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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

or does anyone else wonder who can actually afford to go to all these festivals?

86 replies

jeckadeck · 13/07/2011 16:59

since these "boutique" festivals pioneered by the Big Chill/Bestival etc became the rage: they seem basically to be targeted at a very small section of well off middle class London types and I can't imagine that there's enough demand to sustain them all. I've just looked on lastminute.com and most of them are going for well over a hundred quid. Really? I'm not on an especially low income and I just wouldn't spend that sort of money on one (with the possible exception of glasto): for not much more you could go on an amazing holiday. Am I missing the point/being a stick in the mud, or is there something a bit emperors' new clothes about them all, especially given the state of the economy? And are a lot of them going to end up getting closed down? Because I sort of feel like the world's gone a bit mad....

OP posts:

BagofHolly · 14/07/2011 09:50

How do you manage toilet arrangements with kids?

TobyLerone · 14/07/2011 09:53

I have children. I take them to festivals. Nobody 'trips over' them. I save for the tickets. We would all rather go to a festival than do anything else with the money, and for the amount of bands you can see over the course of the weekend, plus the camping, it actually works out to be very good value.

mashyup · 14/07/2011 09:56

Well, mine are old enough now to cope with a portaloo/go on their own, but I take a lidded nappy bucket to pee in in the night, lots of wipes/anti bacterial gel, and you can get camping toilet/poo in a bag type affairs

oohjarWhatsit · 14/07/2011 09:58

my adult son came in and said can he have a ticket for his birthday - oh yes i said thinking £50 ish - with travel and whatnot its over £200!!!!! That is for 4 days though so I suppose not too bad (I keep trying to convince myself)

VivaLeBeaver · 14/07/2011 10:03

Well kids under ten are free at most festivals.

So if a ticket costs me £100 then that's both of us in for fri to Sunday for £100, me and dd.

A lot of campsites ate £20 a night now so the way I see it I'm only paying £60 more and getting loads of music, etc for that. Dd likes listening to a lot of the bands and last year we were at wychwood and the kids stuff laid on was amazing. Big craft tent, story telling, etc. She made friends and dis circus skills, mosaics, etc.

The year before that we went to bliss fields. My ticket was £35 and dd was free. We saw Mumford and sons and Laura marling and super furry animals. Bargain.

I guess I'm fairly well off but I have to work hard for my money. I wouldn't consider myself an upper middle class yummy mummy type at all. Don't live anywhere near London, nor do I read the guardian. I do like live music and camping.

randommoment · 14/07/2011 10:06

If a whole bunch of you go to the same festy together, it means the children have all got someone to play with, you get to catch up properly, and no-one needs to fill their entire house and garden with tents and airbeds just to get together for the first time since you all left uni.

VivaLeBeaver · 14/07/2011 10:07

We take our own porta potti to festivals now. At bliss fields we didn't and the loos were terrible. Think mountain of poo that is higher than the loo seat and you get the picture. I could manage by hovering, dd couldn't. She refused to use them and ran off into a cornfield by the side of the camping files while I pretended not to notice.

katkitya · 14/07/2011 10:08

I go to the main one every year. Tbh, I can't see the attraction of taking little ones. Glasto is massive and the crowds panic me sometimes so, it has to be pretty scary for the wee ones. Also, I've never seen so many couples with 5/6 year olds bopping away whilst their children sat on their own in wheelbarrows aimlessly waving their sabres, or what ever they are called or, trying to get warm so they could sleep. It did cross my mind who was benefitting. It's just too large and loud. I admit though that other festivals are probably more family friendly.

TobyLerone · 14/07/2011 10:10

I used to go out with a really irritating hippy-type who said 'festy' and it makes me punchy, so if everyone could please refrain from using it from now on, I would be most grateful and far less violent.

Thx, Tobes.

Tollund · 14/07/2011 10:11

We took our two under fives to a folk festival recently. It was really cheap, and would have been great if it hadn't been for the crappy weather and DS2 then getting ill. DH and I are going to one alone in a couple of weeks, but it's far from boutique, wasn't too expensive and we're viewing it as part of our main holiday this year.

Riveninside · 14/07/2011 11:24

Even the home education festival is getting expensive. Me and ds2 are £120. I consider that a lot for a field with portaloos and no washing up facilities or anything.

Tchootnika · 14/07/2011 11:32

Don't be scared, don't be downhearted mashyup ...
Do make sure you bring food supplies, though... very expensive these days, and there's sure to be a riot over the last scraps of asparagus risotto by the second afternoon.
... seriously, I don't know hold your DCs are, but some of the children's activities at festivals now are very, very good indeed - so much so, in fact, that I think modern festival going could be described as an act of altruism on the part of parents who used to go to them back in the day...

