16yo DS wants to go to Norfolk after GCSEs. Yes or No?

[MrsDmitriTippensKrushnic]

Posting for a friend as luckily I've got a couple of years yet before DS1 asks me things like this.

BFs DS1 wants to go with a group of friends to a music 'thing' on the beach at Newquay in the summer. I gather it's a known/famous event. Her immediate reaction is 'not a chance' whereas her DH is more inclined to agree with it, with provisos. She knows that she can too strict and PFB so asked me (far more lax and negligent in my parenting habits ) to get another POV. My initial reaction is 'not in a thousand years', but this is based entirely on what I've seen on TV...

Does anyone have actual RL experience of this? Is it really just an excuse for under-aged drinking and bad behaviour, or is it the case that a minority has given the event a bad name?

I'm sure I've seen MNers posting on here who live in the area who hate it.

Any POV good or bad would be much appreciated! TIA

My DS1 is also taking GCSE's this year, but has expressed no interest in Newquay. Apparently some of the others in his year are thinking of going but, according to him, "only the chavs". The boy who died falling off a cliff a couple of years ago was at my nephew's school, and I would be saying no to DS1 if he asked if he could go. 16 is too early for the vast majority IMHO. After A Levels seems like a good time to me for that 1st holiday without parents.

Dont forget that alcohol is also sold in your home town and girls are probably in your area too!!Kids dont have to go to a different part of the country in order to get drunk and have sex !!!

if you do not feel comfortable simply say no!
the child lives under your roof and should abide by your rules, that place is sure to be full of alcohol and drug abuse and large amounts of sexual activity, if your daughter tries a cannabis joint for example, or catches clamidia from a sexual encounter, this may well prove fatal!
it is your duty to protect the fruit of your loins, do you really want them to end up dead in a ditch after being raped, while addicted to cannabanoids!
i tell you things aint like back in my day!

I was horrified for a minute that all the yoof had decided that Blakeney was cooler than Newquay. I love Norfolk and don't want it overrun with drunk teens.

I wouldn't let a 16yo go to Newquay. I'D let them go to Norfolk and even the Reading festival but not Cornwall. Its a bit wild.

Thank you all

Just so you know, he's not going now. He says it's because they've decided it's too expensive, but BF is pretty sure it's because all the other parents were iffy about it too. I think they realised that if all the parents got together like she was insisting on, their carefully constructed stories of 'everybody else says it's okay' would rapidly fall down