Big Night In ~ Enjoy Gardenbury festival

This weekend I’ve been enjoying watching all the bands and soaking up the atmosphere of Glastonbury. But I’m not forking out for a ticket, I’m not travelling 200 miles and I’m not hanging around in a muddy field. I’ve created my own mini-festival experience in the comfort of my own home – well… garden!

Luckily enough most of UK festivals are being broadcast on TV and radio this year, and in truth, I can’t afford to spend a small fortune on attending the festival itself. I can however afford to buy a few essentials in order to join in with the festival experience at home. So my pals and I have taken the radio outside and as long as the weather says fine, we’ll be able to continue soaking up the Glasto atmosphere in the garden.

This is not only a money-saving idea, but it’s super-convenient and much more enjoyable (my cats are there, for a start!):

• I don’t have to stand on tiptoes in a massive sweaty crowd to watch my favourite bands – I’ve got a front-row view in front of the TV.
• No massive queues for pongy porta-loos – I’ve got a clean, flushing toilet just indoors and I honestly saw an inflatable crocodile floating in the long-drop loos at the last festival I went to.
• If I get hungry or thirsty I can easily get hold of any food or drink I want from the kitchen (or my picnic hamper!), without having to lose my place in the crowd, lose my friends or lose a pocketful of cash buying from pricey catering vendors.
• I can warm up inside my home and carry on enjoying the festival if it turns cold or starts to rain, rather than shivering in the rain getting muddy.
• I can wash at any time and won’t have to scrub mud-splattered skin, detangle dreadlocks or wash stinky clothes for hours after my weekend at Gardenbury.

So I’d say that enjoying festivals at home is a great idea. Okay, okay, I know it’s not quite the same, but maybe it’s the way forward people like me – I was more than a little miffed when my tent got slashed last time I went to a festival and I really don’t like getting dirty or – more importantly – having a kink in my fringe and no hair straighteners to sort it out!

So here’s what I did in order to get the festival experience at home and maybe you can recreate this big night in for yourself:

• You need shelter – from both the rain and the sun, so I put up my tent in the garden and filled it with a comfy airbed, sleeping bag and cushions for catching forty-winks in between performances. If you’re feeling particularly keen, maybe camp out over night, but I’m planning to head back indoors to my comfy bed tonight!
• Without the festival itself, you’re just a person hanging around in their garden, so bring out the radio, TV, laptop or iPad and enjoy performances by your favourite bands out in the open air.

• Food and drink is essential, so gather together festie classics such as pot-noodles, breakfast bars, packets of crisps and hotdogs and enjoy a drop of cider in your plastic Latitude cup, like I did!
• You’ll probably need a BBQ or camping stove to cook up your food (or you could just nip indoors!) and I’ve got a small BBQ that doubles as a fire pit, so I can keep warm and toast marshmallows as the sun goes down.
• Dress up in your festival finest and don’t forget your waterproof mac and wellies, just in case you have to splash across the grass on your way to the loo indoors.
• To get a bit of a chilled-out festival ambience going, I’ve got some solar-powered fairy lights and a couple of citronella candles to keep the bugs at bay.
• Most importantly, you need company – so invite over your other cash-strapped festival fans and share the fun with them!