Camp Bestival 2011.

[QueeferSutherland]

Has anyone been?
Going?
Is there a festival thread somewhere?

DH booked tickets today. I haven't been to a festival in an age, and DH has only been camping once. We are taking the 3 DC who will be 1, 3, & 9.

Any tips/reassurance?

Am big fan of camping plus. Haven't read forum comments but thought it was a winner - lots of v civilised families being v nice to each other. Loos were ok. Hot showers were fab (especially if you went lunchtime when there were no queues), and once you overlooked the woefully slow service, the toasties from the red bus were a godsend. Will be going there again next year.

We were in the Tangerine Fields and it was a mission to get to the site and back - two hills I think. In a way it was good because it was quieter but even so I couldn't sleep until the last band of the night finished.

I think if we go next year we'll book early and get a B+B.

I didn't see any teens behaving particularly badly but then we were mostly in bed by 9. I did notice (old prude) that a lot of the girls' shorts were extremely short - as in bum hanging out.

Jon Ronson was funny reading from his new book and his old Guardian columns.

I agree with whoever said they wouldn't want it to be any bigger.

Have any of you been to the Secret Garden Party? That's a lovely child friendly festival and a lot smaller.

DH did a review for the Arts Desk website - www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=4229:theartsdesk-at-camp-bestival-lulworth-castle&Itemid=29

Oh and an unexpected bonus of going is that in the two days since we've been back DS has woken up at 8 and 7.30 where before he used to start the day at 6 if we were lucky. The late nights at CB seem to have reset his clock even though we've gone back to normal bedtime.

Crumble I noticed that too, denim rationing I though! Funny how they make themselves a 'uniform' when school's out. And there were two girls about to get fisty outside the big top when Laura Marling was on. Not very classy, boyfriends hanging around watching, and sort of pretending to break it up, but really looked quite entertained by it all. And one or two looked too drunk to stand up!

I thought the toilets were par for the festival course, bit of a lengthy queue at peak times in the van field, but an empty fabric softener bottle in the van solved the problem for DS1s midnight wee. Nothing competes with the stench of the 30-foot pit latrines and Glastonbury in a hot year!

They have SINKS in Camping Plus?! With actual running water? I'm sold!
I feel like there's so much I didn't do, but I was mainly there for the yummy food, so that's OK :)

I thought our pitch site was fine except for concessions being allowed to play loud music until late, put those next to the non family camping, I don't mind distant noise it is a festival after all
and families around us were friendly

but they will have to decide what kind of market they are aiming for, if family orientated they need to make sure it stays that way, allowing teen to be dumped is not a good way of achieving this

regarding toilets I am fine with them I thought they were all reasonably clean and particularly the compostable ones, although not the child size ones, they were awful by Sunday
I wish they mark a place for washing up of pots and pans etc, some of the sinks were getting clogged up with food bit, but I guess that is the users fault as they should clean after themselves

I thought the security was firm and adequate, we witnessed a couple of upsetting incidents and we felt they were well dealt with

having said al that if they don't make it bigger we would still go back next year, there is enough variety to keep people busy

We hadn't been before and we LOVED it - no problems with teenagers, but we were in the Tangerine Field, where the rowdiest thing was my dds tearing up and down the hill playing bubble gun wars with their new friend .

Highlights for dh: Blondie, PieMinister, lots of the folksy acts on the bandstand, constantly bumping into Jo Whiley

For me: Singing along to Valerie and dancing like a loon to BangBangBang with the dds during Mark Ronson (swoon), lush breakfast at Henry's Beard Cafe, the randomness of Howard Marks and Keith Allen telling fairytales at the bandstand, the showers and toilets in the Tangerine Field being really pretty good (sorry).

For dds: The House of Fairy Tales - plain awesome! Dick and Dom - very funny. The Gruffalo, the expensive fairground rides , the churros with hot chocolate, Sam Sam the Bubble Man (and bubbles in general) - pretty much everything.

Disappointments - they'd run out of fancy eyelashes and CB T-shirts when the dds made up their minds they wanted them, rude people blocking everyone's view of the stages by standing/putting up picnic chairs (wtf?).

We're definitely contemplating a return visit. Wish I'd made it to the Silent Disco, the Black Dahlia, Cocktails and Dreams, the Dingley Dell trail - but we had so much to do we couldn't do it all.

I think that he has already said that it will not get bigger and to be honest they already have the use of all teh accessible fields, there are no more to put anyone within walking distance. The farm is changing this year and we are renting out more acreage which reduces ours and I am sure that the parking fields will go with the dairy farm so that will be more peope to negotiate with.

Hi all and glad you all seem to have had a fab time. Although I enjoyed a lot of it (Blondie, Marcus Brigstocke, Wonderstuff, African bead workshop were among my highlights) I have to say I was disappointed. This was my fourth year and I think probably my last as I think it is turning into a bit of a rip-off tbh. I thought charging extra for Thursday night was terrible, as there was no entertainment on - no other festival does this, it is just profiteering.

Also putting up parking from £10 last year to £15 this year was cheeky.

