184 replies to this topic

[burgess93]

Im going to leeds fest this year with a few of my friends, it'll be my first festival and im just hoping for a few tips from people who have a bit of knowledge on festivals, things like whats essential to bring, which camp site is the safest and just other things i wouldn't know! any comments appreciated!

[OKB]

Red campsite is where it's at. If im going thats where I camp with my mates so you can camp with if you want.

Essentials
- Condoms (TRUST ME You'll need a lot).
- Food (Pot Noodles should last ya).
- Cash (to spend on merch).
- BEER (to drink)
- Drugs (if you are partial to that of course).
- Clothes.

Hope that helped

[rexclark]

Make a list of questions and I'll answer them as best I can.

[Vacant0]

I loathe directing you to this forum but heres a useful checklist of stuff to bring:
http://forums.readin...om/m274927.aspx

[Jackmypie]

Vacant0, on 20 February 2011 - 01:25 AM, said:

I loathe directing you to this forum but heres a useful checklist of stuff to bring:
http://forums.readin...om/m274927.aspx

Yeah it's going to be my first Reading too (camping that is, I went for a couple days before). I saw gas canisters on that list, is it wise to bring them? I mean, with all the crazy kids and that?

Edited by Jackmypie, 20 February 2011 - 01:36 AM.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

My first Leeds last year too. This board was incredibly helpful - and it pays to actually listen to the serious suggestions people make rather than make the same mistake I made and ignore a lot of it. Don't go over to the official forums.

The key to a good festival, I've found, is not over-preparing. Last year, I went through checklist after checklist of stuff and when I actually got to Leeds, I didn't use half of it - we're talking food and especially equipment. The other mistake I made as well was taking pretty much everything that was in my car through the gate on the wednesday - and if you want to go to Green or Brown camp and end up going through Orange gate (because you don't know which gate is where - download or invest in a map), you'll have a long way to walk with a lot of unnecessary equipment, and it's painful.

That's really the only tip I have. Don't over-prepare or complicate things with long lists. Take only what you need and you don't need a lot.

- Use a car. As much as the festivals try to promote the idea of environmental awareness, a car is always going to be the best way to transport your stuff from wherever you're coming from.

- Take your tent, a sleeping bag and some lightweight pillows. Consider a sleeping mat or some lightweight aluminium camp beds - don't piss about with air beds or gazebos. Consider taking just pillow cases and packing them with clothes if you must. Consider a lightweight chair to sit in. Take your tent through the gate first and if you've come in a car, go back to your car to get everything once you've set up camp.

- Take food for wednesday and thursday, and get food for the mornings on the other days. Take empty bottles of water and fill up once you get there. Use Hexi stoves and Hexi tablets to cook food and boil the kettle. Pack plenty of sachets of instant coffee and tea bags, and nick some sugar and UHT milk from service stations. Consider a barbecue for wednesday night but make sure you store your food in a cool box, although this only really adds weight. The food at Leeds is decent enough (£6 a burger should give you an idea of what you're likely to pay for a meal).  

- Take a decent wash kit and include loo roll and lots of hand wipes, along with plenty of deodorant. I would STRONGLY suggest taking disposable toilet seat covers too, and nose plugs - you'll see why once you get to the camp and arena toilets. Or learn how to avoid breathing. Take plenty of industrial strength caffeine pills (or 'other') to wake you up in the mornings, take plenty of painkillers or alka seltzer for the day after - or alternately use alcohol to numb everything. Take sun cream and plasters, and consider taking some TCP in a tube.

- Pack plenty of underwear and some warm jumpers for the evenings, and a waterproof coat. Don't forget your wellies. If you like sleep, invest in some decent earplugs (I used Laser Lite ear plugs on the advice of a biker friend last year and they worked a charm). Wear whatever else you want so long as it's comfortable - it's not a fashion parade.

- Invest in a small, cheap phone that costs no more than £5 and get £10 credit for it. Invest in a portable battery charger with universal charging capabilities. Take plenty of lithium batteries. Some people will advise you to take a disposable camera but you will be safe with a digital camera - just keep it on you at all times. Invest in a 8gb memory card if you want to take plenty of photos.

- £150 will get you plenty of food for the weekend and if you want any merchandise, it'll leave you with plenty to spare to get some too - keep it in a wallet and attach it to a dog chain then keep it on you at all times.

- Other equipment should include stuff like spare tent pegs, some duck tape, sunglasses, some alcohol...

