Advice
Essential information, advice and tips to improve your festival experience. Your first family festival? Here are some things to consider before taking the plunge!
You’ll find answers to the problems of carting your kids around and choosing a festival trolley. As well as advice on the practical side of camping, washing, feeding your family , going solo, sleeping, coping with mud and surviving festival toilets!
It can be difficult to decide what camping equipment to get, so here’s our advice on buying tents, inflatable tents, camping chairs, flags and windsocks, ear defenders and portable fire pits.
Or maybe you’re worried about taking babies, toddlers or teenagers to festivals.
If you have nightmares about packing, make sure you download our handy family camping packing list and have a look at our parents’ top 5 packing tips.
Beat the chill
Keeping warm at festivals
by Lisa Mills
One of the issues that comes up time and time again when I speak to parents considering a first festival with a child or baby is the fear of whether they’ll be able to keep them warm.
Family Camping Packing List
Here is our ultimate family camping packing list. You can also download a printable version.
Of course all families’ needs are different, so we have included an editable version for you to download and adapt for your own family.
We hope you find this useful!
Building a fire
One of my favourite things about festivals is sitting round a campfire on a cold evening watching the flames. Jacket potatoes taste amazing when cooked in a real wood fire. Children love to toast marshmallows and poke the flames with sticks, and it helps them to learn about fire safety.
In my previous post I went through the equipment that is useful to have to cook on a fire. In this one I have provided a simple step by step guide to building and lighting one.
Building a fire is an essential survival skill and is great fun for kids too. My children enjoy collecting tinder, kindling and firewood among the trees. They appreciate the responsibility at being allowed to help light the fire.
Managing it and helping keeping it lit gives them a respect for fire. Of course close supervision is still necessary but leaving a child ‘in charge’ of keeping the fire going can be great for their confidence too.
Cooking on a fire
There’s something wonderful about building a proper wood fire with your children, and one of the highlights of our family festival time is always fireside cooking. It is also a great way to keep children warm and occupied in the evenings!
If you have never cooked on a fire before, I am writing a few posts about the equipment needed, how to build and light a fire, and simple things you can cook on it.
Make sure you check whether the festival allows fire pits first!
Your Teenager’s first festival?
A parent wrote to us asking about teenager festivals:
Our 16 year old is off to their first festival this year with some friends. They are all pretty sensible but I can’t help worrying.
Any advice?
Letting our kids spread their wings and explore the world is something all parents will wrestle with at some stage.
Teenage years are tricky – everyone tells you so. We want to give them space to grow and freedom to develop, but most importantly we want to keep them safe. Read more…
Let’s talk about waste
Over 60 independent UK music festivals have pledged to ban single-use plastic at their events by 2021. This is fantastic news and here at Festival Kidz we want to support them to make this happen.
Many of our favourite events have taken the pledge. See the full list below.
Ukulele for Beginners
Ukuleles are the perfect festival instrument. Light and portable, easy to play, and they look amazing!
This post is to help people who want to play the ukulele but don’t know where to start – I have included the best ukulele for beginners as well as accessories and books that I found useful.
The ukulele has seen a rise in popularity in recent years, and this has been supported by festivals. It’s easy to pick up and play, and is just the right size for children as well as adults. It’s a very sociable instrument as it’s easy to play along with other people and great for a campfire singalong.
Washing kids at a festival
Eeeww – smelly!
Well, it is a festival so normal rules on washing and personal hygiene tend to go out of the window for a few days. A pack of wet-wipes and a relaxed attitude will be enough for most people. Sometimes though, annoying as it may be, the kids will need a wash. Either because they are caked in mud (or worse), or because their bottoms are suffering from nappy rash, or because they develop an allergy to the emergency sunscreen you just bought for £20 at the festival stall. Or maybe it’s just that you’re a family who would rather have a wash?
Most festivals with camping offer showers.
Most little children HATE showers.
Accessibility at Festivals
Most festivals do what they can to be accessible to as many as possible. After all, they want to be popular, and to exclude people from attending would obviously result in less ticket sales!
