Reading Festival Drama

[Susue999]

DD 17 is at Reading for the first time has called us to say tent has leaked all bedding and all clothes are soaked. We are 2.5 hrs away and debating driving to take her to a launderette and give her dry bedding to then sleep in her mates tent. She has been hyped for months so feeling bad for her. Any seasoned Reading parents have any other brain waves?!!

My dad worked opposite the site so I could go into his office for a poo to park the car.

Listen sympathetically and ask her what she's considering doing about it. Don't rush to fix it for her, surely she will be able to come up with some options herself?

Why did her tent leak is a valid question. Badly pitched? Not checked for holes before leaving home?

If you never let things go a bit wrong for her, she'll never learn that she can figure things out. She'll never learn that she can cope with things going wrong. Also, if nothing ever goes pear-shaped and always goes according to plan, where will the funny stories come from? Imagine her at 30 with her mates, laughing over 'that time we got soaking and freezing in a tent at Reading'.

I remember being at Leeds festival, and being so cold and dirty that we got the bus into town and cleaned our teeth in a shopping centre loo. Funny story I remember with fondness now.

Don't step in. She can handle it.

She could have it worse, my son is there and his tent and all the tents of his group were ransacked last night. All power banks stolen, all disco headphones, their food and some camping gear. Really has put a dampener (excuse the pun!) on the whole thing.

This: the reason I've never been to Reading or any other festival is that you expect to get cold, wet and filthy! Call it a life lesson for your 17 yo and let them sort it out for themselves.

Shes an adult, leave her to it. No wonder Gen X can’t cope with real life if this is parenting nowadays!

It doesn’t really matter now does it? And the rain has been awful, I imagine a lot of tents have leaked.

You'd have found that tricky. Glastonbury is at the end of June

Isn’t there a camping essentials stall on site? Loads of festivals will have a stall selling sleeping bags etc, or as others have said she’d be better off getting an uber to a shop in Reading and buying stuff, the site is pretty close to the town.

This.

She needs to figure out why, how to stop it happening again and then how to manage the fact it’s happened and correct that.

How did you manage that? GCSEs aren’t sat in July?

Fat Frank's literally has everything. She can buy a whole new tent and sleeping bag if she wants to there.
Don't drive up there, she's nearly an adult, she needs to sort this herself

My child is there too. I went to France for the weekend. Left him to sort himself out if it all went wrong.

My first festival was the Windsor Free in 1972 when I was 15. I went with a friend who was just 16. I told my parents I was staying at her house for the weekend. We hitched there and didn't even take sleeping bags, let alone a tent. Nobody told their parents anything in the 70's for very good reason.

There's a shop on the Green campsite
https://www.fatfrankscampingshop.com/

She can sort it out. She doesn’t need mummy to come and deal with it surely?

I also went in the 90s and blagged it both times. Different times. But it’s at the end of June so post-GCSEs.

Rain at a festival is grim - happened to us at V festival in 2001 - luckily we only went for the day but it wasn’t pleasant. And we had rain gear on.

I know, wouldn’t have even entertained calling my parents but my own two would be the phone at the first sign of a problem

Cheap festival tents are shit in the rain. If my tumble dryer wasn't broken I'd offer to launder it for her.
The sleeping bag. Not the tent.

Another vote for if she's got normal mental capacity for her age why is she phoning mummy for help

Don't get involved unless you want her phoning you in 20 years time to ask how to use her washing machine

Surely she would be mortified if you turned up and saved the day? I absolutely wouldn’t- there’s solutions on site, and it’s a very short term hardship.

Op, is there some context you haven’t provided yet as to why she can’t sort this on her own to such an extent that your driving for 5 hours is your first thought? Otherwise you’ll just get hundreds of confused responses about taxis, shops and launderettes all existing in reading.

Clearly I’m a weirdo as I’d be happy me 17yo was calling for advice. I wouldn’t drive there, I’d just send over money and tell her to buy bedding and a hoodie on site and share friend’s tent.