V festival survival tips

V festival is an awesome weekend, it can also be a non-stop 48 hour party. Our V festival survival tips are designed to get you through the weekend comfortably and safely and make sure you get the most from your festival.

Packing for V

Although you’re only going to be there for a couple of days, packing for every eventuality is one way to ensure you have a have a great time whatever happens with the weather or anything else during the weekend.

Don’t go overboard with clothes. One change and some waterproof gear should be fine.

Both sites are further from town than you ideally want to travel so take your beers for the weekend with you if you can.

Things you’ll probably forget:

• Sunscreen
• Inflatable mattress
• Paracetamol
• Toothbrush
• Shower gel and towel
• Trolley to get your shit from the car to the campsite
• Soft drinks
• Bottles to fill with water

Getting there, getting out

If you’ve got a car the easiest way to get to either the north or south V festival sites is by road. If you arrive around Friday evening or Saturday morning you’re likely to hit traffic around the festival site. Earlier on the Friday or later Friday night/ early Saturday morning are the best times to arrive to avoid the V fest jams.

When you leave make sure you’re sober, the local police occasionally pull people up on Sunday morning (although it’s not as common as they’d like you to think). If you can drag your ass out of your tent early Monday morning you’ll probably save yourself about 3 hours getting out the car park. Leaving the car park can be especially problematic at Weston Park.

Public transport is ok but you won’t be able to carry as much stuff so pack smart. Leaving the festival on the trains can be a nightmare, try to leave as early as possible on the Monday else wait until the afternoon, 10am is guarenteed standing room only. Coaches are a good option as you’re guaranteed a seat, although you need to make sure you make your reserved time.

Camping at V festival

Camping is split into 2 zones, red and blue and you’re suppossed to camp only in your allocated zone. Although you should be able to get away with camping where you like it’s probably a good idea to stick to the zone on your ticket. There’s stacks of space to camp at both festival sites so arriving late isn’t as much of a problem as at other festivals like Reading, however the earlier you arrive on the Friday the better your chances of getting a decent spot near the arena.

Before you rush in and get the closest spot to the arena door stop and think, do you really want to be camped next to the busiest route through the campsite, downwind of the most dire portaloo’s and overflowing bins?! Unless you’re not really planning on sleeping (which is a valid strategy) the further away from the arena you camp the better your chances of a good nights sleep.

V festival shuts it’s doors frustratingly early at both sites with no music after 11pm, a rule they stick to pretty closely. That means if you want to stay up past this you’ll need to create your own party. To do this you’ll need:

• Stereo with lots of batteries
• Beer
• Gazebo
• Some sort of improvised seating area
• A loud mate to shout at passers by to get them to join your party

Some of the best times you can have at V festival happen at the campsite after the arenas shut.

On the contrary, if you have to get up at 5am Monday to get to work and need to catch some zzzz’s avoid camping next to a large group of Irish lads who look like they’re setting up for a 48 hour drinking binge!

On that note it’s a really good idea to take the Monday off work so you can enjoy the Sunday at vfestival to it’s fullest and get value from you ticket!

In the arena

The v festival main arena is where the live music happens, usually comprising of 5 stages as well as various other bars, food stalls and an increasing number of retailers flogging their wares to the drunken masses. You really can buy pretty much anything you can imagine at V fest these days. The layout of the arena is slightly different each year, if you buy a programme at the venue it will have a little map on it. Hylands park is pretty compact and gets seriously busy in the arena, Weston park is slightly more sprawling with further between each stage and therefore a little more space to move around.

When the gates first open to the arena on the Saturday lunchtime you’re likely to hit a queue, these usually budge pretty quickly, depending on the level of searches security are carrying out. To move through quickly have your wristbands visible and your bag open ready to be inspected. To avoid the queues don’t head down to the arena until an hour or so after opening (unless you wanted to see one of the opening acts).

See our section on drink, drugs and v festival for more about getting into the arena.

When you first arrive familiarize yourself with the layout of the arena while it’s light. It’ll be much harder to find your way around later when it’s dark, busy and you’re inebriated!

