Festival Packing
As the summer fast approaches many of us will be eagerly and perhaps anxiously awaiting the festival season. Coachella might have already been and gone in LA but June to September is the key time for music and culture festivals. If you are lucky enough to have tickets to an outdoors festival this year, it is never too early to start prepping. How will you get there? Have you booked time off work? Are you camping and if so what do you need to camp? Was last year’s tent packed away in one piece?
How not to do it
My first trip to Glastonbury, a festival virgin, was a complete mud bath. It was 2007 and very, very wet, but I still had the most amazing time of my life. The rain had caused mass areas of thick mud and everywhere you turned people were slipping around and losing their wellies. By the time I was packing up my tent on the Sunday evening, I was feeling rather smug that I had managed to not fall over once and both my wellies had stayed firmly attached to my feet. However, on struggling back to the car, pushing my way through the hordes of people watching The Who my luck ran out. Plodding through the mud was hard enough, but it seemed having to walk whilst being loaded up like a donkey was impossible. I lost my balance and took a spectacular dive straight into the mud, with my sleeping bag, tent and pink leather holdall skidding off away from me. I did the only thing I could do; I laughed. I laughed so hysterically it took me a while to regain my balance, scoop up my belongings with my mud caked hands and stumble after my friends who hadn’t even seen me go down.
Priority packing
You would have thought I’d learnt a lesson about festival packing. Well I did learn one thing, I now always take a rucksack rather than holdall. But over time I seem to be taking more and more stuff. I like to be prepared you see and perhaps more comfortable than when I was younger. First things first, draw up a list of what you need and keep adding to it as more ideas come to you. Then edit that list or communicate with friends to make arrangements to share things. If you are a fashion lover like me, part of this preparation will involve choosing outfits but this can’t be done until nearer the time when you have a more accurate weather forecast. Layers are highly important and coloured leggings are a great way to create new outfits without having to pack too much. Take swimwear in case you want an outdoors shower or to lie around sunbathing during down time.
Some of the ways that people carry their stuff to the campsite is simply ingenious; shopping trolleys, wheel barrows, trailers, pushchairs, even a duvet dragged along like a sack. Anything like this will be of great help if you are coming in a car, but won’t really work on public transport. Think about how objects can double up, so a towel can be folded up to make a pillow, a coat can be an extra blanket and baby wipes have hundreds of uses. Most importantly, don’t take anything too valuable and relax and have fun!
Guest Post by: Emma Waight
Emma Waight is a freelance fashion and style writer for www.clothes.org.uk. Follow Clothes for news on clothes shops and celebrity style.
