happy campers

Under canvas, glamping, in a yurt or in your tin tent, it’s great fun if you are well prepared

When a big festival happens in small communities like ours there is never enough accommodation to go around, so it is expected that many folk will bring their own.

We have some experienced – dare we say battledhardened – festival campers on the team here at Wyvex. Camping with your high school mates at an island festival is just as much a right of passage here as Glastonbury is . . .only we have midges.

• It is a great way to have a holiday on a budget

and make new friends.

• Lots of people have their festival experience as part of a bigger holiday with accommodation booked elsewhere before or after.

• Remember to take your wellies. The Duke of Wellington invented them because he knew that the greats-x-great-grandchildren of his

proud army would want to dance and fall over in muddy fields while listening to insanely loud music.

• If you are a camping novice the first time you pitch your tent should not be at the festival campsite. Do not be the person who has to be rescued. It is so un-cool.

• You might not be planning on getting much sleep but when you want to, you will want to be warm and cozy. At 4.30am you will wish

you had spent more money on a good quality

sleeping bag and sleep mat.

• Drink water – lots of it – to keep hydrated and loads of sunscreen and good-sized refillable bottles. Ambulance crews and on-site first

aiders say they deal with more cases of severe

sunburn, dehydration and heatstroke than they ever do hypothermia, which is a rarity. • There will be some amazing food trucks at all our festivals but remember to bring nonperishable food to balance out the budget. • If you are caravanning or travelling in a motor

home please use the festival or regular island

campsites. Contribute to the local economy. • Follow the rules about bonfires, barbecues, candles, outdoor candles and camping stoves. The only thing you want to burn up is the dance floor, not the heather, gorse or ground-nesting birds.

• NEVER EVER take a barbecue or cooking stove inside your tent. Carbon monoxide poisoning

is a huge danger and claims lives every year or

makes people very ill and that’s before we even begin to talk about the fire risk.

• Take your rubbish to the recycle point on the

festival ground or take it home. We want to

remember you – and you want to be known – as a great bunch of folk who know how to party, not a bunch of slobs who left our lovely

countryside in a filthy mess.

• Midge repellent. There is no such thing as a lonely midge. If these microscopic muggers were dogs they would be mongrels with a husky’s belligerence, a Jack Russell’s tenacity and a Rottweiler’s bite. Better make that two bottles of midge repellent.