It’s safe to say we’re now at the business end (middle?) of the festival season – Glastonbury still fresh in the memory, Reading and Leeds around the corner, a number of pleasant boutique events forthcoming such as the DiS-sponsored quartet of Supersonic, Truck, Field Day and Green Man. Weekends through this month and next are full of festivals across the land, with established events defending their reputations against a host of newcomers with designs on seasonal domination. Some will succeed, some will fail, but one constant remains: you have to get there to find out.
And it’s the getting there that forms the crux of this week’s DiScussion: just what en-route nightmares have you endured in order to reach the festival you’ve been looking forward to for months? We’ve all crowded onto Glasto-bound buses at Castle Cary, backpacks crushing laps, narrow country roads slinking like bootlaces across green hills, drizzle-spilling clouds collecting above the pit that is Pilton Farm, guaranteeing a wash-out for the next three nights. But have you ever made the journey in a car, only to spend more time stationary than you have on the move? To spend six hours stuck in a car park, back wheels entrenched in what was, until about four or five days ago, a dusty and dry field? To sit tight, muddy boots and hangovers stinking up your Corsa, while the dull repetition of horns beep their disaffection for the delay. There’s no getting around it, so what do you do?
You tell us about it, that’s what: we want to hear about your travel nightmares on the way to, and from, festivals in the UK. Have you had to call a breakdown service out to fix something that’s only broken because you foolishly – drunkenly – decided it’d be a good idea to fill your radiator header with Bacardi two nights previous? Ever got stuck behind a no-hurry farmer moving his cow herd from field A – perfectly good from what you can see of it over that hedge – to field B, two miles down this stupid single-track lane your Sat-Nav told you to take? Have you called home in tears, using up the last bar of battery on your limited-signal mobile, because you just can’t work out how all this stuff ever fitted into your tiny boot on the way down, because it sure as shit won’t pack back in? Don’t cry, we’ve all been there.
DiScuss: Tell us of your travel woes, and fill us in on what you’ve done to brighten the hold-ups and slow-downs. Have you the perfect festival-heading mix CD in your car? Want to share the tracklisting? Do you have any games – beyond I Spy – that you bust out to kill time while the B road you shouldn’t have taken in the first place clears? Have you ever, and be truthful, given up and turned for home? That’d be stupid, but just sometimes understandable. Tell us about the times when getting to a festival has been an absolute mission.
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DiS will be bringing you coverage of all the best festivals in the UK over the coming weeks, with content brand new and from our considerable archive accessible via our special RAC-sponsored Festivals Site – click here for the latest from our team of in-the-mud reporters.
Forthcoming: all the best bands at Supersonic reviewed and photographed, plus coverage of Truck, Latitude, Reading and Leeds, Green Man, Field Day, Summer Sundae, Concrete & Glass and much, much more. Find information on DiS-sponsored festivals this summer by clicking the links below, and visit our sponsors RAC here. On DiS next week: a competition to ensure you’re never left stuck in the mud, so to speak, when on the way to or from your favourite festival this summer and next.
Supersonic, Birmingham (July 11-13)Truck Festival, Oxfordshire (July 19-20; DiS DJs to appear)
Summer Sundae, Leicester (August 8-10; DiS stage on the Friday)
Field Day, London (August 9)
Green Man Festival, Wales (August 15-17; DiS DJs to appear)
Concrete & Glass, London (October; DiS stage for both nights)
Sorry to disapoint
but no problems getting home from Glastonbury this year.
oddly.
this year at Glastonbury around 5pm on wednesday night there were two other cars in front of us turning into the car park ie. no queue and little to no queue leaving too! the bigger fests seem to have their finger on the pulse
We were on the road in 5 minutes
Left at 9am
Last year at Leeds...
I went quite early in the morning of wednesday, got to the front of the queue, they waved me on the the second entrance. The road opens into a dual carriageway, with a 40 or 50 speed limit. All of a sudden we see too guys in red waving us into a dirt track. I didn't see them in time, had to go down the road, onto the motorway, rejoin the back of the queue which was now twice as long! :(
My mate needed a piss and my gf wasn't impressed either!
I went to the wrong gate at ATP once.
True story.
Had to walk five minutes to the other one.
Was mad times.
you started this...
what did you expect.
once i dropped my tin of sweets whilst driving. white powder like everywhere.
