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Life has a way of preparing you for parenthood without you knowing. Non-parents, for instance, already know what it’s like to go to a festival with a child from having previously been on group holidays with friends, one of whom is a loose cannon. But a summer full of family festivals fast approaches – headed up by Camp Bestival in August, Mr Tumble’s answer to an Oasis reunion. And there are ways and means to ensure the whole experience is a joy, whether you’re out to sneak a bit of responsible day-drinking to the Lightning Seeds into your summer or slather yourself in face-paint and embrace your inner unicorn on the world’s biggest bouncy castle.
Select your destination with care
Once, you scoured the line-ups each January to decide where to drop your ton or so on the summer’s good-time Gomorrahs. Now, it’s less about Megan Thee Stallion and more about Clifford Thee Big Red Dog. You’re after something manageably small and low-to-mid-capacity – your tots can go to Glastonbury for free and have their field there, but how are they with slow-moving crowd crushes to see Charli XCX? You also want plenty of space given over to kid-friendly activities and preferably a grandparent’s house within 30 miles or so, in case of a meltdown.
Camp Bestival and Totfest are set up to cater specifically to families, but Kendal Calling, Green Man, End of the Road and Wilderness are among the many boutique festivals with dedicated children’s fields, crafts, inflatables, discos and entertainment. Best to avoid events famed for being overrun with swarms of post-exam teenagers, though (cough, Reading), unless you consider Kavos Weekender suitable viewing for under-fives.
Consider the terrain
Those trolleys smothered in fairy lights look like the sweetest weekend chariot for your precious princes and princesses, and boy, will they bug you for one. But before you fork out rental fees in the hope of an onsite pint when they’ve drifted off to the lilting tones of Sleaford Mods, look around. Is the campsite up an incline worthy of World’s Most Dangerous Roads? Is the main stage a mountain hike away from the nearest (flushable, please) toilet?
If so, your weekend is about to become less like floating your children between stages like wheelie luggage through Tokyo airport and more like the plane-pulling segment of World’s Strongest Man. For rougher sites with younger children, consider buying or borrowing a three-wheeled buggy for a less bumpy and easy-to-steer ride, and if you can put some lights on them, do; chains of drunks often charge through dark festival crowds like nitrous-fuelled wildebeest.
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A light-strewn trolley for your little ones could help keep them out of harm’s way when the sun goes down (Camp Bestival)
Also, consider mainstage sightlines. A stage in a natural amphitheatre or sloping valley, where your little ones can see properly, can work wonders in fending off insistent demands for ice-cream and Bluey balloons for the duration of Wet Leg. And, believe me, it’s much easier to enjoy “Chaise Longue” if no one’s sat on your shoulders banging out the rhythm on your bucket hat.
Glamp
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Want to avoid being kept up all night by rowdy neighbours and sound-bleeding from nearby stages? Take the hit and go for the bell tent (Camp Bestival)
You’ll already be cursing the most insidious premium on parenthood; that sadistic form of school holiday-gouging we all know as “getting Center Parced”. But when it comes to festivals, that bell tent on the outskirts of the site – the Tempting Fortune hotel of the summer break – is worth every overpriced penny. It only takes one weekend camped next to DJ Dave’s 24-hour Rave Enclave – or of your sleepless little ones learning the swearier bits of This Country from the students in the next tent up smoking until dawn – for you to empty your wallet onto the boutique camping check-in desk in the name of clean loos, chill-out cafes and a camp-wide need to be up for the kite-making at 9am. Speaking of which…
Revert to childhood yourself
Part of the eternal wonder of parenting is rediscovering your inner child, but now with vastly improved motor skills. There’s immense satisfaction to be had, in middle age, in finally being able to search for Rubik’s Cube solver videos and colour inside a line. However, festivals require you to give yourself over almost entirely to the big kid experience. Forget trying to spend your afternoons checking out the hottest new bands, you’re going to be knee-deep in crepe paper and pottery clay, just buying enough goodwill to let you catch the first half hour of The National later.
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Embrace your inner kid with your family at music festivals (Camp Bestival)
However, with the spirit-crushing norms of society lifted at festivals, there’s also great joy in allowing yourself the same degree of carefree lark-seeking as we grant our kids at all times. A personal example: if you find yourself in a busy tent full of bearded men awaiting a sombre post-rock outfit and your six-year-old decides she wants to do ballet with you on the spot, suck it up, Baryshnikov, it’s plié o’clock. And it’ll be brilliant.
Comfort is key
Taking children to festivals requires the planning of a polar expedition, so let’s get practical. Festivals can be sweltering by day yet arctic by night – make sure your small backpack can cater for both. Keep a substantial wad of toilet paper and a bubble tub in your pocket at ALL TIMES. Discard any snack or junk food regulations you might have at home; keep them fed any which way you can. Take breakfast with you; the morning queues for food are absolute tantrum fuel. Whatever the weather forecast, put them in wellies and thick socks – you never know when you might be forced to wade through a patch of lavatorial swampland.
Prepare your charges
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From protective headphones to spare toilet paper, make sure you’ve packed all the essentials for the day (Camp Bestival)
Eventually, around sunset, the manky pirates and early-recruitment jugglers will pack up and the kids will have no choice but to come with you to see Kings of Leon. This can go one of two ways. Forty minutes of huffing, grumbling, weeping and gibbering, culminating in an exhausted slump that forces you to start a despondent tramp back to the tent to the opening riff of “The Bucket”.
Or, if you’ve spent the previous couple of weeks smashing every breakfast, school run and bedtime routine with greatest hits playlists, you’ll get an hour or so of fidgety attentiveness, leading up to a full-family roar-along to “Sex on Fire”. Those glares from other parents might look like judgement, but they’re all envy.
Camp Bestival takes place between 31 July to 3 August
