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FESTIVAL season has arrived – starting this weekend with the likes of retro music event the Happy Days Festival and Glastonbudget, featuring tribute acts such as the Antarctic Monkeys, The Fillers and blurb.
But there are plenty of festivals, big and small, yet to come, and with them worries about how to pay for the experience and avoid buying a bogus ticket.
The Mail on Sunday looks at the best ways to fund your love of music. IF YOU are keen to see headline acts at big festivals you can gain free entry by becoming a steward.
Every year Oxfam recruits volunteer stewards to keep festival-goers safe, check tickets and provide information such as directions around the site. The charity receives the money festival organisers would have paid to hire stewards. In return volunteers commit to working three eight-hour shifts, get their own campsite with toilets and hot showers, three meal tickets a day and free tea and coffee around the clock. Some festivals let you take children free.
Katrina Macdonald, from Troon in Ayrshire, has volunteered as a festival steward for the past 14 years. This year she will be working at festivals including Glastonbury, in Somerset, Latitude, in Suffolk, and Bestival on the Isle of Wight.
A mother of four girls and a cake-maker by trade, Katrina, 44, counts electronic dance duo Orbital among her favourite acts. She particularly liked their performance of the Dr Who theme tune at Glastonbury when actor Matt Smith, who played the 11th doctor, joined the band on stage.
She says: ‘When you pay for a ticket you feel you have to hurry here and there to make it worthwhile, but when you volunteer you see a different side to a festival, especially the social side.
‘It feels good to know that while I’m enjoying my live music and festival perks, my contribution to charity is making a difference to less fortunate people both in the UK and abroad.’
Oxfam is looking for volunteers for August’s BoomTown Fair – a ‘pop-up city’ near Winchester made of districts including Mayfair Avenue for ‘electro swing and glamour’, Whistlers Green for folk and world music and KidzTown for children. There are also spaces for Camp Bestival – the sister festival of the popular Isle of Wight event but aimed at families. It takes place in late July and early August in Dorset. Wellknown bands including dance act Basement Jaxx, Sophie EllisBextor, popular nine- ties band James and classical singer turned pop princess Charlotte Church. Volunteers must pay a deposit, which is refunded once they have completed the shifts. You can cancel up to four weeks before and still receive a refund, minus a £20 administration fee. After this you lose your deposit.
If a festival you want to go to has no more available places you can join a waiting list in case others pull out. Find all the details at oxfam.org.uk/stewarding. You can also register at festivalvolunteer.co.uk – run by Peppermint Bars – which occasionally recruits for paid shifts at festivals.
However you get there, check your home insurance policy to find out whether valuables you take are covered away from home. Also check the terms of any travel insurance you have to find out what you would be protected for if something went wrong before or during the trip. FOR cheaper tickets to see your favourite band, it is best to get to the front of the queue.
Joining a band’s fan club could mean getting priority updates about tour dates (and occasionally discounts). Or sign up to receive alerts from particular venues about who is playing and when.
Collecting tickets in person can save you additional booking or delivery fees. You can also ask about ‘restricted view’ offers.
Buying online will either be from an official website, such as
Ticketmaster, working on behalf of a venue, or from an online marketplace, where fans sell to each other.
Cashback websites Quidco and TopCashBack pay a small percentage of purchases made from Ticketmaster back to buyers. When a customer registers, they click on a link taking them to their chosen shop or retailer’s website. When they buy something, the shop pays the website commission, which is paid into the customer’s account.
Both websites also pay cashback on purchases from online music shops such as Zavvi and Play. Alternatively, you might buy from a second-hand ticketing website. Brian Streich, director of marketing for eBay-owned StubHub!, says: ‘Buying at the last minute is a great way to benefit from lower prices as sellers tend to lower them gradually as the date approaches. If you can deal with uncertainty and don’t need to make plans, there are tremendous deals to be found by waiting.’
He adds that buyers can set email alerts through the website, which flag up when the tickets you want match the price you want to pay.
If you’re on a strict budget but are open to ideas, website lastminute has options for less than £15, which currently include the Philharmonia Orchestra performing Hall Of Fame Favourites at the Royal Festival Hall in London for £10 a ticket.
Dodge ticket fraudsters
TICKET fraud cost more than £3.7million last year, according to the Association of Chief Police Officers. A quarter of complaints relate to concerts or festivals.
Sham vendors have been known to con their victims on second-hand ticket exchange websites. If the concert is sold out and tickets are only available via an online marketplace, pick one that offers additional protection. StubHub! and Seatwave, for example, both promise to give buyers a replacement or refund if tickets are not genuine. Fans will also get their money back if the concert is cancelled.
GetSafeOnline – which offers free and simple advice about security online and is funded by both the Government and the private sector – has useful information under its ‘buying tickets’ section.
For example, before entering card details on a website check three things to make sure it is secure.
First, look for the padlock symbol in the browser window frame – where you type a website address.
Second, check the web address begins with ‘https://’ – the ‘s’ stands for ‘secure’. Finally, for the latest web browsers, the address bar or name of the firm will turn green when the purchase goes through.
To see the full list of tips visit getsafeonline.org/shopping-banking and click on ‘buying tickets’.
Protect your music
NEARLY half of musicians lose or damage at least one of their instruments, but two fifths have no insurance – despite owning equipment worth more than £1,300 on average.
That’s according to insurer Musicguard, which sells specialist policies starting at less than £5 a month.
DJ Russell Brett, from Retford in Nottinghamshire, is a customer – and was relieved he had insurance when someone spilt a drink on his amplifiers and speakers, causing more than £800 of damage.
An ex-professional singer whose stage name was Brett Delaney 20 years ago, he had a £129-a-year DJguard policy covering more than £2,300 of equipment. Russell, 50, who lives with his wife Jackie, also 50, and their two children, Reece, 15 and Lacey-Mae, 13, says: ‘The policy comes with public liability insurance, which I think is absolutely necessary. I sleep better at night knowing that if someone was injured at one of my gigs, the insurer would pay out.’ Brett is also covered against theft.
Adrian Scott, at Musicguard, says: ‘Safeguarding equipment is crucial to avoiding financial loss should instruments get broken or vanish.’
Scott recommends musicians keep valuable equipment locked away, note serial numbers and register items at the local police station.
But it is not just instruments that need protection. It saves money and hassle to know that any songs and albums downloaded are backed up if your computer breaks down.
You can store music remotely. For example, Apple’s iCloud lets you access your collection from several devices – such as a smartphone, tablet or laptop. When you sign up you get five gigabytes of free storage – enough for 1,000 songs.
Amazon Cloud Drive and Google Play are two alternatives that are also free. A more clunky method of backing up music is to transfer all of your downloads on to CDs.