Tags: Festivals, Glastonbury, YNot, Boardmasters, Download, Reading, Leeds
By Ryan Batty:
Are you planning on attending one of your very first music festivals this summer? From giants like Glastonbury, Download and Reading & Leeds to more family-favourites such as YNot?, Tramlines and Kendal Calling, there’s something for everyone with bands across the country ready to introduce themselves to your playlists.
However, attending your first festival can be extremely daunting. What am I going to wear? How do I cram in all my favourite bands? What do you mean I can’t shower for four days?!
All these questions are extremely valid – multiple-night camping stays aren’t exactly for everybody, but today, The Equaliser will try and condense all the need-to-know information for you ahead of 2024’s stacked summer.
Make sure you’re kitted out
Attire is crucial at festivals – the funkier, the better. Football shirts, especially retro ones, are seen on roughly one-in-three at a summer festival, and are excellent conversation starters. Shirt collectors are everywhere in crowds at festivals – and some might even catch the eye of the performers on stage.
Take, for example, ‘Alex from Glastonbury’, the British teenager who donned a Thiago Silva PSG top, which was noticed by rapper Dave at the 2019 Glastonbury festival. He invited Alex on stage and subsequently created one of the most viral moments of the summer, and potentially in Glastonbury history.
While not everyone goes to festivals in the summer to catch the eye of their favourite artists through football shirts, it goes to show that interesting garments are welcomed across the country at summer festivals.
What to eat at festivals?!
At my first festival, I vividly remember eating a cold tin of beans and sipping a 7.5% Dragon Soop as I got myself prepared for the day ahead. The festivals you attend will usually have plenty of external food vendors, but these can sometimes be a bit on the expensive side – a portion of food will usually be at least £10 a pop. So that’s why some tend to bring their own food to the event to eat at their tents.
As mentioned before, cold tins of beans are full of protein but really leave a lot to be desired on the pallet. Cakes, brioche and breakfast bars provide flavour and are pretty filling, Pot Noodles are a classic (but only if you have electricity and/or access to hot water!), and crisps are always worth bringing.
Nuts, dried fruit and popcorn are also good options because they’re filling, and full of healthy fats, protein and vitamins.
I’d also recommend biscuits, sweets and definitely as much Lucozade as you can carry. Trust me, your hangover will thank you.
How to manage your time at festivals
With a multiple-day festival and various stages, it can be difficult to fit everything in that you intend to. You might have dozens of bands you want to get to with seemingly not enough time.
What we suggest is making a plan with the people you’re attending the festival with, noting down who each of you want to see, what time they’re on and what stage they’re performing at. Some festivals have apps where you can tick off the bands you want to watch, share them with your mates and sync up each other’s priorities.
It may require a bit of tactical planning, dashing from stage to stage and missing five minutes of one band to see all of another – but have a wander round on the first day, get your bearings and best of luck catching all of your favourite bands!
No showers, no(t much of a) problem!
Yes, going without showering for a few days is pretty grim. However, there are ways around it.
At YNot festival in 2023, our group brought a bucket that we filled with water every day, throwing our heads into it and scrubbing it with shampoo. Having horrible, greasy hair is my worst nightmare and as such that was my biggest concern.
Some baby wipes for a ‘personal wash’ every morning is a good shout, but the biggest thing of all is a toothbrush and toothpaste. I can get by with feeling mucky for four days but brushing my teeth is really what makes the most difference, especially with all you’re going to eat and drink over the next four days or so.
Sometimes the lengths you resort to can be fairly tough, but well worth it in the absence of traditional cleaning methods!
All the small things
For the last part of this guide, here’s a list of things that are essential at festivals, but that you might not think about straight off the top of your head…
- Flashlight/torch: Nobody likes rooting around in their tent when it’s pitch-black!
- A blow-up mattress: It’s an investment, but definitely saves your back in the long run.
- Toilet roll: Never trust a festival portable toilet. On that note…
- Anti-bacterial spray and/or hand sanitizer: See above!
- A lighter: A very good way to make friends and break the ice. Plus, you never know when you might need one!
- A portable charger: Get the very best one you can afford. The way to judge a portable charger is as follows – you’ll see ‘mAh’ (milliampere-hour) mentioned when you purchase one. 5,000mAh is usually enough to charge a phone once, so the higher the mAh, the more charges it has.
- A day rucksack or a bum bag: Not usually fashionable, but everybody carries one during festival season. Good for carrying around freebies – at YNot 2023, there was a Coke Zero stand giving away free 150ml cans – perfect for mixer.
That’s it for our 2024 festival newbie guide – and why not now give our pairing playlist a listen?