The music

I goes without saying that the main attraction of v festival is the great lineup of bands and artists it attracts. To make sure you get maximum value from your V festival tickets you’ll want to catch as many bands as you can, because of the way the programme works and the size of the arena it’s not really possible to see every act so you have to be organised if you want to see as much as possible. There are 3 strategies for this, which one you choose will depend on the sort of experience you want and whether there’s particular bands you want to see. Whichever strategy you choose make sure you either buy an official programme from the venue (£10) or download our unofficial V festival programme for free!

Strategy 1: Precision planning

You’ll need to be organised to pull this off and heavy drinking will slow you down! The best way is to sit down with your mates at the start of the weekend an circle in the programme the bands you want to see, then transfer this onto a blank piece of paper. The programmes themselves are printed on slightly annoying folding cards which are a pain in the arse to flip through to find the stage you want on the day you want, especially after a few beers and in a crowd.

In the evening give yourself at least 15 minutes to get between stages and into position for the next band. Remember to factor in meal breaks and trips to the toilet and bar (expect to queue 10 minutes or more for each at busy times).

Remember it’s inevitable that headline acts will clash at the 7-9pm slots. At this time don’t try to move between stages mid set to see bits of both band, you’ll end up not seeing much of either.

Strategy 2: The 1 stage option

If you’re not especially concerned with which bands you end up seeing a good strategy can be to get a good position at one stage and spend the day there. The advantage of this is you can get the best positions for the headline acts at the end of the day rather than being stuck at the back. You’re probably also more likely to discover some new bands which you wouldn’t of seen otherwise. If it’s raining though you probably won’t want to pitch up all day at one of the outdoor stages!

Strategy 3: The wanderer

Don’t buy a programme. Don’t even look at the lineup. Just turn up when the gates open and wander the arena looking for something you like the sound of. The quality of the lineups at V festivals these days means there’s really no completely crap acts so you should discover some great music on your travels. Oh and “who’s playing” is the worlds easiest line to break the ice with a girl or guy you like the look of!

Food and drink

(Beer is so important to V festival we created an entire guide dedicated to drinking at V festival. This bits just about soft drinks and boring shit like that!)

There was a time when the staple diet for the festival weekender was hot dog or burger. Now V festivallers have world cuisine options. At last yeas V fest we spotted curry, Thai, jerk chicken, roast dinner, Mexican, paella, noodles, jacket potatoes, hog roast, fish and chips to name a few (don’t worry you can still get a fairly nasty hot dog if you desire!). You can expect to pay premium prices for food as retailers basically fix their prices rather than competiting to supply the cheapest chips. Most meals will cost from £5-8. Breakfast roll type stuff £3-5.

Most of the food stalls are located inside the arena and will be open from the time the gates open rift up til they close. There’s also a limited number of stalls located inside the campsites. These will be open all day as well but do most of their trade on the breakfast market before the arena opens. You could queue for up to half an hour for your breakfast bap so do the right thing and send your mate up to get yours!

V festival is better than some other festivals for drinking water. You can easily spot drinking water taps marker with banners in the arena, they’re usually by the larger toilet areas. The campsite, especially at Hylands, is usually a bit crap for taps, you can find em but you may have to walk and queue. Take a couple of big water bottles and fill them up when you first arrive, there’s no worse place inthe world to be than the 9am hungover Sunday morning water tap queue! You can also get camping showers from camp shops which are basically just a big bag of water which you can use for drinking water or washing your hair! 1 last thing- for gods sake take your water bottles empty and fill them up when you get there, don’t be one of the mugs lugging 20 litres of evian on the 3 mile hike from car to campsite!

Remember to read our section on boozing at V.

V Festival etiquette

Whether you’re a lawyer or labourer everyone’s equal in festival land. Festivals can be stance places where the normal rules of British society seem to melt away for a few days. If it’s your first festival here’s some things you’re likely to notice at V…

• People talk to each other at festivals. Not because they have to but just for the hell of it. Be prepared to talk to strangers for no real reason.
• Try not to get annoyed with people pushing you in the back in the audience, is probably someone behind them pushing.
• Don’t ask other campers to keep the noise down because you’re trying to sleep
• Don’t push in at the loo’s
• Invite passers by to join your party or join in with others
• Let people look at your programme if they haven’t got one

Have fun, be safe and enjoy V festival this summer.

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