Carfest South 2017

[reallyneedmoresleep]

We're going in a couple of weeks! Quite excited but also a little apprehensive as have never done a festival with the kids.
What should we take?
What should we do?
Any top tips please?

Take lots of snacks
Take good walking shoes
Take a trolley (the car park is miles from the camping and the camping is miles from the festival. ok that's a slight exaggeration but only slight)
Get each person to choose one thing from the time table they REALLY want to do and make sure that is done and then inbetween just wander around and see what you stumble over.
Take the kids head torches and books, just because you love the bands and want to sit and listen doesn't mean the kids will!!

Thanks Queen. Handy tips. We are looking forward to it.

General camping advice :

Don't get cold. - Make sure you have layers for sleeping. Have jumpers and hats for the evenings. It can get chilly.

Showers : if possible don't bother if you must. Take flip flops for the showers.

Don't let bags etc. touch the side of the tent.

Make sure food is wrapped well. Especially sweets etc

Head torches are brilliant.

Don't wear shoes inside the tent.

Do the camp under a tree. It will drop all sorts of crap onto your tent.

How old are the kids? Ours are 7 and 4 and we've done it every year. We tend to concentrate on one of the 3 fields each day and do everything we want to do in it and then wander over to the music. We hire a trolley too and the kids fall asleep in it and then we tie them back. It's a big hill back but doable. Hope you have a good time.

What about security? I heard there have been issues in the past? Any recommendations?
Can you take the car to go and get supplies locally if you need to over the weekend?

Thank you so much for all the advice! We are seasoned campers but not festival-goers. The kids are not little : 13,11 and 9.
Is it fairly easy to buy food? And (obviously depending on the forecast) are we better with wellies or walking boots?

CarFest was always brilliantly trouble free. I've heard there were some tent thefts at CarFest North though so I think the troublemakers are starting to add it to their list of festivals. There is lots of food to buy there and it's easy to come and go if you want to get supplies. There are small shops in Overton. They've always kept mostly on top of the mud so walking boots have been better than wellies. There is a brilliant Facebook group called CarFest Buddies which shares knowledge.

We've done carfest every year and have always had a great time. We take less and less each time as we remember what a pain it is carrying it all - so small tent (4 man for the 5 of us) - and very little food the last time. We've camped with friends the last few years which was great fun for us and the kids.

We take a few snacks for the kids, and a basic breakfast and buy everything else - but do budget for it! The food tents have always had loads of free samples so the children usually browse for their lunch - crisps and Dorset cereals were favourites last year. They really can manage to eat loads! The free food workshops are good for that too - make your own bread, ice cream, salad dressing etc (and then eat it!).

You need to get there reasonably early on the Friday morning to get parked anywhere near the camping entrance - certainly by 9ish I'd say.

The land it's on drains really well and even the year that they nearly had to call it off due to torrential rain during the set-up there wasn't too much mud around. I think I've always worn sandals!

Take warm clothes for the evening - our children were 3,5 & 8 last year and we took all their onesies and changed them into pj's with onesies over the top before going back for the music in the evening. If you choose a spot further back you can take picnic blankets and/or chairs and the kids can chill out if they want. Ours stayed up every night for all the music but were slightly broken by the end of the weekend!

Have a great time!

We're packing up for Carfest tonight! House is tip, looks like a bomb has gone off in Millets, but it's quite exciting.
We're in the Car-nival, so have to be on site early Friday morning, so staying in a nearby hotel tomorrow.

Tips
Take plenty of cash
I think the weather forecast is meant to be dry and warm but not necessarily sunny. So we're considering just taking jumpers for the evening and disposable ponchos in case of rain.
Previously I've taken precooked bacon for a quick bacon roll in the morning. Just warm it up on the camping gas!
The food is good and not toooo pricy. The paella stand and the pizza horsebox are popular with my family.
We take a nappy bucket (with lid) and Travel Johns as DH and DC have tiny bladders and get up a lot in the night to pee. Using a Travel John saves traipsing across a field at night!

Just finished packing. We too take less each year! We're in the caravan which helps but lugging loads of stuff around all day is a pain.

Can't wait. The CarFest Buddies Facebook group as some people on site and the ground is good apparently and all looks lovely.

How did you all find Carfest?
We haven't been since 2014 and were a bit taken aback by the amount of people there now - Very busy!

It was fantastic, very safe and child friendly.
Loos & showers were well kept (until late Sunday night, Monday morning was grim).
It was big, but so was the site & main arena.
We are looking forward to going next year

It was much bigger this year, but they'd moved loads into the far field so we never felt crowded except in the evening round the stage. Loos we found fine, especially if you went to the ones a bit further from the arena in the evening. Loved the steam fair and the animal focus in the showground for a change.