Turkish Delight?
I don't drive without Wine Gums.
wine gums are more cinema for me.
used to be boiled sweets for driving, but now haribo sour mix have kind of changed that whole market.
Passengers have no right getting pissy with the driver
Hope you told them as much
I'm slightly concerned
about getting to latitude by car (from Leeds). According to internet directions I hardly ever go on a motorway (the A1 really isn't a motorway!) and it will take over 5 hours!
Yep its slow
The roads get smaller and smaller the closer you get to latitude. The best thing about Norfolk and Suffolk, Motorway free!
As for Latitude, no queues at all, just roll on in.
Reading roads clog up when the festival is on and getting out of the car park used to be bad
But the last few years have been positively uneventful.
Reading roads clog up
regardless of whether the festival is on or not!
^this
Leeds 04
we got a taxi from the station and got stuck in a fair bit of traffic. To lighten the mood the cheerful indian taxi driver would stop to talk to tickets touts trying to sell tickets by the side of the road, bartering prices with them until the traffic began moving again at which point he'd tell them to piss off and drive on!
Pretty much every time
My friends and I travel to a gig, something goes wrong.
The worst one was being stuck in a broken down car in the middle lane of the M6 on the way to Manchester, as traffic whizzed past.
Wait... nooooo... the worst was travelling to Reading 2000 when a tire burst at speed, causing us to go careering into a bank and then rolling over. amazingly no-one was hurt, and parents arrived to take us onward to the festival... ahhh... parents are so great. Amazing times.
There's a lot more but I have to go... we are terribly unlucky
I remember missing
the 16 and a half hour traffic jam at Phoenix 96 by about half an hour. Which was nice.
Also turned up two years before in a camper van on the back of an AA lorry. I'm sure that impressed the crusties.
Benicassim in 2006 was a nightmare
Our flight into Valencia was delayed an hour. Get there to buy our coach tickets. There was one lady there who didn't speak great English. This was at 10pm. She informed us there was only one more bus that night and it was at 1am.
So we had to sit there for 3 hours, and then there wasn't enough space, and only by pure luck as someone got thrown off did I manage to get on it. Cab would've basically been the end of my festival if I'd had to have got it on my own - like 200 euro.
On the way back we were leaving a day later than the masses seemed to be. So I went to the train station to check it out. It was carnage. A gigantic queue to get onto the platform and all trains to Barcalona and Valencia sold out. A mass of people stood around crying because their pre booked coach to Barca airport was 4 hours late and they'd all missed their flights and people agreeing to pay 500 euro for taxis to Valencia.
As such the next day we caught a bus at like 6am to Valenica airport. We were bored witless at the airport for about 6 hours, but it was worth it
Oh man
Benicassim train station on Monday is always hilarious. A thousand sunstroked people try to get on about four trains.
first time i went to glastonbury ('97)
it seriously took us about 14 hours to get there. didnt get into site till 6.30am on friday.
in the back of our mates dads campervan... our giddy group of 16yr olds didnt really care though. ha. youth.
the other day
at neil young's hop farm thing. getting there was not a problem - eating a cheese and tomato sandwich from Marks and Spencer on the train and then a free shuttle bus, but getting back...getting back was pretty fucking bad.
we arranged a taxi man to pick us up at 12.05, about an hour after neil young finished as it was the only time available and that was ok, we only managed to get out of the gate at that time, but then he got lost. a taxi man, with a GPS got lost and took about an hour to find us and take us back to london. then i had to take three night buses home and finally got home at around 4am. pretty bad. all other festival times have been fine.
We almost crashed into a tractor this year
Down some country lane, it had pulled out to let us through (or so we thought). We went to go round it, but due to my mate's 206 being laden with all manner of crap, we couldn't pick up much pace
Then the tractor pulled back out in front of us. Due to the weight of the car, the brakes were shot so my mate had to just keep going wider hoping we'd get past it. We didn't, and ended up in a ditch. Unscathed though, so it wasn't all bad
Which wouldn't have happened, incidentally,
if the A303 hadn't have been closed on the Wednesday prior to Glastonbury this year. Didn't anybody else have this? Madness. Thank fuck for SatNav/scary country lanes
Whose idea was it to close the A303?
