Going to Your First Festival Ever? Here's Some Survival Tips

Rejoice, UK residents, because summer is coming! The sun is out (in quite a pathetic, cloud-covered and humiliating way, but still) and we are about to begin our first interruption-free festival season since 2019. Things are good. Or, if not “good” then at least “fine.”

Two years of COVID restrictions mean that there are a bunch of young people who have never been to a music festival until now. To these young, post-GCSE people, I say: Enjoy it. Enjoy every single moment. Savour it because there’s a relatively high chance that later in life, you’ll look back at this summer as the one time you managed to reach the pinnacle of human joy. No pressure! 

Right now, you are young, carefree and beautiful. You have to use these powers wisely, children, because when you get older your bones will start to creak, and you will start looking at how much sugar is in a tin of cider before you drink it and one day you may just find yourself standing at the window of Clarks going “shit, those brown loafers look really sturdy”. 

Before any of that happens though, there are a few things you should prep ahead of your first camping festival experience. Because you don’t want to end up passed out from hunger or, worse, be forever known as “poo girl.”

A British music festival done right is beautiful, yes, but it is also disgusting. It is rancid and dirty and you will probably get vomit and/or human shit on you at least once. If you bring a full packet of baby wipes, however, you will spend the weekend walking around in a squeaky-clean bubble of safety – sort of similar to what I imagine having a pension feels like.

It is, by far, the best pre-festival £2.50 that you will spend. That and anti-bac hand gel. Oh, and one of those little bumbags that you can strap around your body at all times so you don't drop your phone into a crowd and watch as thousands of angry teen feet smash the screen during Olivia Rodrigo’s set.

There’s a chance that, if this is your first festival, you’ve not yet discovered the full extent of the highs and inevitable lows of recreational drug use. You’ve not pushed your body and mind as far upwards as they will go, and then watched on in horror as they (obviously) fall straight back down again. “A festival,” you may think to yourself, “is the perfect place to do this for the first time.”

Well, yes and no. Festivals are fun and safe places to do drugs in comparison to, say, a safari park or train station. But there are still a few things you'll need to bear in mind. For example, please don't buy a miscellaneous pill off a random person with a shotta bag outside a portaloo who tells you “it's kind of, like, speed and 2CB mixed?” Instead, make sure you buy beforehand off someone you trust and, if the festival offers on-site drug testing via non-profit organisation The Loop, find out what you're about to ingest! 

Remember: a fun sesh is a safe sesh. No one wants to see you rolling in the mud, complaining that your legs and arms have fallen off because you decided to take too much ket. If something goes badly wrong, the medical tent is always a good shout – and no, they will not “shop you to to the cops” like your mate Dave says.

This is definitely the least cool out of all these tips, but setting a meeting place (for example: “by this specific burger stand”) means that when you inevitably get separated from your friends after trying to find a place to pee or going on a “quest” with your “new best friend”, you can just wait patiently at the meeting spot, like a child in a supermarket. 

Believe me: There is nothing more futile than shouting down your phone at 10PM over the sound of the Foo Fighters for someone to “meet you by the red flag thing on the left”. Agreeing on a meeting place will save you approximately four hours of mindless torture. 

Most people don’t like doing boring, practical things such as “reading the instructions” and “bringing extra tent pegs”. If that’s you, then I suggest bringing a sensible friend who can take the lead. Maybe you are that sensible friend, in which case: Good for you!

The following things have happened to my tent at previous festivals: The roof inverted itself and filled up with ten inches of rainwater; I accidentally set up the tent so that our door was parallel and very, very close to the tent door of the unknown man next to us, meaning I had essentially given us “adjoining” tents that zipped into each other; the entire tent blew away on day two of the event because it wasn’t secured properly. Yes, these do sound funny in retrospect, but I can promise you that you won’t be laughing if it happens to you.

I know you’re “waved” and everyone looks “fit as fuck”. I know it’s tempting. You can have sex with a stranger any day of the year, though. You can’t, however, forward-roll down a hill whilst holding a £9.50 beer and listening to House Of Pain on any other Thursday afternoon. Why ruin the whole thing by rubbing your unwashed genitals against someone in a bucket hat before swiftly contracting a UTI?  

That said, if you absolutely must shag someone, then here's a handy guide on how to have sex at a music festival. 

If not more. The fact is, you are young and sexy and could technically survive on cereal bars and those individually wrapped rolled-up chocolate pancake things for an entire weekend. If you push this fact to its limit, though, and spend your entire budget on Depop two-pieces and custom stick-on rhinestones before you get to the festival itself, you will sorely regret it. 

When all of your friends are eating an £8 slice of pizza on a hangover and “having, like, a religious experience from all the cheese”, you will feel sad and left out and neither of these emotions are welcome at a festival. If you have to start saving now, do it: Having a food fund is worth it. 

This is really basic festival knowledge, so I won’t elaborate too much, but you will be walking a lot. Bring Docs, fake Docs or (preferably not, but it might rain) wellies. And bring lots of pairs of clean socks, because nothing ruins a festival like having feet that feel like they are 1,000 steps away from developing a weird, old-sounding disease like trench foot. 

If you’re anything like me, you’ll end up wearing basically the same outfit for the duration of the thing. This is why you absolutely must not forget the essentials – don’t get so caught up in sparkly festival bandeau tops that you forget to bring shorts, pants or a hoodie for when it gets past 9PM and everything turns to ice. 

I know everyone you’re going with has a comprehensive list of artists that they will “literally die” if you don’t see. Think about it, though: Festivals are massive, and they are usually on some kind of hill and it can take hours to walk from one stage to another. You, on the other hand, spend your entire life sitting down, and would probably rather get the tube than walk 18 minutes to your destination. Trust me on this one: You are not cut out for the amount of sheer physical and mental effort that goes into seeing all the acts that everyone wants to see. 

If you don’t want to spend your hard-earned holidays trekking round the pastures with a little map like you’re in Lord of the Rings, consider instead: surrendering yourself completely to The Vibe and seeing what you want to see, when you see it. The Vibe is a powerful thing; it will rarely ever steer you wrong. At the end of the day, it’s a festival, and you will have fun whatever you do.

@ionaeee