benali

2017. Headlined the Far Out.

For new acts I use Bandcamp a lot. In fact if someone isn't on there I'm immediately suspicious as to why! One good way on there is to follow record labels so you get notifications whenever anything on that label is released. Also listening to NTS opens me up to a lot of music from all styles. Otherwise it's word of mouth from friends, going to a lot of gigs and making sure I watch all the support bands and checking out line ups for festivals and things I'm not going to.

I'd buy a ticket for that. Some quality names on there, happy to see Loopsel who I really like.

Depends what music you like. Truck is at the start of the school holidays so could be an option although it's pretty indie heavy. Kite festival in Oxford has an eclectic line up and lots of talk stuff if that's your thing. 2000 Trees? We Out Here is the weekend before Green Man in August so may not be early enough but it's one that I have heard a lot of good things about.

I have a female partner and 2 kids. None of them complained. I wasn't sure what was meant by fashion challenges so asked my partner who said "don't wear clothes which require a load of effort to take off for a wee." She also went to GM with the same toilets at that time of the month and didn't complain then either. Staff and performers always have better facilities than regular punters, that's a given at pretty much every festival. I already commented on people with mobility issues who would have struggled but the overwhelming majority of people don't and some of those are seemingly getting irrationally annoyed by something that isn't a big deal.

Supersonic, but it's the same weekend. They shared quite a few acts.

Good: Saturday. An astonishing run of wildly different acts. All of Mabe Fratti, Avalanche Kaito, They Hate Change and Moin were up there with the best of the festival and they all came in a row. The best day I've had at a festival. Special mentions also to Kara Jackson, Arooj Aftab, Crack Cloud, Wilco, Deerhoof and Joan Shelley. The bad: Nothing was bad but I was very indifferent to Bar Italia. Some good songs but not a great band. Settling up in the rain on Thursday was vaguely miserable but all forgotten very quickly. Ugly: Wasps were a bit of a pest. Southampton's 5-0 hammering on Saturday during that great run of acts wasn't great and the look of horror on some chaps face who was wearing their shirt when I told him the score was only offset by the hilarity which ensued as his mates took the piss.

I don't agree. Festival toilets in the 90's were grim. My experience of these at EOTR and GM was that they were fine. They obviously aren't in the pristine realms of Andy Loos but I didn't encounter any issues.

None of the people I was with had any problems either. Understandably there are people with mobility or health issues who might have struggled however for the overwhelming majority of people this is not an issue. Deciding not to come back to the best festival in the country because of toilets that you spend a few minutes a day in is, in my opinion, a frankly ridiculous stance to have. There were portaloo style toilets in the car park and by Talking Heads if you were adamant that you couldn't use a compost loo. Possibly there were others on site too. Personally I'd rather focus on the incredible line up, the outstanding musicians I saw and the overwhelmingly friendly crowd than whether there was a hook on the door of the bogs.

They played some outstore gigs a couple of years ago in support of the latest album. Wasn't a full gig as such but they did over 45 minutes which was decent.

He was good. I guess some may say it took a while to get going but I love the ambient soundscapes. I managed maybe an hour before tiredness and the mud got to me.

I'm definitely not a trolley hater. I didn't have any problems with them over the weekend, my post above was just my thoughts on our experiences with small kids at GM and our preference not to use them. As you say there will be some who need to use a trolley due to accessibility circumstances, I can't imagine anyone would have an issue with that at all. I also understand that some parents wouldn't be as considerate as you. We went to the first few Camp Bestivals and there were certainly people there selfishly annexing off large parts of the site with trolleys. I would like to echo your comments about the accessibility team. A bloke I know had a foot op not long ago and is wearing a protective boot. He emailed GM beforehand and they said they don't give out accessibility passes to people recovering from operations. However on Thursday one of the accessibility team whisked him off in a buggy and got him a pass to use all weekend which absolutely made his festival a lot easier and more enjoyable. I'm glad you had a lovely time.

Yes they will sell out very quickly, likely in minutes. GM use Ticketline for some reason and this year it was a bit of a shambles as the site crashed, so you have to add that into the mix too!

When our kids were little we only ever used the fold up stroller/buggy things. Even managed the horrendous mud of GM 2007 with one of those. Would never have considered dragging a huge trolly around all weekend, it seems like far too much effort, not to mention the expense of hiring them.

Had a great time. Wasn't up there with the best Green Man's but a solid festival nonetheless. Music highlights were Deathcrash who were utterly spellbinding, clipping and Young Fathers who ended the festival with an incredible show. Also very much enjoyed Horace Andy who quite rightly had a massive crowd all of who had big smiles, and Lankum who it seems we were lucky to see as they have cancelled a bunch of upcoming dates. As usual I spent a lot of time at Rising where Butch Kassidy stood out. Best food I had was Vegan Junkies in Nature Nurture, then Kerala Kitchen and the Indonesian Curry in Walled Garden. Didn't have many drinks from the Courtyard but everything I did try was great. Had phone signal most of the time, could listen to radio on it at the tent no problems and then only a couple of places around the site where access dropped out completely. Was also helped by having access to another WiFi source at certain spots in the arena - the public one didn't seem to work for me. Can't say I noticed the trolleys being a problem although I didn't spend a huge amount on the main stage where I presume the issues were. Friday's rain was a bit annoying but then we were in Far Out for most of the time it pissed down. One of my only complaints was the lack of effort to sort out the mud in there. It was still quite grim on the right hand side by the time Young Fathers played which was nearly 48 hours after the bad rain. They put some down Saturday morning but none after that. A week or so to recover and then it's time for EOTR.

Agree it's weird. I don't think it will be SA though.

Unless there's someone else that looks just like them with the same stage costume.

One of them is definitely here already.

This could be risky, but a family turned up yesterday with a kid they didn't have a ticket for and they basically let them pay whatever the ticket price was and let them in. You may not be so lucky but depends how risk adverse you are!

The delay to opening the site seems to happen every year for some reason. Quite often can be 30 minutes or more until they allow people in.

This is the back of the settlers field so still a fair amount of room

There's loads of cider too

Here's the Solar Stage times and some others too

Site map

At settlers and just looked through this so will answer a few questions. The ground is fine, there's a couple of small areas of mud but nothing significant and that will dry out over the next few days. The issue is Friday and how much it rains. The site will be perfect for Thursday though. Bars have reusable cups, these are slightly different to the last ones and are a bit taller and thinker. The stacker handles are hexagonal rather than circular. I brought an old stacker cup which wasn't even a GM branded one and the guy accepted it. Pictures of beer menu: Settlers campsite