So the summertime is here and the season of Festivals is truly upon us. No doubt you’ve seen the myriad of Festival Dos and Don’ts doing the rounds on the internet. We thought we’d follow suit and trump the lot, in our own inimitable style with our Seven Deadly Festival Sins – activities and actions that even the biggest festie newbs out there will want to avoid.
1. Experience it all through the camera
So there you were, one of the greatest moments of your life when everything came together in perfect harmony. Your favourite band, your favourite people and you tipsy to the point of merriment. What do you do? You pull out the i-Phone so you can record the moment forever in digital memory. Then when people ask you what it was like being there you can show them the phone that you spent most of the afternoon looking at. Hell they won’t even had to watch your footage to get the same experience that you had…
2. Rely on the food vendors there
You forgot to organise any proper grub, because you went out and got drunk the night before. You even passed a Tesco Metro in the car, but you were feeling to hungover to even commit to a bunch of bananas. Now you’re watching your beer money drain faster than a chemical festival toilet on Monday morning as you’re forced to pay five quid for a bacon sandwich and two fifty for a can of Tango to wash it down. The worst part is the self satisfied look on the cooks face, like he’s doing everyone in the festival a real favour with his rip off grub. You’ll find that even harder to swallow than the uncooked bacon fat.
3. Try to pull
What’s that? What are you trying to say to me I can hardly hear you? Do I want to what? Yeah, we all know you proper fancy yourself as a ‘pick up artist’ ever since you read that website on how to score perfect ten hard-bodies. However when it comes to a toss up between you and whatever might be on stage at the time your selected target has already chosen the music. After all they probably paid nearly £100 to see the artists at this once in a life time event, whereas they could meet someone like you down town any old Saturday night.
4. Take anything youe found
So basically we know this bloke Paul. One of those people you try to avoid, but keep having to deal with for the sake of politeness. Last year he was a bit skint so he amused himself by filling up several small ziploc bags with a mixture of soap powder, glucose and bicarb. Then he carefully dropped these bags one by one in the middle of a festie and retreated to a convenient distance where he could safely watch what was happening. He reckons the high point of Glastonbury 2011 for him wasn’t the amazing Elbow set, but rather watching two girls appear out of a tent with huge white bubbly moustaches.
5. Use the toilets
Most of you out there will be used to taking something to keep you going through the party, like a few shots of vodka or an energy drink, so why not take something to stop you going during the party? What do we mean? Well, festival toilets can be pretty dicey. We’ve all heard the stories about the time ‘your friend’ had to wipe with rizlas because there was no toilet paper. We say cut out the need to even visit the dunny by triple dropping some Imodium and eating a stick of chalk. This way you probably won’t be visiting the toilet for the rest of the month, let alone during the festival.
6. Make life changing decisions
“And then Benny said it was just the perfect moment. He reckoned that he understood his place in the universe and everything finally made sense. He looked at us all and smiled and said that he no longer needed material goods and that he was going to live a life of perfect transcendence, travelling from festival to festival dispensing good feelings and words gleaned from his deep, profound insight. Everyone agreed it wasn’t a bad idea, except for his boss, who spotted his big announcement on Facebook.
7. Act like a know it all
Yeah it’s fine that you spent the last six years of your life pouring all that unbridled sexual passion into collecting every single and album in special pink latex edition that ‘Roger and the Treehouses’ did in their ‘Peak of Passion’ period, but we really don’t want to hear about it. We merely wandered into the wrong tent and were standing at the back trying to leave. Yes, we do seem interested in what you’re saying, but that’s only because we’re worried that if we tell you our true opinions you’ll stab us all in the throat with a broken shard of 7 inch.
So if you go to a Festival and manage, thanks to us, to avoid one of these compromising situations then just remember to tell us about your experiences. Or if you’ve got your own special maxims and morals that you live by during your long Summer weekenders then we’d love to hear about them too…
