Baby wipes, sun cream, and stamina
Yes, festival time is here and that can only mean one thing â itâs time to forget your wellies, miss your favourite band, sleep in a damp tent and incur a liver related illness.
Okay, so thatâs several things but if even experienced (and by that I mean old) festivallers can get it so wrong then take pity on the young pups who are excitedly clutching their first festival tickets in their little paws. If you happen to be (or know) one of those innocents, here are a few tips to see you through safely from setting up the tent to the long road home.
Some novice festival-goers fall at the first hurdle, but even for hardened rockers, packing the right gear can be tricky. Few other people face the same sartorial dilemmas as the Irish festival-goer because we live in a climate where you can be sweating like a pig one minute and frozen to bone the next.
With this in mind its best to pack lots of light layers, plenty spare socks and one seriously woolly jumper for when the temperature plummets at night (you wonât feel the cold when you crash out, but at 6am when the beer sweater has worn off youâll need something to snuggle up in).
Plastic bags are your new best friend at a festival. Chuck a few in your rucksack to keep your clean clothes, dirty clothes and damp clothes separate. They also double as galoshes should your wellies spring a leak.
Experienced festivallers, with the constitution of a horse, believe that your sole nutritional value over the entire weekend should be derived from a few packets of rollies, cans of warm cider and perhaps a stick of gum.
This is impractical (unless you are Keith Richards), but on the other hand, people who arrive laden with Tracker bars, Capri Suns and dried cranberries to snack on are equally to be distrusted. This isnât a cheese and wine party so forget about bringing crackers and cubes of processed cheese (unless you want to be cleaning a thick Dairylea paste out of your rucksack when you get home) but do yourself a favour and savour the last dinner your mammy makes you before leave for Punchestown or Stradbally.
On site, try and avoid overpriced brown food (which usually turns out to be chow mein). There are plenty decent and tasty options at most festivals if you look farther afield. Just donât go for a chili burrito with everything on it after 18 beers â it will end in tears.
Thereâs no escaping that festivals can be a bit of an endurance test on the innards. If you are a teetotaler, hats off, but for the rest of the masses, ridiculously fuddy-duddy as it sounds, do try to pace yourself. Getting trashed the first night means you might miss the best part of the next day, or days.
Other rules of thumb are if you are ordinarily a beer drinker then stick to what you know â 12 cocktails at the Bacardi tent might seem like a good idea at the time, but not so much when youâve passed out in the tent by 10pm. Plus youâll feel like a clown when the next day when your friends wonât shut up about The. Best. Gig. Ever. Whatever your choice of tipple choice, though, remember to keep plenty of water in your tent for when you wake up in the morning and your tongue feels like sandpaper.
Young people! Your mum is blue in the face telling you that itâs a festival, not a fashion show, but the only festival your parents were at was probably Woodstock and they were more than likely naked and on acid.
Festivals ARE fashion shows (blame Kate Moss). If you are one (and I mean one because there literally is only one of you left on earth) of those youths who is happy to wear the same thing everyday and just enjoy the music, then good for you, but for the rest of us, festival style is part of the fun.
So make a statement, go wild with your personal style, but please ladies â no fairy wings. Best advice is to try on what you plan on wearing on at home, stand in your garden for 10 minutes, see how cold you feel and then add layers as needed until you are snug.
âEtiquette be damned,â I hear you say, and while you donât need to verse yourself in Debrettâs A-Z of Modern Manners before heading off to Oxegen, it is a good idea to be considerate of those around you. That means not urinating in the vicinity of your neighbourâs tent. Also, unless you have an artist pass around your neck, please leave your guitar, lute or bongo drums at home because, mark my words NO ONE wants to hear your version of Radioheadâs Creep at 4am, or at any hour for that matter. (Needless to say setting fire to, squatting in or retching near anyone elseâs tent is considered dĂ©classĂ©). So be nice to your neighbours, share your wet wipes and try not to leave a boot mark on anyone elseâs face in the mosh pit.
