HOW TO SURVIVE A MUSIC FESTIVAL

So I recently spent the best part of five days at Reading Festival, which to those of you who don’t know is this massive music festival in Berkshire. It’s like this younger, more reckless version of the famed Glastonbury, but full of chavs drinking Redbull and downing Ket, featuring vastly overweight girls trying to fold themselves into sequin pants. It’s the sort of place you’d be lucky to come out of without scurvy, trenchfoot, or hepatitis. Most people there end up crying in the foetus position in their tents at some point (be it because of the cesspits of human waste regarded as the toilets, or the horse tranquilisers everyone’s bent on trying), but alas, instead I’ve brought you a guide on how to not let it get that bad.

DRIVE, DON’T TAKE THE COACH

Oh. My. God. Taking the coach to Reading was the worst idea ever. Not only do you face two-hour long waiting times, but you also have to put up with the aggressive vomiting from people high off their faces on Ketamine on the way back. When you’ve had about three hours’ good sleep over the period of five days, the last thing you want is to wake up on a sweaty coach journey having to lift all your bags from the pools of sick swirling around your ankles.

WEAR LOTS OF SUNCREAM

Sure, I’ve sunburnt my armpits, thighs and hands (out of all places), but for the most part I don’t think I’ve had to suffer too much. Spending 12+ hours outside in the sun is likely going to mess with you unless you’re slathered in factor 50, but at the same time it is pretty entertaining to watch a bunch of people walk around with bright red skin, with white lines where their friends sunscreen-ed a massive willy on their back.

UNDERSTAND THAT FOUR-MAN TENTS ARE NOT FOR FOUR MEN

So one night we have this other person stay with my friend and I in this four man tent, which was at that time filled with our bags, worldly possessions, and selves – and let me tell you how insanely uncomfortable it was. This person slept in the middle, which meant that us either side of her would wake up with wet hair from the inside of the tent, breathing weirdly from the lack of air, on the corners of our mats, with no room to move an inch. It was the worst thing ever, let me tell you. I think that if you plan on getting a four man tent, it’s only big enough for two people. A six man tent is for three, and sixteen is for eight. Unless you want to wake up wanting to punch someone, always go for the bigger tent. And if you already have a perfectly good tent, stay in your goddam lane. Leave our tent alone and wait for the MD to leave your system far, far away from me and my comfy-ass self-inflating mattress.

WEAR SUNGLASSES

This isn’t a PSA, I don’t care about whether or not you burn your eyeballs. I’m just saying that there’s a scary amount of white people everywhere, and the sun glare on their skin will probably hurt your eyes more than the sun itself.

DON’T LEAVE ANYTHING YOU WANT OUTSIDE

My friend got her chair stolen because she left it out the third night. I don’t know why someone bothered stealing it as I’m pretty sure we found it in the human waste cesspit the next morning, but apparently it happens, and you will just hate on sitting on a ground full of condoms and Xanax. Don’t even leave your shoes outside, as if they’re worth more than £5 they will either get stolen or covered in someone’s wee.

WEAR GOOD SHOES

Imagine – there were people with strangulation bruises around their necks, lumps in their arms from dodgy needles, broken noses, and black legs from mosh pits. So my badly injured dear friend and I went to the medical tent and waited half an hour for her to be seen. When the medic worriedly asks my friend what is wrong with her, she pauses and then goes, “see, I just have the worst blisters from my shoes”. If you don’t want to get turned away from a medical tent with some £5 plasters and a laugh, take some good shoes.

NOTE THE MOSH PITS

Mosh pits differ from genre to genre, but the overall idea is that a circle is formed in the middle of a big group of people, and then everyone goes crazy pushing each other, punching each other, and generally trying to rid of insane amounts of testosterone. I was in one and it was pretty fun, but then I didn’t get socked in the face so I can’t really comment. Just know that there’ll be mosh pits at every single gig at a music festival, and they’re more likely to happen when you’re at the front. Also, don’t look to the musicians to help you as they’ll either encourage you or join in.