I got caught up in that. Funniest part was inching up one of the hills in a fully laden campervan, with an old woman in a Skoda in front deliberately driving in the middle of the two lanes and trying to block anyone from getting past her. Eventually, she went too far to the left trying to block the car in the inside lane and I managed to pull out and go round her - to which she responded by flicking Vs and telling us to "fuck off"!
When we eventually got off the A303 the sat-nav was going mental trying to direct us back on to it.
wasnt it cos of that fire?
Nah, that was the Thursday
The scrapyard fire was on the Thursday and shut the A37 near the site. No idea what the Wednesday was all about.
Glastonbury 1990
8 hours stuck in a car to go 500 yards to exit a tiny wee gate. 1 gate! 1000s of cars. This is after the travellers had kicked off. Bad vibes that weekend.
Then finally after we left the site this girl (freaking out on a bad trip I think) got into our car at a petrol station and demanded to be driven home. Screaming. Not cool.
Got home at about midnight. 15 hour trip. Hated Glastonbury ever since - have had to go back twice as well for 'work'. Horrible.....
^^poor lamb
*sniffles*
Sonar festival
Sunday, in a park after sonar weekend, waiting till it's time to travel to airport. Some dude tries to nick my bag, he does nick my mates bag. We chase after him. No luck. We tell the Police. I lose track of time. Now running late. Just make it on to late coach. Miss the last call for my plane by 5mins. Plead with security to let me on plane. No chance. My mate manages to catch his plane. I'm all alone.
Some dude misses the same plane as me. He just came from happy hardcore gig in some 'orrible resort that name starts with 'Playa'. He says 'I've got a place in Playa... Come stay with me'. I'm skint, stuck in Genova airport, I uumm and ahhh for a bit, then I say yeah, why not.
I ended up spending the night with 10 mad men from the midlands in a part of Spain that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. They had trashed their rooms and there was shit all over the toilets. I wanted to die. Later, they smuggled me into the last night of this happy hardcore festival. Girls in fluffy boots and bare chested men out of their nuts. It was hell. I got very drunk and got on with it. We stayed till 5.30am. I don't like happy hardcore as it turns out.
The next morning I said my thanks and goodbyes and spent the whole day being on the verge of puking whilst waiting for another plane – a plane as it turns out is full of people coming back from the happy hardcore gig. Rowdy lot.
Many lessons were learnt over that 24hrs. I won't bore you with them. God, what a fucked up day that was. And I had to go back to work the next day.
^^^
I think you win.
Sounds like hell
in every way
Glasto this year
On the way going form Nottingham, we were fine while I was driving then Lauren (happyhandsclub or something similar) took over and we ended up in Bristol city centre. I'm not blaming anyone but the person navigating though.
It started to rain, our apparently amazing mix CD didn't work and we ended up going through lots of tiny little villages looking for a motorway of any description. We kept pulling over to ask people for directions but nobody knew/was willing to help the annoying festival lot.
It was still a massive laugh though.
we kinda did this
stupid internet AA directions told us to go through bristol. was only a panicky 5 minutes though whilst we found the next M5 sign...
getting out of glastonbury 07 was a bit of a weird one. it had rained all night, but we hadnt really cared because we sat in a cafe all night on speed eating bacon sandwiches.
when it came to walk to the carparks though it was carnage. cars stuck everywhere with muddy writing on them saying "10 hours from here". some of our friends had left at 5 in the morning to try to avoid the rush, but we ended up walking past their car at about midday. the lucky part for us is that, having turned up on the friday our car was on the very outskirts of all the carparks. meaning we missed all the queues and drove straight onto the road :)
this year was loads better though. only 4 hours back to coventry with a few traffic jams...
On my way back from
Reading 2005, the train was so full we got put in first class. All the way to Birmingham. It was fucking incredible, such a good relaxing post festival mong.
someone clever
decided to carry out routine roadworks on the monday after glaso on a road near the festival.
We turned around ok, but i think the campervan that was much longer may still be stuck there even now.
I got stuck in traffic on the way to reading one year
my car stalled and I didnt realise because I was listening to music so loudly I couldnt hear the lack of engine, my car was a bit rubbish and my car stereo drained the battery. I couldnt get the car to start again, this was tight on that reading/festival/caversham roundabout. I think it was possibly the worst place to have ever broken down at the worst possible time. When I finally got there I couldn't get a ticket, normally when they say it has sold out they are lying but this year they were telling the truth.
