out, everyone was determined to enjoy themselves no matter the conditions. I went the following year when it was glorious sunshine all weekend and it didn’t have the same feeling of everyone in it together somehow.

You know what though Doris5000? It was one of the best festivals I have been to. The British Spirit really came out, everyone was determined to enjoy themselves no matter the conditions. I went the following year when it was glorious sunshine all weekend and it didn’t have the same feeling of everyone in it together somehow.

That happened to me at Bearded Theory, the year the main stage was destroyed by a tornado and the ground was like thick melted chocolate.
In a funny kind of way, that year was the making of B.T.
The atmosphere was great and the way they re-jigged things to keep going all weekend was incredible. The festie has grown in size and reputation a load since then.