Choosing a Family-Friendly Music Festival

Choosing a family-friendly music festival

This summer we are determined to take our toddler to her first music festival. Here is how we went about choosing a family-friendly music festival.

We fully intended to take D to a festival when she was a baby. But for one reason and another we did not get round to it. So this year we have planned ahead and got something booked in the calendar. It would probably have been a much more relaxing experience with a pre-mobile baby. Oh well!

To the uninitiated Camp Bestival seemed to be the obvious choice. It was the only family orientated festival that I had heard of. But then I looked at the price. In 2017 it would cost a whopping £430 for the 3 of us (27th – 30th July 2017). We could go camping in Spain for a week for less.* It seemed like some research was in order.

Choosing a Family-Friendly Music Festival: The Research

First we set our criteria:

  1. Has a reputation as being family-friendly
  2. Budget – i.e. it must cost less than a week in Spain. Preferably a lot less…
  3. Has a line-up that appeals to both of the adults. This is trickier than it sounds.
  4. Within a few hours drive of London.

Then a simple Google search revealed that there were actually lots of festivals in the UK marketed as being family-friendly – who knew! I love a bit of research, so jumped right in. In fact, I find the planning almost as fun at the trip itself.

These are the sites that we found most useful in our short-listing:

The Festival Kidz website gives comprehensive details of festivals, along with reviews and advice.

We also found several lists of ‘top’ or ‘best’ family-friendly festivals such as The Guardian, Mini Travellers, The Telegraph and Mumsnet.

Armed with this information, we drew up a short-list. In our case, this was PennFest (22nd – 23rd July 2017), Beautiful Days (18th – 20th August 2017) and Camper Calling (25th – 27th August 2017). We’ve gone slightly off-piste as only one of those makes the ‘best’ family-friendly festival lists.

Then it was off back to Google to search for blog posts from people who had actually been to these festivals with babies, toddlers or kids (an example) and to check out the 2017 details (price, line-up, etc).

Choosing a Family-Friendly Music Festival: The Decision

In the end, we went for Camper Calling as it had the most mutually agreeable line-up. And appears to be a bargain at £151.30 for the 3 of us. Keep an eye out for the review in the summer to see how we found it…

Choosing a family-friendly music festival

 

 

*For those who are interested, the week camping in Spain in July price breakdown for 2 adults and 1 toddler is:

Flights with Ryanair to Malaga (mid-week, hand luggage only): £142

Car hire for 1 week (mini) with Goldcar Rental: £111

7 nights camping at Camping Rural La Cabañuela: £72

Cheap tent and sleeping bags from Decathlon Malaga: £44

Total: £369

 

The Places We Will Go

12 thoughts on “Choosing a Family-Friendly Music Festival

  1. Oh my goodness this astounds me that you can camp for less in Spain with flights! I am looking forward to seeing how you get on at your first festival ! A really interesting post – thank you!

  2. I have never been to a festival, my other half has been to loads but they have never really appealed to me I am sure I would love to take the kids to one nowadays though. Might have to look into doing one this year 🙂 Thanks for linking up to #ThePlacesWeWillGoLinky 🙂

    1. I’ve been to a few, but not for a long time… I think this is going to be a very different experience!

  3. I haven’t been to a festival yet. It is firmly on my to do list! I had this fleeting daydream (pre birth) about taking my son to Glastonbury when he was a few months old…. but then reality hit and, well, it just never happened. Thanks for all of these ideas, when we are back in the UK I will definitely seek them out. Until then, we have a week camping in France (Ile de Re) planned – and will play music through the Bose!!! Kate x #ThePlacesWeWillGoLinky

    1. I had visions of taking my baby to Glastonbury too – good job it is so difficult to get tickets!

  4. My husband used to go to festivals lots when he was at uni, we went to Latitude a few years ago just for the day and I loved it, we are just in the process of getting a new tent, so I am looking at festivals, but with nine of us, a holiday cottage for a week may be cheaper! #ThePlacesWeWillGoLinky

  5. Were off to Camper Calling too! Good choice! We go to VW Shows/festivals alot during the summer months but this will be the first ‘music’ festival – our little girl will be 2!

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