My next festival was Reading Festival in 2014. I went when I was 17 and had just finished my first year of college. A kind of rite of passage for most youngsters, Reading fest was filthy, muddy, rainy, and so much fun. Getting to experience the freedom of a weekend away from parents and responsibilities and the chance to have fun in a field with your mates was great and I really got the festival bug. I managed to see a range of people from Deaf Havana, Secondcity, Enter Shikari, Peace, A Day to Remember and Disclosure. My highlights were Chvrches, Paramore and Arctic Monkeys, and seeing Netsky on the Friday really kicked off a love of seeing dance music live.
My next festival was not until the next year where I went to EDC, a day festival in Milton Keynes specifically for dance and electronic music. The festival was different to a weekend festival especially as there was no camping on site but the day was still fun and I met a load of people I still go to festivals with. I returned to EDC last year in 2016, and while the festival was still fun, the weather was not as nice and it was so packed in comparison to 2015 that I don't think I will be returning the next time it is held.
The festival after that was Tomorrowland, the biggest EDM festival in the world, held in Boom, Belgium. The weekend was the best of my life as the entire festival was absolutely magical due to the production and the story woven into the entire festival. Part of the reason the weekend was so extravagant and amazing was because it was abroad, and not held in the UK.
Following soon after Tomorrowland was Creamfields, a dance festival held in Liverpool. Featuring the same and similar acts as EDC and Tomorrowland, the weekend is known for being a big party. Getting to see the music I listen to the most was a great way to end a great summer and replaced Reading Festival for me, as they are held on the same weekend in August.
After EDC in 2016 (already mentioned), me and friends from foundation year went to Boardmasters Festival in Newquay, Cornwall. The festival is both a music and sports festival, focusing mainly on rock/indie music and surfing. The festival was a different experience for me as instead of camping and staying in one field, the festival was held on a cliff, next to Watergate Bay and Fistral Beach. On one day we walked down to the beach and spent a few hours there, and it was a nice change of scenery and a chance to relax in a different environment. Unfortunately on the last day of the festival I had a bit too much to drunk and things got a bit out of hand.
At Halloween, me and a few friends went to Detonate Halloween in Nottingham as it is not far from Leeds. The festival was held at Nottingham racecourse and it was absolutely awful as the company had oversold by hundreds. Once you were in a tent seeing an act, you were stuck in there unless you wanted to queue outside for hours. The tents were sweatboxes and lacking in any sort of ventilation. In the end the festival was cut short by a few hours with the police shutting the whole thing down and sending everybody home. The festival was the only one I'd been to where I had a terrible experience, but I think after this incident the festival will not be held again, at least in that location.
This summer, 2017, I started off the festival season with Parklife in Manchester. The sister festival to Wildlife festival in Brighton, Parklife was held across a weekend in June and featured acts like Two Door Cinema Club, Chaka Khan, Mura Masa and Ratboy, so provided an option for most music tastes. The music itself was great but the weather was absolutely awful and I have never seen so much mud! The festival isn't a camping one so we had to find alternate acommodation, and getting a taxi back was a bit of a nightmare too.
I returned to Creamfields in the August since I had won tickets and my group of friends live so far from eachother that we treat it as an annual meet up (and knees up). As expected, the weekend was incredible and I got to experience it from a VIP experience, something I would never have paid for otherwise.
To finish off summer 2017 I went to Mint Festival, held here in Leeds. The festival is mainly for house/techno, but still featured odd acts such as Wilkinson (drum n bass) and Lady Leshurr (rap). The festival was again muddy, but we ended up having a good time in the evening.
After reviewing my festival experiences I feel like I can impart some of my knowledge into this book. Especially my drunken experience at Boardmasters and what I should have known beforehand, my festival abroad experience, the issues we had at Parklife, and also going to Creamfields as a VIP. As this is a subject I am interested in and have had a lot of experience with, I would find it hard not to put this into my guide.
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