The perfect family mini-break: how to mix parenting with a good festival knees-up

Choose your event carefully, manage your expectations and you could end up having an even better time. By David Taylor
Lucky duck: the painting workshop at Standon was a big hit
David Taylor24 April 2015

You’re a diehard, fully fledged festival fan with enough well-worn wristbands to completely cover both arms. Each summer is meticulously mapped out from main stage to main stage. And then? You have a child. Ring any bells?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Rewind to the late summer of 2007 and while our mates were throwing shapes at the Secret Garden Party, I was trying not to throw up in the delivery room. And I wasn’t the one doing the hard work. Enter our son Krishan from behind the pale blue curtain, eliciting enough emotion from his debut appearance to eclipse a thousand headliners and fist-pumping encores.

But being a parent doesn’t have to mean the end of your annual pilgrimage to the green fields of Avalon (at least not after the first few months or so). In fact, I would argue that in many ways going to a festival with children is actually better than going with a bunch of mates. Yes, there are sacrifices: you aren’t going to be able to crawl through the Rabbit Hole at Glastonbury in the early hours of the morning or cram into the mosh pit and bounce along to Kasabian. But instead of rushing from stage to stage ticking off your pre-written to-do list, taking in the festival experience slowly can be hugely rewarding.

Away from the main drag of almost every festival are a myriad of minor stages, promenading performers, workshops and kids’ fields which as a non-parent you tend to stomp past, en route to catch the next big thing strut their stuff. Now you can explore and just go with the flow. Plus you don’t have to put up with trying to corral your camping party from stage to stage, while another has to retrieve their water bottle or stop for a banana honey pancake.

London music festivals 2015

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As long as you don’t assume you can just carry on where you left off pre-kids, festivals can be the perfect family mini-break. But you need to choose carefully. Unfortunately, the majority of festivals are wise to the fact that yesterday’s ravers are now parents who don’t necessarily subscribe to the two-week package in Spain as their only holiday. Consequently the organisers try to pitch their festivals, erroneously, as ‘family friendly’.

Just marking out an area as family camping, putting up a climbing frame and selling lollies does not a family festival make. As we discovered to our cost. The last thing you want is to be accosted by the saucer-eyed living dead returning from their night out when you are feeding your one-year old. Let alone the twenty something techno tribe who spend 24 hours sucking on balloons in the adjacent tent. But at least we got our own back with a wailing, hungry baby at 6am. So read the small print and check they really are family friendly.

In the past eight years and with Rohan joining his older brother we’ve been to a couple of festivals each year. Our favourites? Sunrise (sunrisecelebration.com) is ideal – small, really friendly with loads to do for the kids of all ages. Standon Calling (standon-calling.com) had the best family camping last year, away from the main area so no use to party animals – and it has an outdoor swimming pool, perfect for the little ones to cool off. At Shambala (shambalafestival.org) the whole festival seems to have been created with children in mind and even features a baby space in the main arena.

So start sorting out your packing list, invest in a bigger tent and we’ll see you in that rocket-making workshop in June...

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