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It’s safe to say we’re now at the business end (middle?) of the festival season – Glastonbury still fresh in the memory, Reading and Leeds around the corner, a number of pleasant boutique events forthcoming such as the DiS-sponsored quartet of Supersonic, Truck, Field Day and Green Man. Weekends through this month and next are full of festivals across the land, with established events defending their reputations against a host of newcomers with designs on seasonal domination. Some will succeed, some will fail, but one constant remains: you have to get there to find out.
And it’s the getting there that forms the crux of this week’s DiScussion: just what en-route nightmares have you endured in order to reach the festival you’ve been looking forward to for months? We’ve all crowded onto Glasto-bound buses at Castle Cary, backpacks crushing laps, narrow country roads slinking like bootlaces across green hills, drizzle-spilling clouds collecting above the pit that is Pilton Farm, guaranteeing a wash-out for the next three nights. But have you ever made the journey in a car, only to spend more time stationary than you have on the move? To spend six hours stuck in a car park, back wheels entrenched in what was, until about four or five days ago, a dusty and dry field? To sit tight, muddy boots and hangovers stinking up your Corsa, while the dull repetition of horns beep their disaffection for the delay. There’s no getting around it, so what do you do?
You tell us about it, that’s what: we want to hear about your travel nightmares on the way to, and from, festivals in the UK. Have you had to call a breakdown service out to fix something that’s only broken because you foolishly – drunkenly – decided it’d be a good idea to fill your radiator header with Bacardi two nights previous? Ever got stuck behind a no-hurry farmer moving his cow herd from field A – perfectly good from what you can see of it over that hedge – to field B, two miles down this stupid single-track lane your Sat-Nav told you to take? Have you called home in tears, using up the last bar of battery on your limited-signal mobile, because you just can’t work out how all this stuff ever fitted into your tiny boot on the way down, because it sure as shit won’t pack back in? Don’t cry, we’ve all been there.
DiScuss: Tell us of your travel woes, and fill us in on what you’ve done to brighten the hold-ups and slow-downs. Have you the perfect festival-heading mix CD in your car? Want to share the tracklisting? Do you have any games – beyond I Spy – that you bust out to kill time while the B road you shouldn’t have taken in the first place clears? Have you ever, and be truthful, given up and turned for home? That’d be stupid, but just sometimes understandable. Tell us about the times when getting to a festival has been an absolute mission.
_DiS will be bringing you coverage of all the best festivals in the UK over the coming weeks, with content brand new and from our considerable archive accessible via our special RAC-sponsored Festivals Site – click here for the latest from our team of in-the-mud reporters.
Forthcoming: all the best bands at Supersonic reviewed and photographed, plus coverage of Truck, Latitude, Reading and Leeds, Green Man, Field Day, Summer Sundae, Concrete & Glass and much, much more. Find information on DiS-sponsored festivals this summer by clicking the links below, and visit our sponsors RAC here. On DiS next week: a competition to ensure you’re never left stuck in the mud, so to speak, when on the way to or from your favourite festival this summer and next. _
Supersonic, Birmingham (July 11-13)
Truck Festival, Oxfordshire (July 19-20; DiS DJs to appear)
Summer Sundae, Leicester (August 8-10; DiS stage on the Friday)
Field Day, London (August 9)
Green Man Festival, Wales (August 15-17; DiS DJs to appear)
Concrete & Glass, London (October; DiS stage for both nights)
