Festival Survival

maggz

Ok, I'm off to Reading in 2 weeks. Anyone have any survival tips for festivals?

nevisgod

Most importantly bring Sunscreen even if forecast is bad. SUNSCREEN. sleeping bag, tent, lots of drink, toilet paper some kind of torch. maybe a few tins of food if ur trying to save on funds. food is v. expensive at festivals and tastes like ****e. and again SUNSCREEN.

trishw78

agreed sunscreen I got burnt on the saturday of oxegen and it was cloudy... toilet paper is a definate must have oh and what ever you do don't forget your TICKETS I had to drive one of my friends back to Waterford to get her's

Tusky

looooads of socks & a pair of wellies.

Nimrod's Son

3 necessities: Sunscreen (bring a bucket of it if necesary), water (nothing beats a nice mouthful of water) and toilet paper (don't get caught short!).
Usual stuff after that: ticket, money, phone, food, change of clothes (especially socks!) and those plastic ponchos are fierce handy. Also a torch and baby-wipes are nice to have.
That stuff got me through Oxegen. I'm off to the Leeds festival myself but I'm just going for the Saturday so I'll only need a selection of the above items.

p.pete

maggz wrote:

Ok, I'm off to Reading in 2 weeks. Anyone have any survival tips for festivals?

I'll be there on the Friday

Relevant to Reading festival, avoid flying containers of beer coloured liquid
You're very lucky this year, the weather last year for about a month before the fest was damp, as a result the place was muddy and water-logged, disaster area. Luckily the weather's been good here all Summer so no problems.
Arrive as early as possible if you want a decent campspot - I haven't camped there but seems to be a trend that people are arriving earlier and earlier. All the early campsite entry tickets have been sold as far as I know.
Festival site is very near the town, so if you've forgotten anything major don't go without - it's a fairly straight forward procedure getting on and off the site.
Have fun!

maggz

p.pete wrote:

I'll be there on the Friday
QUOTE]

I presume you've been at it before?? Any reason for not camping, or should I ask!!!

p.pete

maggz wrote:

p.pete wrote:

I'll be there on the Friday
QUOTE]

I presume you've been at it before?? Any reason for not camping, or should I ask!!!

Like I said, last year was a mud bath. We went there on Thursday, tents in-hand and had the option of pitching in a puddle and then walking everywhere in puddles or dropping the gear back in my gaff and going to the pub, not very hardcore
In hindsight it would have been fun to splash about in a pair of wellies

maggz

hmm... interesting...
lets pray for sun...

spiderlegs

OK
Smokes-can be traded to drunken desperate for a fag kinda peoples...
Sleeping Bag-Obvious
Babywipes-What can't they do?!
Mobile
Loads of Toilet Paper
Food-pop tarts,popcorn,bars of chocolate are all good in my book
Torch-you will need one if it gets dark
Nail file-you will probably need one
Those toothbrushy yolks that don't need water
Suncream and a hat! You can never be sure
Eh that's all I can think of right about now

Toast

As has been said Reading town is only a short walk away so you wont be stuck for beer / money as bad as you would be anywhere else so dont bring TONNES of drink the first day. Bring some for the first night get your campsite up and then head out to the town to get the big crates.

If you dont mind paying at little extra to save on the walk there are trailers nearby which will sell you trays of 24 cans or also on site there are places you can by trays of carling or grolsch. I think they sold out of grolsch pretty quickly last year so find them quick (they'll be marked as the carry out bar on the map).

Get your wrist band around 8 or 9pm on the Thursday. If you wait till Friday morning you will be stuck queuing for an hour with the day people. Choose a good meeting point once you are in the arena and arrange times to meet people. We traditionally used the poster stand (you'll see it when you get in).

The toilets in the arena are generally decent but the campsite ones are horrible. If you really get festival toiletitis there are toilets in the nearby rivermead center as well as showers but there is a charge for them. You may want to take some immoduim.

If it gets really warm in the morning (tents start to get unbearably hot around 9-10am in the sun) theres a tent bar that is open before the arena is which you can get some beer and shelter from the sun. You should be able to find it on the map you get with your program (6 sterling but worth it).

Other than that enjoy yourself. Ive always liked Reading (last year was a bit of a downer though with the weather) and I wish I was going this year. :-(