That's about all you need to take with you, and even most of that is a consideration when you can pretty much pick up anything you need at the festival itself, but if you need to pick up anything beforehand then remember thet eBay is your friend.

---Camping---

I was in Green last year and found it to be pretty depressing, so I can't say what it's like to sleep in the other camps. I had a wander through all of them last year on the Thursday, and Brown was clearly the quietest - especially on wednesday - and White and Yellow are basically penned in death camps. Everywhere else in between is a mixture of the two but I found the closer you got to the arena, the more w*nkers you will find populating the vicinity... and there are many. Orange is a shithole. Blue is probably the most 'varied' for different people.

Don't worry too much about camping, actually, because after wandering through most of the camps it seemed as if they all had a bit of a bad vibe around them. Just try to integrate yourself into it as much as possible and get to know your neighbours.

Long read but I hope it's helpful.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

Another tip I'd like to add, actually, is to enjoy the festival and get involved in it as much as possible from the start - mainly because I found the boredom of just sitting around waiting for something to happen killed the experience.

Wednesday is bad for this if you arrive early. Last year, we got into the campsites quite early in the afternoon and it took 5 minutes for us to set up the tent and significantly longer to erect the pointless gazebo that weighed a ton. We had nothing to do for about 2 hours. After that, we fannied about with a [tasty] barbecue until around 6pm then went to the eFests meet... the experience of which we didn't especially enjoy; though I gather others did - then we went on an exploration mission. After that, we went back to the tent and had nothing to do. We didn't get a sound night's sleep because... well you don't on the first night when you go somewhere strange, do you?

So that led into Thursday morning, knackered, extremely groggy and very bloody miserable, waking up at 5:30am, and more or less just sitting by our tents all day staring at our watches, and of course the longer you do that, the longer it seems to take for time to dwindle. We'd planned to have a cooked breakfast that we made ourselves - took the necessary heavy equipment too - but by the time we woke up, we were so tired we couldn't be arsed to piss about with setting up the cooking tools... but we did anyway, and it made us a bit more miserable in the process, even if the food was nice. We thought the cooking would take up a lot of time but in reality we looked at our watches and it was still only 6:45am. We went to explore the area some more, look at the different camp sites, see if we could find anywhere to go or meet new and exciting people... but that only took us through to 9:30am, and then we went back to the tent. So from then until night time again, we had absolutely nothing to do or anywhere remotely interesting to go. That drove me nuts - the waiting.

Basically what I'm saying is - the fact I can identify the exact times that things happened is proof enough that I focused too much on what my watch said, and if you focus too heavily on what your clock is doing, you're f**ked, so try to forget about what time it is and just go with the flow of things; find things to do, etc.

[burgess93]

Thanks! I've never really camped at a festival before so i just wanted an insight into how it is and that, We were thinking of going up on the wednesday and setting up, but after reading that it seems a bit pointless, would you suggest going up on the thursday or the friday instead? Another thing is i dont want to be surrounded by a group of w*nkers that i've read about, the ones setting fires to tents and that, but i guess sometimes thats just inevitable aha (:

[Guckeery]

I'd say definitely go up on thursday, earlier the better really. that way you have more choice of camping spots and can avoid the 'w*ankers'. If you went up on wednesday you would have nothing to do untill the friday when it gets interesting  

[harderfaster]

Socks. A f**k load of socks. Nothing worse than wet socks.

[harderfaster]

There used to be a brilliant forum for this kind of stuff...

[bennyk]

burgess93, on 20 February 2011 - 11:42 AM, said:

Thanks! I've never really camped at a festival before so i just wanted an insight into how it is and that, We were thinking of going up on the wednesday and setting up, but after reading that it seems a bit pointless, would you suggest going up on the thursday or the friday instead? Another thing is i dont want to be surrounded by a group of w*nkers that i've read about, the ones setting fires to tents and that, but i guess sometimes thats just inevitable aha (:

If there is a group of you (5+) then the Wednesday can be an enjoyable experience, get there mid afternoon set camp up, bbq a  few beers and just have a laugh with your mates, relax enjoy it! If people pitch around you, have a chat with them, offer them some help or a drink, get to know some people makes it much more fun!

However, last year I turned up on the Thursday morning (about 9am) I was gob-smacked as to how busy the place was, fortunately for me, my mate had taken my tent on the Wednesday and set up everything. Again, if you arrive Thursday, I would go earlier if possible if you don't want to walk for 20mins to the arena. Luckily there's entertainment on the Thursday and you can usually go into the arena see what it's all about.