Reading 97
I think i was closer than 2 chevrons apart to another car
Glastonbury coach drivers seem to be rubbish on the way there
One got to Glastonbury, the town, and assumed he had arrived, then preceded to get lost going the rest of the way there. Another one drove past the main entrance up to the drop off point so we had another hour and a half of queuing. Why are they so crap at their jobs? Can't complain that much though as it took my mate who was driving 14 hours to get back last year.
Also got lost coming back from Radiohead in victoria park when we decided to walk back to stratford but found out the route we were going to take back had a massive olympics site on top of it and ended up wandering along unlit canals in east london.
Our coach caught fire one year
We got the coach from London to Glasto one year, never again. We got within sight of the site, but the driver was riding the brakes pretty hard and they overheated. Suddenly the people sat over the wheel arches at the back started shouting and jumping out of their seats and there were flames up the side of the coach!
queuing to get out of the eits atp...
the driver of our car decided to push the car instead of having the engine on to save petrol. we were terribly embarrassed, but luckily he was easily convinced to be normal. fascinating, i know.
Supersonic 2005
mass evacuation because of a bomb threat in central Birmingham. I had my car parked around Digbeth, but there were cops all over the place and they said I couldn't move it. There were no buses, no taxi and I lost myself walking home because all of the city centre was closed and I couldn't figure out how to get to Five Ways
I was caught up in that...
...only we had to get back to London.
O MAN! ATP WHAT A NIGHTMARE!
We went to the wrong entrance and we had to back up, turn and drive 20seconds down the road! LUDICROUS!
In fact ATP at pontins is so small we were at the back of the site and only 2mins from the venue, brilllliant!
Not really traffic related but..
Reading 99 we drove down from East Yorkshire on the Thurday at 6pm we were going to camp in Luton then set off to get to Reading at 6am on the Friday (we had done this the previous 2 years with no problem)
Anyway we got all the way down to Luton for 9.30ish, pitched out tent and went to the pub - we sat around talking for the next 2 hours then headed back to the our tent, on the way back i casually mentioned where abouts in the car our driver had hidden our tickets?
Dozy bastard had left them on his kitchen table!!!
We had to drive all the way back to East Yorkshire then turn straight round and head back straight down to Reading.
Total nightmare
Last Year at Benicassim
I was stranded in Valencia because all the coaches, hire cars, trains etc were fully booked and I had booked my flights to and from Barcelona so we copuld have a week there before the festival.
Outside Valencia train station this random Spanish guy pulled up and offered to take my frinds and I to Barcelona airport for €75 each which was a bargain compared to a new flight.
As we drove down the motorway, there were a number of tolls and charges to be paid so we offered to pay them to thank him for the ride. He then took it a bit further and asked us to pay for a new tank of petrol, which we refused (the cost of this trip had now gone up to €200 euros and we had not even paid our agreed €75 euros yet)at which point he went into the petrol station to settle his bill and came back to the car. As he sat back in the driver seat, he started fumbling with something in his pocket. He started the engine and carried on back down the motorway. He then pulled a knife out and in the little English he know shouted €400 now. Between the 4 of us we had given him pretty much all the cash we had already and were really scared. He refused to stop and would not let us go to a cash point in case we went for help. So he made us empty our wallets whcih turned out to be €350 so the driver was prepared to give us a "discount".
He then pulled up at the airport, wished us a safe journey home and gave us his mobile number in case we were ever stuck in Valencia again!!
It was a hell of a journey home, crazy man
In the car on the way down to this year’s ATP at Camber
it was so hot and sunny that I got a sweaty crotch and had to have a shower in my chalet when I arrived.
Nightmare.
ATP is a fucking nightmare...
..(well Camber, anyway) if you live in Cornwall. The worst time was at the Mars Volta one, when my 2 chalet mates had a blazing drunken row on the Sunday night (threats to kill, a bottle of red wine smashed against the inside wall of the chalet, security called etc.). I'd tried to get an early night as I was driving but ended up getting virtually no sleep. One of my companions refused to speak for the duration of the 7 hour journey home, not even thanking me for the lift when I dropped him off at his house.
I was so glad when it moved to Minehead. Though due to some particularly sketchy driving we nearly didn't make it to the Portishead NBC in one piece...
not too bad really
Reading 2002: my old mini clapped out 1/4 way between home and the festival. Needed to get carried back on a flat-bed tow truck.
