[Campervan Chaos!]

I had three kids under six, and one of them wandered off. No snags, we were re-united in minutes, thanks to lots of festival goers and stewards who helped out.

I can't really believe some of the nonsense I'm reading on this thread, i.e. "taps too high", "Health and Safety" etc. It's a festival - not the Ritz!!!!! It was a great festival from mine and my kids point of view and I think that a great big "THANK YOU" should be going out to the organisers and staff, who - let's face it - aren't exactly going to be millionares out of this.

If people are so agrieved at paying an extra 20 quid to get a van in and not having top facilities, here's a top tip:

SELL your van, use the interest from the proceeds to pay for a local hotel to stay in, and simply get a taxi or a bus to the site every day. That way you can get all the modern conveniances you demand and you wont have to rough it like the peasants!!!! SORTED!

ENDORSE IT IN DORSET 2008 - Many thanks, it was fantastic!

[Beer tent clearance on Sunday night]

...I'm signed in as my wife (lost my password!) so Cybertec writing....

First and last Endorse-it for me, didn't have much interaction with security, but noticed the handcuffs and was puzzled. My problem was with the shambolic organisation all around....it just got worse the further from the entrance you got....as my wife has written the campervan field was a nightmare....the 'search' at the entrance obviously failed to pick up the generator and speakers for the (crap) 'sound system' that kept most of us awake during Friday night

.....On a lighter note the 'legal highs' being advertised on a board in the 'campervan area' was one of the funniest things i've seen in many a year of festival going (though i'm sure they didn't know they were being ironic)....and they were offering poker games, damned near pissed myself laughing....AS IF....

Flounder you are the 'spokeman' for this festival..WTF was going on...was it a money thing? it hadn't sold out , so corners were cut?

And to Elf....you did the right thing in the late night tent.

[Campervan Chaos!]

For comparison purposes, I've been to Beautiful days 4 times and used my campervan last year. There, the vans were arranged in an orderly fashion to allow easy access by the fire brigade and tents were kept to a minimum and despite the bad weather we had a great time.

I'm no Health and Safety freak, but if the powers that be had seen the state of the campervan area at EIID it would have been shut down as a fire and health hazard I'm sure.

The steward lady did her best, but just saying "we are trying to leave room for fire engines" and then letting everyone park where they like was a big no-no. She should have been supported by other stewards, at B Days we were actually guided into our space by a steward to keep everything as it is supposed to be.

Additonally, there seemed to be far too many tents allowed to pitch up there; in fact on the Saturday, a couple parked their car and set up their tent right outside our van. Now I'm not trying to be precious here, it was pouring with rain so it didn't really matter that we couldn't have got our awning out if it had been sunny, but why did we pay an extra £20???

The water taps were mounted far to high on the stakes so the area around them soon became a big mudlake, plus trying to fill a Fiamma water container from a great height was difficult without making it worse. Consequently I tried to hold it under the tap and ended up dropping it because it got too heavy for me.

By Sunday morning our neighbours had had enough and packed up and left (with the help of a tractor) and we were very tempted to do the same. To be fair the weather on Saturday was diabolical and I don't think the festival could really pull it back from that. Anyway we stuck it out and after a couple of glasses of wine to chill out seemed to be OK again until I went to fill up my water bottle and en route found that some animals of the two legged variety had decided to use the campervan area as a lavatory...enough said.

In four years of going to Beautiful Days I have never came across such chaos, disorganisation and filthy behaviour. I realise I may be mocked for this opinion, but I don't think there is anything 'cool' or 'fun' about living in the dangerous free-for-all public lavatory that the Campervan area was allowed to become.....we couldn't wait for this morning to come and finally escape, with the result that after going to many festivals, all of which I have enjoyed, this is the first one I've not enjoyed and will not be coming back to.

So can someone please answer the question, why did we pay £20 for this?

I was also going to ask if the parking of the campervans would be tightened up and arranged better next year, but maybe there is no point as I won't be coming back.