Imagine my delight when Kate receives an email telling her she can have two free tickets to a music festival. Imagine my rising level of excitement when we check out the line up and it's pretty damn good. Imagine my hysteria when I receive an email asking me to register on the 'press' section of the festival's website. Things just seemed to get better and better after we found train tickets that weren't too extortionate and a friend who's au pair family would lend us a tent and sleeping bags.
Even the small glitch when we arrived at the campsite didn't deter us. We showed up without tickets, thinking there would be a list of press people. Turns out that said list was at the festival site, available from 4pm. It was midday. So, faced with the prospect of lugging all our baggage to the festival site, to wait for three hours to collect our wristband, come all the way back to the campsite to set up the tent and then leave straight away, we explained the situation to two more people and were finally just let in.
Feeling quite pleased with ourselves, the smugness soon wore off when we began to set up the tent. Kate's first impression was: "Oh no...some of the tent is missing." Her second impression: "Oh no, even worse, none of it is missing...this is it!" Then we found the instructions and realised that it wasn't in fact a tent, but a beach shelter. Cue two nights squished together amongst all our luggage, freezing to death as the condensation from the sides seeped in to my very old sleeping bag, as it was impossible to not touch the side.
Beach Shelter
However, the press experience and the music made up for our sleeping woes. We got to skip the queue, go to the press tent and bar, go into the VIP section, eat nice food, and, perhaps the best part, avoid the festival toilets. The bands were excellent, highlights being The Ting Tings, Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Arcade Fire, jumping around to 'Jump Around' by House of Pain, rocking out with your kebab out (not a euphemism) to Motorhead and raving to Crystal Castles, despite the sound problems.
Press Bar
Festival
In hindsight, had I known that I'd be sleeping in the oldest sleeping bag ever, in a beach shelter, with another person, in what must have been a temperature of 1 or 2 degrees at night, would I do it again? Of course!
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