Car, seemingly fixed up by my very kindly and knowledgeable neighbour, we set off again (3 people, lots of beer and camping paraphernalia). This time we got to Pear Tree Roundabout in Oxford, half way to the festival, only for my little car to start leaking oil like it was going out of fashion.
I got towed home on a flat-bed truck again for the 2nd time that day.
Remember the eclipse
in Cornwall in 2000? We ended up walking alongside our car, pouring water into the overheating radiator as fast as it evaporated, in a forty mile traffic queue. It was still really great, though.
Last year at Glastonbury
it took me 13 hours just to get off the site. We "set off" at 8am, and got out the gate just after 9pm, after the longest game of dead celebrities in history. Nightmare.
This year, it took ten minutes.
Benicassim 07
We got a commuter train from Benicassim to Barcelona.
It was crammed with festival goers, and then got worse as commuters got on. I didn't have a seat for 6 hours and stood packed in like sardines.
To make things worse it was through the afternoon in the blazing Spanish sun. At one stop some Spanish lads got on, stole some girls bag and jumped off again!
To make things even worse, by the time we got to Barcelona my mate had lost the directions to the hostel and only remembered the name! No use for taxi drivers and we wasted hours trying to find it. Finally did and it was shut.
Benicassim
The most annoying thing about Benicassim is that it's such a mission to get to but I went last year and the year before and it really doesn't get any better.
I'm not doing it again, the bands were amazing but surely there has to be an easier way to watch them. Plus the line-up this year really isn't that good
Even if I was whisked home
in a bed on wheels driven at 20 mph, it would be a journey from hell. I feel so rough on the Monday after a festival that nothing exists that could make it any less nightmarish.
took me
15 hours to get to glastonbury from York!!!! ARGHHHHHHHHHHHH
ATP Vs The Fans
The journey there, we started off at 6.am all feeling hungover because we were excited like it was fucking christmas or something.
Drove down in an ex-AA van (complete with yellow flashing lights) with a mixtape called 'Start the journey...quietly' which had a mix of Sigur Ros, Elliot Smith with pangs of Melt Banana and Japanese wierd pop. Great journey and so comfortable as I had a captain's chair and an elevated height (VW's are so good for this) Whenever we were in a tightspot on a motorway, I'd seize at the chance to put on the flashing lights and cars would move out of the way, I thought I may get caught by police but that never thankfully happened.
We had a CB radio and tuned into a wierd conversation between to old truckers talking about Koi fish and the ideal temperature for breeding ??!! we would intercept now and then with random swear words or rapping which confused them no end.
Driving the small roads to Somerset was really amazing, nice scenery and a smooth ride, unfortunately the journey back was full of traffic and we were all hungover (one of my mates decided to have a hash brownie for the journey back, consequently he was wasted for the entire journey home) I was mildly depressed having left the festival wishing every day could be like it. The van was sold recently and I doubt my Mini would make it all the way there without issues. I do want to go next year like...
I don't have a
festival travel journey. Usually pretty fine. I just wanted to ask, does 'DIS-sponsered' mean that you're going? Or is there more to it?
Glastonbury last year from London
took 8 hours to get there, 14 to get back. Car broke down 3 times in total. Never again (both driving and Glastonbury in general)
Glastonbury last year
:(, and I live really close.
But THIS year, twas an absolute pleasure, wheeling a little handmade cart along country lanes to a friends house for a bbq.
TITP last year
Absolute fucking nightmare. Left Dundee Bus Station at 12.30, hit the traffic jam at about half 1 approx. 4 or 5 miles from Balado, took another 7 HOURS to get there. By the time we'd dumped our bags, put up tents very quickly so our spot was claimed etc etc we only just made the last act of the night (Arctic Monkeys) and had missed Bloc Party, the one act most of my mates wanted to see on the Friday.
8 hours for a journey that should've been 1 and a half normally. Nightmare.
Every year at the one ATP I get to...
..I always get drunk on the Friday, and spend Saturday being unable to move thanks to being sick that I always miss the first band.
And I did it again at Explosions ATP, missing World's End Girlfriend.
You'd think I'd learn, wouldn't you?
Fuck no.
Also lost it on acid one time during the Orb's set at Glastobury one year, not realising that a bright wonderful light in the audience was actually a tv camera filming me. Oops.
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