Volunteering at festivals – 22 essential survival tips

Being aware that 53,000 others would be joining us in our morning trip on the Shuttle into Newquay had incentivised us to rise at 5.30am for packing up. An all-night storm had meant that sleeping was not really an option anyway. The wet tent side had slapped my cheek whilst a Chinese torture drip from the tent top hammered my forehead for the duration.

The site now looked not dissimilar to the Somme. We frog-marched through the mire in the manner of the SAS for 40 minutes to the Shuttle stop. The rain fell relentlessly, unpeopled tents took flight, buffeting into us and the throng heading shuttle-wards grew exponentially. The magic staff pass still worked to allow us to join the shuttle fast-pass queue but there was still quite a mob at the front.

Each person having an enormous pack, loading the shuttle was painfully slow. The entire downstairs was given to bags meaning each bus took only half the usual number of people. We eventually took our seats and arrived in Newquay at 8am for our 2pm train. A 6-hour Wetherspoons stop was voted as the best option. The idea was that one of our group could take advantage of the free coffee refills and the others could wander about town.  Nights of no sleep meant that no one was up for wandering.

We arrived at the station with an hour and half to go. All the day’s trains were fully booked and there was a sign saying that only those with seats would be allowed to board. 3 different barriered queues had been created in the car park by station staff, one for each train leaving that day. There were hundreds of people already in each queue ,sitting on the tarmac. We joined the end of ours, wishing we had ditched the Spoons earlier.

 Sad and tired looking people who had not booked seats were corralled into their own area. There were rumours that they may be able to get out in 5 hours or so if not all the seats were taken.

Thankfully we had reserved seats. In a brilliant bit of foresight by the train company, our train arrived at the station an hour early giving everyone time to board, and empty seats to be handed out like golden tickets to queue Z. So far so good, but what would happen at Plymouth where we had to change, seats could not be reserved and there was no window for a hour long boarding session? I had tried to add reservations at the station the previous day but was told by a guard that this was not possible at Newquay as there was no ticket office,  could I travel to another station? I could not. An app which allows seats to be booked from 6am on the day of travel had told me there were none available for booking.

In the end, I hammer-headed my way onto train 2, running like a lunatic to the furthest and hopefully emptiest carriage to bag a seat. I won the race (a cross between Chariots of Fire and Splatalot), securing us all luggage racks and chairs. Less committed, slower runners were not so lucky. 

We arrived home at 8pm, wet and slightly broken, and never so happy to see a bed and flushing toilet. We did have a new self awareness that we could operate as first line responders in emergencies and, very much like Bear Grylls/ Ant Middleton, not only survive but march with packs after 6 days of sleep deprivation.