Camp With Your Car
One of the biggest excuses we hear from parents for not taking their kids to festivals is the fear of getting all the camping equipment from the car to their pitch.
Other excuses like the dreaded toilets and not wanting to sleep in a tent we can’t help with, but here’s a little guide to some of the easiest festivals in the UK to camp with kids.
Beat the chill
Keeping warm at festivals
by Lisa Mills
One of the issues that comes up time and time again when I speak to parents considering a first festival with a child or baby is the fear of whether they’ll be able to keep them warm.
Building a fire
One of my favourite things about festivals is sitting round a campfire on a cold evening watching the flames. Jacket potatoes taste amazing when cooked in a real wood fire. Children love to toast marshmallows and poke the flames with sticks, and it helps them to learn about fire safety.
In my previous post I went through the equipment that is useful to have to cook on a fire. In this one I have provided a simple step by step guide to building and lighting one.
Building a fire is an essential survival skill and is great fun for kids too. My children enjoy collecting tinder, kindling and firewood among the trees. They appreciate the responsibility at being allowed to help light the fire.
Managing it and helping keeping it lit gives them a respect for fire. Of course close supervision is still necessary but leaving a child ‘in charge’ of keeping the fire going can be great for their confidence too.
Your Teenager’s first festival?
A parent wrote to us asking about teenager festivals:
Our 16 year old is off to their first festival this year with some friends. They are all pretty sensible but I can’t help worrying.
Any advice?
Letting our kids spread their wings and explore the world is something all parents will wrestle with at some stage.
Teenage years are tricky – everyone tells you so. We want to give them space to grow and freedom to develop, but most importantly we want to keep them safe. Read more…
Ukulele for Beginners
Ukuleles are the perfect festival instrument. Light and portable, easy to play, and they look amazing!
This post is to help people who want to play the ukulele but don’t know where to start – I have included the best ukulele for beginners as well as accessories and books that I found useful.
The ukulele has seen a rise in popularity in recent years, and this has been supported by festivals. It’s easy to pick up and play, and is just the right size for children as well as adults. It’s a very sociable instrument as it’s easy to play along with other people and great for a campfire singalong.
Accessibility at Festivals
Most festivals do what they can to be accessible to as many as possible. After all, they want to be popular, and to exclude people from attending would obviously result in less ticket sales!
Family Camping Packing List
Here is our ultimate family camping packing list. You can also download a printable version.
Of course all families’ needs are different, so we have included an editable version for you to download and adapt for your own family.
We hope you find this useful!
Cooking on a fire
There’s something wonderful about building a proper wood fire with your children, and one of the highlights of our family festival time is always fireside cooking. It is also a great way to keep children warm and occupied in the evenings!
If you have never cooked on a fire before, I am writing a few posts about the equipment needed, how to build and light a fire, and simple things you can cook on it.
Make sure you check whether the festival allows fire pits first!
Let’s talk about waste
Over 60 independent UK music festivals have pledged to ban single-use plastic at their events by 2021. This is fantastic news and here at Festival Kidz we want to support them to make this happen.
Many of our favourite events have taken the pledge. See the full list below.
Washing kids at a festival
Eeeww – smelly!
Well, it is a festival so normal rules on washing and personal hygiene tend to go out of the window for a few days. A pack of wet-wipes and a relaxed attitude will be enough for most people. Sometimes though, annoying as it may be, the kids will need a wash. Either because they are caked in mud (or worse), or because their bottoms are suffering from nappy rash, or because they develop an allergy to the emergency sunscreen you just bought for £20 at the festival stall. Or maybe it’s just that you’re a family who would rather have a wash?
Most festivals with camping offer showers.
Most little children HATE showers.
Camp With Your Car
One of the biggest excuses we hear from parents for not taking their kids to festivals is the fear of getting all the camping equipment from the car to their pitch.
Other excuses like the dreaded toilets and not wanting to sleep in a tent we can’t help with, but here’s a little guide to some of the easiest festivals in the UK to camp with kids.