SCOUT THE LOCAL AREA BEFORE ARRIVING

So when we turned up at Reading, I was carrying the weight of four small children on my back in the form of knock off alcohol, soya milk, and candy. I literally thought I was going to die carrying that rucksack for hours, and when I found out there was a Lidl just a £4 Uber ride away, I was tampin’. Unless you’re willing to spend eight quid on a beer or nine pound on some dodgy looking burger, buying stuff outside the camp is a must, but carrying it is hell.

MAKE FRIENDS

So we had some great Essex neighbours called Emma and George who were sweethearts and great to talk to, and a bunch of teenage dudes who were gorgeous and great to look at. Not only were these people great, but they were super helpful, helping us set up our tent, blow up chairs, etc. I made friends with this one dude who was great as he bought me a £9 hamburger in exchange for looking after his ex-girlfriend who was high out of her mind on MD. I’m not quite sure what happened to that girl, but the burger was good.

USE THE ARENA TOILETS, NOT THE ONES AT CAMP

I know everyone goes on about festival toilets and how grim they can be, but I never knew just how bad they really are. Imagine little metal boxes in 77-degree heat where people can see your calves and the top of your head, with the doors not locking and slamming every five seconds. Now imagine the actual bog, which is made up of a cesspit of human waste a few feet below the hole you’re expected to squat over, where everything from vomit to caca goes down. Risk looking down and you’ll see the crap from the person next to you landing on these piles of waste, with the worst smell you could ever imagine. There’s no sinks, no toilet paper, no seat, no air to breathe without wanting to sick up your overpriced festival meals. It’s literally the most disgusting thing you could think of – and I have Crohn’s Disease, so that’s really saying something. And then there’s the toilets we discovered in the Arena, which are proper flushing toilets with air fresheners and soap, that even have good wifi. It’s crazy, and most people don’t even realise this luxury being so close to them – the first morning we went and paid a pound at Toby Carvery so that we could use a toilet that didn’t have a bunch of human fluids dripping off it.

CARRY FLAGS

Are you Welsh? Are you super proud of your heritage? Then it’s likely a bunch of people from your country will be carrying flags around them, and you’ll be gutted if you’re not there to represent also. I literally saw like 20 flags from Wales (one from Cardiff, boo), and I genuinely felt so hyped whenever I saw one of my people. If you’re insanely patriotic like me and want to make a bunch of friends from your hometown then you’ve just got to carry a flag with you or pin it to your tent.

BRING AN EMERGENCY KIT

Band-Aids, Fybogel, sterile bandages, power banks. If you or your phone is dying then you’ll want some way to handily fix it – and the medical tent won’t lift a finger if your problem isn’t life-threatening.

USE THEIR WATER STATIONS

If only someone had told me I didn’t need to take eleven bottles of water with me, then maybe my back wouldn’t still be aching from carrying them cross-country. All you need is one empty water bottle, and then bam, you can refill it whenever you choose. Queues are crazy in the morning though, so definitely fill up on water at night.

Coming home after five days at a music festival is honestly the best feeling in the world. You can sleep in a bed! You can eat good food! You can have green tea! You can crap in a normal toilet! You can shower! With the latter, the water will turn brown and be filled with a mixture of other people’s fluids, crumbs from pills you’ve sat on, and lumps of dirt, but man will it feel great. To be frank with you, the £200 festival entry fee is nothing – by the end of it I’d consider paying that for a working shower.

And so, that’s my advice on how to survive a music festival. I hope it helps y’all if you ever want to waste nearly £500 or more in one go, but if not then it’s your own fault really. Just know it’s unlikely you’ll see me at one again without booking myself into a hotel for the evenings, with a proper meal plan and running water. Oh, and one last thing for when you’re there – try to not get hit by the cups of flying piss that are flung around the festival the whole time. I can guarantee you they will hit you at least twice.

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