Not Cut Out for Festival Season
If you know me, it is likely that you know that I am not particularly wild and also not particularly fond of camping. That being said, I love all types of music and I love my best friend. So, those two things cancelled to equal me and my best friend going to Reading Festival 2019. There was however, one condition, I needed to be able to shower. Fortunately this year, Reading offered a middle range upgraded camping option, you have to sleep in a tent but you get showers, mirrors and power as well as 24 hour security and help desk. So, with that I was all in.
We got to Reading on Thursday at 9:30am and there were no queues. Not a single one. So, we got a £1 shuttle to the festival site and walked to our campsite which even more fortunately was right inside the red gate. This was a relief because my full-size camping backpack was full of clothes and a sleeping bag and another special treat. We pitched our tent with the help of a lovely volunteer before walking around the festival, which we found wouldn’t open until 11am tomorrow. So, we headed for the boats instead. What I hadn’t realised was that Reading offered lots of modes of transport and this included a free ferry to travel back forth on the River Thames. Naturally, we got the ferry into town. After a bit of shopping, food and other, we headed back to the ferry where we encountered our first queue, not sure how long we waited but it didn’t really matter because we had all our stuff sorted and wouldn’t have to wait at the gate.
Now for that special treat I mentioned earlier, we each had a methylated spirit burning camping stove which my friend found for a bargain price. So for lunch, we cooked and for at least two meals a day for the entire stay at the festival. The showers and cheap hot food in combination really made the camping very enjoyable and would make me consider doing it again (I know, shocking!).
I’m sure if you are interested you can Google the line-up of the festival and see who was available to see and whatever but, the main people I was there to see weren’t really the headliners. We went to see: You Me At Six, A Day to Remember, Pvris, Anterros, Yungblud and Billie Eilish. My friend also wanted to see some other people that I was happy to tag along to like Enter Shikari. So, that’s what we did we stood around waiting for these artists and that’s all we did all weekend. We stood around, waiting here and there. The weather was really hot, about 30°+ everyday, so you can imagine how exhausting it was we spent a lot of time drinking water and sitting in the back of music tents trying to get some shade.
We left the festival before 8am on Monday and there were no queues then either. By the looks of things, many people were leaving their tents in the general camping areas since many people were leaving with much fewer bags. I’m glad we upgraded the camping because from what I saw walking though the general camping site was a rabbit warren of tents and gazebos, some in the bushes, some next to a eutrophied river, some kicked down and some that were too big for the space they were in. It was a real mess, not to mention the double decker, metal toilet block with toilet paper kept at the guard hut. That is not the kind of life I am looking to live and as we said multiple times, we are too old for that (This is funny because the average age was somewhere between 16 and 18).
My take aways from this experience are firstly, there is nowhere to sit at Reading Festival unless it is on the floor, there is no protected areas at Reading Festival be it from the sun or the rain, whatever the weather you are going to get a lot of it because there is also a lot of standing around and upgraded camping is worth every penny. So, forgive me if Reading Festival was a been there once, checked off the list kind of place.
