Some advice please.

[Confusssed]

DD is fifteen and a half. She has asked if she can go to a local village festival where there will be live music + other entertainment + beer tents etc. She wants to go with a few friends, then stay on for a sleepover at a friend's house which lives in that village.

My gut feeling is she's just too young to be left totally unsupervised all afternoon and all evening, in a large crowd of 2-3 thousand with ready access to alcohol. But this is my first time making a decision like this so I might be being over careful?

They should still be asking for ID so she shouldnt have access to alcohol.

Do you trust her?

Can you go as well? Not to hang out with her, just to enjoy the event but also in the vicinity of her.

Is she normally respobsible? Are her friends?
Do you know the parents of the child where she is staying?
What time are they expected home?

If you trust your DD to act responsibly then why not let her go?

I dodnt mean do you trust her to sound judgy btw. Just some teens are more sensible than others.

15 is too young to be left unsupervised?

Really?
I would have thought the opposite
15 is too old to be supervised

Teenagers need freedom, it's your job as a parent to make sure they can cope with it

Hadn't thought about ID? On the whole, I do trust her. She's been no real trouble so far, we seem to have swerved the usual teen hassles and arguments. But I'm a little wary of a couple of her friends (one has already been experimenting with soft drugs) and DD seems always a bit over keen to drink alcohol (I have been allowing her the occasional can of cider or glass of wine since she turned 15).

I think you should let her go. At approaching 16 you should allow her some freedom. But have a conversation about being responsible and that this event will dictate what you allow her to do for the rest of the summer, so she shouldn't be messing this up.

I would speak to the parents of the girl hosting the sleepover to see if they are on board with a curfew and no alcohol etc. Some parents have more relaxed rules than others that would be my main concern. Also if you DD does go perhaps agree that if things get out of hand she can call you and be picked up.

I'd let my nearly 15 year old do that. At just 16 we let DSD1 go to Glastonbury with friends - they let them in unaccompanied at 16. A day and an evening at a village festival doesn't sound too much to me.

She is nearly 16 - at least she asked you - let her go