I had already paid £85 for a ticket for my 11 year old dd, who would have been free on last year's pricing - they dropped the free child age limit from 11 to 10, so I think they are just milking the muggins middle classes for every penny they can get. I honestly went in on Thursday night feeling I had been robbed. And I am a seasoned festival-goer but think for what we pay we should expect toilets to be serviceable at all times - I found several disgusting ones on each day.

Larmer Tree, Green Man, Tolpuddle Martyrs, and maybe Beautiful Days for me from now on thank you.

sfxmum glad you said that about the kids' compost loos, everyone raves about the compost loos but the kids' ones were nasty! There was a spare paper cup in the one DD went in which I used to shove some of the shit out of the way, or she'd have been sitting ON someone else's ... she still refused to go.

[then decided she was no longer desparate, only to need to go just as the ballet flashmob was on, phoebechicken took her, only she still didn't do a poo and, erm, got caught a bit short later on, grr]

I think in part we were lucky not to have any bad experiences (drunk teenagers/neighbours etc) but some of the feedback, on Facebook especially, is from people whose expectations are a bit unreasonable. In the lead-up people were asking how big the pitches were (in normal camping, not Camping Plus) and whether they could get icepacks refrozen - mistaking a festival for a campsite I think. And the loos - I would not expect every single loo at an event for 30,000 people to be spotless every second of the day. Even loos in perfectly nice pubs run out of paper from time to time, and people have dodgy bottoms and make a mess!

I was pleasantly surprised by the toilets to be honest. I have seen worse at a campsite.

The only think that annoyed me was the charging for the rides. The odd £2 here and there added up and we had already paid a significant amount of money.

We had great time overall, the kids comedian was brilliant, as was the circus area. I liked the comedy and the bandstand was a nice hang out, ikea bed frames munching corn cobs and sipping pimms whilst the kids ran around together...bliss!

The camping in purple was nightmare though, huge hills and not enough room, teens alone camping and up all night. But this is expected, young people having fun, however the family next to us, with the screaming brats at 5 am, why did you not take them for walk or something?

I don't let my kids make a sound before 7, not being smug but if they are awake it's silence or we all get up and get them away from everyone else.

The whispering of the woman, yes the tents were that close, please benny do listen to mummy and be quiet...er not working!!

Beautiful days or just so for us next year. It was fun though, but we spent £350 easily. Plus tickets and fuel!

.

I haven't looked in my moneybelt yet to see how much is left over. Mind you I'm not exactly sure what I took, so I won't know exactly what I spent. Two lunches for me and DD, three dinners, two pints and four cans of cider, three bowls of strawberries, an ice lolly, a pair of false eyelashes, a hair decoration (now adorning my hat), a long-sleeved top for DD ... and HOURS of trolley hire. :o

We were okay in purple. I've had noisier neighbours on normal campsites - one pair of earplugs did for Thursday through to Saturday nights, but only Quies foam ones (recommended on MN in fact) were good enough for Sunday night. They were brilliant.

We hardly spent anything at all, maybe £50 the whole weekend. I took 2 meals per day, plys snacks and drinks with us, and ds's didn't go on any paid for rides. They are 5 and 3 so maybe easier to say no to we had spent a lot of money getting there, and there was lots of free fun things for them to do so I'm not going to start spending a fortune on extra stuff.
I had bought bubbles and glowsticks etc. from the poundshop before we went so could produce them when needed usually as an incentive to get ds2 to walk up the huge hills

I feel sorry for the organisers, there's some harsh(ish) comments on the camp besitval forum Bestival Banter&showthread=11237 Here

Hello happy campers!

We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, despite being sick. I do apologise to anyone who witnessed The Incredible Boaking Family. I had to buy some insence to hide the smell of sick, but it was really hard to find anywhere that wasn't selling food.

I didn't see the digger bit!

Highlights were
Dick & Dom
Cuban Brothers
Newton Faulkner
Ed Sheersomething
Eliza Dolittle for the girl & DH
Jousting

We spent about £100 even though we didn't eat out really.

I didn't see any rowdy teens, but DH said he saw some drunken ones.

I thought the loos were ok, as far as festies go.

I didn't make it to the silent disco.

DH just reminded me he ticked off some rowdy teens who nearly knocked over DD who was watching DJ Yoda with him. They were all off their faces.

DS's highlight was DJ Yoda too.

DH took issue with the short shorts and swearing from stage. Wretch 32 (who was great) managed to not swear, but Claire McGuire was a potty mouth.

Hi everyone, I'm late to the party debrief here as we just got back from the isle of wight! We had a great time, loved the kids stuff - Dick and Dom an unexpected hit for us as we haven't graduated past cebeebies. DD1 was so intent on doing that 'bring back my Bonny' thing! She was quite upset that mr tumble couldn't hear her asking for songs though! They both loved the insect circus too.

But Oh My God we spent so much money! We were such suckers and didn't take the stove. Unbelieeeeevably expensive food. (I know, we were warned ). Also we spent a lot on rides etc. I must have been on the helter skelter at least 6 times!

On the whole I don't think we'll go again until the dds are a bit older. They couldn't manage the late nights so we didn't get to see much. In a couple of years it will be perfect though.