JanMorrow · 14/07/2011 15:32

My parents used to take us to the cambridge folk festival (tiny but very nice) and glastonbury when we were kids. We LOVED it, even when our parents were oh so "selfishly" bopping away... we bopped too! I used to love going to sleep in a little trailer thing with my brother and sister as my parents danced away to a band. Some of my best childhood memories are from those festivals.

mashyup · 14/07/2011 16:09

Thank you Tchootnika, I am excited really, and trying to stop myself overorganising. Family legend tells of the year I tried to take a vegetable rack to glastonbury (I wanted to use it as a shelf unit!) so I have to rein it in. But I will take lots of food. My 2 are 9 and 10, a bit old for some of the stuff. I took advice from a glastonbury forum and have said we will do what they want in the morning and what we want in the afternoon, and negotiate for after tea, something like that anyway.

katkitya · 14/07/2011 18:27

Jan, I bet there weren't 170,000 at Glasto in them days. And, I bet they never used to make you suffer the Chemical Brothers!!

twinklypearls · 14/07/2011 18:32

I am not from London, I am not middle class and am certainly not well off. It came out of our holiday budget which we have saved all year. Our holiday this year is camp bestival and a week of camping elsewhere.

JanMorrow · 14/07/2011 18:33

No this is true.. and I'm planning on taking my lot when they are old enough (so 6ish or so) as the kids field/circus/green fields are all brilliant for children. I'd probably miss the headliners (we'd take it in turns I'd say, one of us off with mates, one back at the tent etc) so that they could get to bed.. we'll see!

Camp bestival is really child friendly though, and yes a bit middle class (if you don't like that sorta ting) but it's lovely!

Batteryhuman · 14/07/2011 18:41

What a lot of judgey McJudgey pants wearing there is on this thread. Its a bloody site cheaper and a lot more fun to go to a festival than a weekend in the school holidays at Centre Parcs or a couple of days out at a theme park or euro disney. I would no more judge people who spend their cash on those activities than i would judge those who choose to spend their money on booze, fags and night clubs (well may the latter...just a bit). Yes the ticket prices are high but under 10s usually go free and I would rather see 20 bands in a weekend than queue for rides at Alton Towers. And my DSs love a festival. DH on the other hand would rather have pins stuck in his eyes and prefers to waste his disposable income on a couple of rounds of golf.

Each to their own.....

MrsBloomingTroll · 14/07/2011 19:05

We took DD aged 2 (just) to Camp Bestival last year as our main summer holiday. Yes, we spent as much as we would have done on a holiday elsewhere. She absolutely loved it and dragged us to watch all kinds of music (opera, Bollywood, jive) that otherwise we wouldn't have seen.

The truly wonderful thing for us was that the mobile phone reception was pretty much non-existent, so it was a real holiday from the demands of our respective families and DH's work too.

And here's the thing...DD, now almost 3 yo still talks about it and remembers it now. She wants to go to another festival. Would a week's holiday on the beach have had the same impact? Priceless memories...worth every single penny.

Gutted we couldn't go this year, TBH! Not due to money (Camp Bestival lets you pay in installments) but because I am due with DC2 in a few weeks.

VivaLeBeaver · 14/07/2011 19:05

Definitely.

It's nobody's business how I afford it. However I don't smoke, don't drink, don't have nights out, don't have meals out, have a small mortgage, fairly cheap car, don't have foreign summer holidays.

Dd does love festivals. If she didn't I'd go on my own.

ChizChizChiz · 14/07/2011 23:58

I'd love to know what sort of 'amazing holiday' the OP could go on for just over £100.

In any case, 4 days at a festival this summer is my amazing holiday - it's not as if I'm squeezing it in between 3 weeks in my Italian villa, a fortnight in the Maldives and a long weekend in Cornwall...

As for ds - well, I didn't take him when I last went two years ago and he's only just forgiven me Totally agree with randommoment that it's often the only time we get a chance to catch up with some friends. This year there are 15 of us, adults and kids, going to Green Man - it means that all of us can have a great time. The kids have a ball, in fact - I've got footage of them racing around in the rain and mud in 2006 without a care in the world, as the adults huddle shivering under blankets and brollies!

Bands, fresh air, beer, tons of kids' activities - and Pieminister pies. What's not to like?!

qo · 15/07/2011 00:03

awww a chiz after my own heart!! we LOVE festivals, especiall the smaller non-commercial ones. I have already been to eden this year(with dd), we'll all be going to todstock for my birthday first week in august along with my sister and later in august another smaller local festie.

I DO love the bigger ones too, but funds are tight and havent been to one in 2years now, I dont care really as long as I get my fix of smaller ones.

I'm always quite depressed when I come home, leaving beautifully decorated fields, live music, lovely friendly sharing people and good times behind :(

Tchootnika · 15/07/2011 00:04

I'd love to know what sort of 'amazing holiday' the OP could go on for just over £100.

Hmm, I did wonder about asking too!

Gooseberrybushes · 15/07/2011 00:05

yes ME I do

we were planning latitude but yknow family of 5 no tinies it's like 400 or something and you're just camping for 3 days

proudfoot · 15/07/2011 08:11

They are affordable for a lot of people. I don't find them overpriced.

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