The best & worst of Bestival

Just back from Bestival on the Isle of Wight, and thought I’d post a few musings on what the festival gets right and where it could be improved, for what it’s worth. Overall, though, a WIN for Bestival.

Bestival

1. Setting. Bit of an arse to get to, being on the Isle of Wight and all that, but the country park is GREAT. Little cafe things, nice foresty bits, odd fibreglass statues of badly-modelled giraffes, and you have to walk through a GIFT SHOP to get in.

2. Lineup. My Bloody Valentine, Aphex Twin, Zombie Zombie, Chrome Hoof and lots of other treats. Dribble, mmm. Yes please.

3. Toilets. Not to be underestimated at a festival, of course. And they did a good job of supplying toilets that not only weren’t THE BOWELS OF HELL, but sometimes had toilet paper and that brilliant see-through hygienic gel, which I need to install in my bathroom.

4. Dunkirk spirit. The fancy dress thing could have gone two ways. On the one hand, there’s nothing sadder than a grown man dressed as a Power Ranger crying through three feet of mud. On the other hand, thousands of people trooping through the mud dressed as fish, divers, pirates and all manner of assorted aquatic characters was a show of sartorial defiance against the elements that was quintessentially British.

5. Lovely regular buses. Assuming you left any time before Monday morning, getting back to civilisation in the form of gift shop ‘n’ amusement arcade-stuffed ferry port town Ryde was made really easy.

Could-do-better-ival (sorry)

1. Signposts. As in any of them. They’re very good at erecting brightly-painted twee wooden panels covered in sea creatures, but if you want a sign telling you which way to the camping/main stage/exit/first aid or indeed what the stages are called, then look elsewhere.

2. Well-informed stewards. Few of the stewards on Friday seemed to know where anything was. Including the entire camping area. Arriving on site in torrential rain with no signposts and stewards who didn’t know where the camping area for THIRTY THOUSAND PEOPLE was located was not the best start to the festival.

3. Not the apocalypse. Hardly their fault, but utterly apocalyptic weather doesn’t half take the festival spirit out of you. So much mud. Full Metal Jackets meets the swamp scene from The Neverending Story. AAGH.

4. What? Who When? This might have just been a press thing, but there was no sign of a stage times/lineups sheet or mini-programme provided upon entry, so we were effectively flying blind as to who was on where at what time. It was only in hurrying past a tent on the way to catch MBV that we noticed The Breeders through a crack in the canvas. No good!

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