Unlikely if you are under 21, but if you are one of mummyâs little treasures who likes a nice hot shower everyday, then go to a literary festival and stay in a hotel. In fact, if your hygiene standards measure anywhere above giving the armpits a quick sniff in the morning, then steer clear of festivals altogether. For everyone else, the fail-safe tip to avoid shower angst (ie, missing Fleet Foxes while queuing for a pathetic dribble of luke warm water) is ⊠donât have one. Itâs three days people and you have baby wipes. And just think, when you get home, mummy will run you a nice warm bath. Bless.
Malheureusement, unlike showering (see Hygiene), visiting the little boys/girls rooms cannot be avoided so letâs just whizz (sorry) over a few basic festival bathroom rules: Never, under any circumstances sit on the toilet seat.
Do carry wet wipes at all times and please try to be quick. (Girls â yes, that playsuit looked cute on the hanger in Topshop, but if it takes 15 minutes to unbutton, best not wear it. You, and your little bladders will thank me.)
The best festival advice ever is this: get lost, wander, explore â you are basically in a massive playpen so donât waste a second stressing about where you are meant to be and while youâre at it, kiss goodbye to linear time too.
Avoid anyone who carries a laminated copy of the line-up like the plague and if you do lose your phone, your map and all your friends then make new ones. Itâs amazing how easy it is to befriend like-minded (ie, wasted) folk.
And by that I mean condoms â bring them and for Godâs sake use them, you filthy fornicators! Sorry, thatâs the Pope talking.
But seriously, even if you are in a loving committed relationship I advise using contraception because no child is going to thank you for telling them years later that the reason they are called Red Camping Zone is because that is the site at which they were conceived.
Donât get pneumonia, sunstroke, an STD or trench foot and youâll have done well.
* See you in the queue for the portaloos!
1. Fans voted Oxegen best overseas festival at the UK Festival Awards in both 2008 and& 2009. It won best line-up at the European Festival Awards in 2010. !
2. In 2008, we witnessed the first ever on-stage engagement at Oxegen. It being a leap year, Michaela Murphy (23) proposed to her boyfriend Paddy McBride (27), both from Belfast, on stage just before the Republic of Looseâs set. Murphy went down on one knee and presented her bass-playing boyfriend with a plectrum instead of a ring.
3. Ireland and Leinster rugby hero Cian Healy is to DJ at Oxegen once again this year, under the alias DJ Church.
4. Oxegen always attracts celebs. At the very first festival in 2004, Drew Barrymore was there with her then beau Fabrizio Moretti from the Strokes. 2007s line-up attracted mega Hollywood heavyweights like Tim Robbins and Susan Sarandon. In 2008, REM singer Michael Stipe, Josh Hartnett and Helena Christiansen were all spotted side of stage watching Kings Of Leon. Natalie Portman joined fans in the pit for Kings Of Leonâs 2009 headline set.
5. The artistsâ catering menu is carefully planned up to two months in advance of the event. More than15,000 meals will be served to artists, tour managers, lighting engineers, festival staff and more over the duration of the festival. Twelve chefs a day are working flat out to feed the stars. Over the weekend they expect to get through 500kg of mixed vegetables, 2,000kg of potatoes, 150kg of beef fillet and more than 1,000 chickens.
6. Over the weekend, artists will drink about 203 cases of Heineken; 75 bottles of premium Russian vodka; 3,000 cups of coffee; four bottles of retsina; Red Bull energy drinks and bio green tea; 60 litres of freshly squeezed OJ; 48 bottles of Marqués de Riscal wine; 136 bottles of merlot reserve; 59 bottles of champagne.
7. Oxegen is proud of its green initiatives. The carbon footprint at Oxegen 2010 was 15% smaller than 2009.
8. No waste water goes into the grounds at Punchestown. All waste water is stored until it can be pumped offsite and disposed of in an eco-friendly way.
9. To promote car-pooling, Oxegen offers free parking to cars with four or more occupants. Or join Tripmi.ie and find others that are travelling from your area.
10. You can save yourself the chore of hauling camping equipment by pre-ordering from the Cosy Camper service on the Oxegen website. Then simply collect your stuff when you arrive.! Or have Scouting Ireland pitch your tent.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
