Wednesday 14 September 2016

Leeds Festival + How to Make The Most of Your Weekend

The Courteeners were incredible!


The end of August brought with it the start of Leeds festival, and a lot of rain but I'll get into that later. The line up looked exciting with a good mix of acts such Stormzy, Hannah Wants, the Wombats and Red Hot Chilli Peppers. I was very excited to spend the weekend camping with some of my favourite people and listening to some of my favourite bands.

We got there on Wednesday pitched our tent and made a Tesco run finishing the day with a barbecue, Thursday is when most of the fun started. We didn't watch many of the introducing acts but we did go to the silent disco which exceeded all of my expectations. If you don't know what a silent disco is the jist of it is you all go into a tent with a pair of headphones with two different DJs, one was definitely more indie whilst the other leaning towards house music. Its such a fun atmosphere, I would be listening to a song the red DJ was plying and my friend Tash would reach over and change it to green where a classic would be playing, it was perfect. Then taking your headphones off the whole tent would be singing together to no music and it was just very cool. Friday and Saturday were full of food, tipsiness and amazing bands. The Wombats, Courteeners and Biffy Clyro in contest for my favourite. Friday night I even went to see Jaguar Skills on the Relentless stage which whilst not my kind of music was actually really good! The stage was in between two rows of trees and its amazing.


The Relentless Stage


Tickets for next year are already on sale so instead of just recapping the weekend, I'll leave you with some tips.

1. Early Entry

Early entry is only about £20 more and is so worth it, we got to the campsite about 2pm on Wednesday and we struggled to find a spot (even though in the end ours was pretty good). People who were coming in on Thursday I felt sorry for, especially since it had started raining the tents on the outside were literally just swimming in the mud.


2. Be Prepared

It rained quite a bit and I am so glad that I had packed wellies, a rain coat and lots of baby wipes. Even is you don't think its gonna rain, its good to be prepared the mud gets insane and it got to the point where people (Bradley) were losing their wellies in the mud. Don't be that girl who wore brand new new balance...

























3. Be flexible

I had a plan of everyone I wanted to see and the ones that I really did not want to miss I went to see, the wombats (amazing) the vaccines (not so amazing unfortunately), we couldn't even get close enough to listen to Russell Howard so we went to see Churches instead because one of our group wanted to go who were good! Then instead of seeing The 1975 whose songs I know all the words to, purely because I wasn't that excited to see them, I went to watch Biffy Clyro (which is a band not a single person by the way) and they were so good. It was an amazing performance and I had a great carefree night under the stars to the best music. Then we had agreed to watch half of twenty one pilots and half of Foals but we only ended up seeing one of Foals songs because our friend who wanted to see it didn't want to leave (the drummer was crowd surfing whilst playing the drums I wouldn't have wanted to leave ether). So don't set an exact plan, find the people you are desperate to see and embrace the artists that you've never heard of before. You might find someone you like even more.


So whether its Leeds, Reading, Glastonbury or V Fest! Find a festival with a great line up and go! I can promise you that you won't regret it. Unless you don't like getting down and dirty, then maybe get a day ticket...