Isle Of Wight Festival

This year’s Isle of White festival hit the news for all the wrong reasons. As the summer deluge continued we wondered if we should even bother to attend — reports came in of people sleeping in their cars as they couldn’t enter the flooded car parks, ferry’s being delayed, gigs being canceled due to the high winds… its sounded like it was going to be a blast!
We decided to give it a go and it was certainly worth the perseverance! We arrived on the Friday and were directed to an alternative car park at Robin Hill. From here were were shuttle bused in and it worked like a dream — no queues and muddy car parks for us!
On arrival, we were astonished by the level of mud and ground water already accumulated, and we knew that this being day one it was only going to get worse! The camping fields were already jam-​packed and it took us a while to find a small space to squeeze in to. Squeeze in we did, and then attempted to put up our tent in the rain and strong wind — perhaps we should have stayed at home after all! Once we were erected we settled ourselves in to our temporary home for the weekend and started to relax a bit!
The festival itself is pretty well organised — wristbands were sent through the post, beer tokens needed to be purchased to prevent long queues at the bar, and the food stall selection was outstanding — we tried everything from tapas, to ostrich burgers, to Japanese to donuts.
The bands were an eclectic mix this year, some of the best were Madness, Noël Gallagher, Pearl Jam, Jessie J and of course The Boss himself, Bruce Springsteen. A large screen was put in place for those that wanted to catch the England v Italy game and there were dance tents and smaller venues for those who wanted a little less mainstream.
Yes, there were long queues for the loos and they weren’t always in the best condition, the walk back to the tents through the mud was tiresome and perilous at times, and our tent did flood on the Saturday night, but this is all part of the festival experience and those that stuck it out until the end all had a fantastic time.
John Giddings, the festival organiser, got a lot of stick this year but at the end of the day, he can’t be held responsible for the British weather and I feel that the whole team did a great job to ensure everybody had a great experience, regardless of the rain!

I try and go to festivals as often as I can. I have to say this is one of the best I have been to. We went as a group of about 30 and we had a great time. We also made time to visit the island which was great. Everyone should try and go!

Went to IOW 2007 and it was better than this year’s festival. Having said that, this year was enjoyable enough. Really enjoyed Zutons, The Enemy, The Kooks, Jolene and the Jing Jang Jongs, Feeder and James. Iggy Pop was a revelation and hillarious to boot. Can’t quite make up my mind about Sex Pistols. Ian Brown was shockingly bad. Pathetic.
We lucked out with the weather and the food stalls (if you look hard enough you can find some non-​mainstream really tasty grub — had some fabulous jerk chicken from a little stall tucked away next to the Ray Ban tent) but we were incredibly unclucky with our ‘neighbours’ back at the campsite.
Next to us was a gang of about 15 people who can only be described as disgusting /​horrifying. They had no respect for anything or anyone. They went ‘on the rob’ on day one and came back with a haul of other people’s camping stuff, like folding chairs, wheelbarrows etc, and were constantly going round to other people asking ‘have you got a beer for me then’ or ‘give us a fag mate, i know you got some’ even though they had plenty of their own. On the first night one of them ‘had a shit’, as they delightfully put it, next to the tent. The next day, he scooped it up with a bat and flung it away from ‘their area’ with no regard to who or what it hit or where it landed. As long as it was away from them. The next day one of them slung a half eaten hamburger in the same way and it hit my friend in the face. They demanded one of us hand over our torch, even though we were using it, because ‘he needed it’ and when we declined, he threatened to take down our tents. I could go on and on. They were horrible and could have spoiled the whole weekend for us if we hadn’t fought hard to ignore them and enjoy ourselves.
This year there seemed to be a ‘nastier’ element that last year. More cups and cans and plastic bottles being thrown around, more people being loud and disrespectful and doing what they wanted and to hell with everyone else, more yobbish behaviour.
This sounds really negative now! The festival was fab in lots and lots of ways and there were tens of thousands of people there having a really good time without making anyone elses life a misery! We saw some hilarious fancy dress outfits and costumes and witnessed some very ‘special’ dance moves and overall it was great.
Still. if i go next year, i’m going to be far more careful where i pitch my tent!

Went to IoW in 2006, and I have to say I wouldn’t really recommend it to anyone. It’s just far too commercial for my taste, rammed full of chavs, and even has a bloody fairground in the arena?! The setting is pretty nice, you can see boats going past in the harbour just behind the stage, but, well, I won’t be going back. Apparently bestival (same ground?) is really nice though.
Bring on Glasto

This is a ‘Big Band’ festival, not for the faint-​hearted. We were a group of 40-​somethings and teenagers, and we all agreed that The Enemy (Tom Clarke) were awesome. There really is something for everyone at the IoW, with the Wombats, the Hoosiers, the Sex Pistols, Kaiser Chiefs, Scouting for Girls, The Kooks and The Police to name but a few in 2008. Sting does need to retire, but (bless) he did his best and at least he didn’t need a ‘freeway’ to get back onto the stage (sorry, Iggy). If you’ve not been to a Festival for a few years, here are some top tips to update you
1. This is a hat Festival (or even, two hats)
2. The boys think ‘she-​pees’ are really cool
3. If you see someone dressed up as an old fairy, they really are imaginary