Personally I would advise going EARLY Thursday morning, however saying that, I bought my ticket in December and I'm going on the Wednesday (i'm a bit of fuss pot)

Edited by bennyk, 20 February 2011 - 12:27 PM.

[harderfaster]

If you have the time to spare then I'd suggest going Wednesday. It's only as "pointless" as you let it be - it's a chance to have a few drinks with your mates and get everything sorted before the weekend and you'll get a much nicer tent spot than you would on Thursday.

[purplehaze81]

I would say there's no point going on the Wednesday as some people seem to think it's essential. I've always arrived after midday on the Thursday and never had any trouble finding somewhere to pitch. Don't leave it too late though, and if you're a big group it probably would be advisable to go early.

Also, this may sound silly, but check your tent is all there before you go. In 2008 I was all ready to pitch my tent, got the tent out, then realised I hadn't got any poles. Fortunately this was at Reading and I went over to Tescos to buy a new one. I'm not sure what I would have done if I was at Leeds.

Thirdly, if you like Leeds, don't go to Reading. I've been to both and much prefer Leeds.

[Dave The Hedgehog]

burgess93, on 20 February 2011 - 11:42 AM, said:

Thanks! I've never really camped at a festival before so i just wanted an insight into how it is and that, We were thinking of going up on the wednesday and setting up, but after reading that it seems a bit pointless, would you suggest going up on the thursday or the friday instead? Another thing is i dont want to be surrounded by a group of w*nkers that i've read about, the ones setting fires to tents and that, but i guess sometimes thats just inevitable aha (:

As has been said, there really isn't much point in going up on wednesday. The reason people go is because they think they'll get a good, choice place to camp in a good field (ie. White, Yellow and Blue), but if you want to avoid the w*nkers, there's not much point going on wednesday because those 3 fields are where the most of them congregate - white and yellow especially, it seemed, last year. So if you go up on Thursday and head to Green and Brown, you'll find a lot more space and a few less w*nkers. If you go as a group, you might find it slightly more enjoyable, however.

Gradually, because the death camps had run out of space, I found the arseholes started seeping into all corners of the festival and we ended up getting all the Lads on Tour types, and plenty of irritating students - not to mention your fair share of chavs - pissing about in Green and Brown, and shitloads in Orange.

I think if me and my missus went as part of a group last year, or integrated more with our neighbours we would have had a far better time, so you might go with 4 or 5 mates and have a whale of a time in Yellow. So really it depends entirely on what exactly you want.

[allan14]

i normally arrive at about midday thursday at reading and i hant had trouble finding a spot. i can imagen if there is a big group of you then it would be worth going on the wed. i would suggest just pack as lightly as you think you can get away with and remeber to take toilet paper!! also bring some of your own food.. in 2009 i bought all my food from the festival and it cost me loads!!

[_rachelbon]

harderfaster, on 20 February 2011 - 12:17 PM, said:

Socks. A f**k load of socks. Nothing worse than wet socks.

this! i always take about 10 pairs of socks. you need to have warm, dry feet.

dave - it's better going on the wednesday because you can choose whatever space you want rather than just having to take whatever's left.

also, you're the only person i can think of who has complained about being bored on the wednesday and thursday. i think it's good having a few chilled out days before the festival properly starts. the wednesday is good for just walking around seeing where everything is, having a look round all the wee shops. having a few drinks at the campsite bars and just chilling out at your tent with a few drinks. same on thursday, til about 6pm when the arena is open and then you have all of the campsite entertainment on the thursday night aswell.

[harderfaster]

To all those saying there's no point going on the Wednesday... whatever happened to having a good time?!

[_rachelbon]

take LOADS of toilet roll. you'll end up using most of it just wiping the toilet seat before you can go anywhere near it. and for spillages, a can always gets spilled in my tent at least once over the weekend.

[kev1664]

I would say wednesday and Thursday are really good. Its nice to just chill out and let your hair down with a few drinks at times where it wouldn't be deemed correct outside a festival. Just the feel of no worrys, nothing pressing as theres nothing your planning for and just gererally having a laugh with your mates and people you meet.

If your a music fan then friday is when the music begins and your always thinking about what your doing next and where you have to be, sometimes that in itself makes you a little stressed. But I would reccomend Wednesday. Especially if you work all year round. Its just a nice break.