Leeds Festival

This is the second time I have been to Leeds festival, but this time I did it a bit differently. I volunteered with my 2 best friends. And I had the most amazing few days!

We got theee best shift pattern and so got to see every day of music.

Day 1

Arrived in sunny weather and spent the afternoon putting our tent up and registering at the office. Then in the evening we cracked open the cans and got to know the people in the tents around us. And what a lovely bunch they were too.

Day 2

This was our first shift from 10-5 and it was simply just manual labour! If you've ever been to a festival before then you know how hard it is to carry bags across the fields to where you want to camp. Especially with the weight of about 3 crates in the bottom. Well we were just carrying everyones heaviest bags, and then putting their tents up when they found somewhere to camp. However we were often rewarded with some tasty snacks or a cheeky can or two which made the afternoon go faster!

The best tent was one where 3 of the poles had snapped, yet we still managed to put it up for them and it stayed up all weekend!

Day 3

After a relaxing morning we went for an afternoon shift, 5-1am. It was a fairly long and uneventful shift because most people were at the DJ parties. That was until the heavens opened at about 10pm and everything (literally through to my underwear!) was soaked. After that the typical 'festival mud' started.

Day 4

This was the first day of music and luckily our tent had managed to hold our through all the rain. So we set off first to see AlunaGeorge. On the way I got stopped by a modelling agency. This is the 3rd time in 3 months it has happened! Next we saw the Editors, which was the only time we managed to sit on the floor before the whole place turned to mud! We followed up with Frankie and the Heartstring (a band I had been meaning to see for quite a while), Haim, Disclosure and Fall Out Boy. We topped it all off with Biffy Clyro who were a-m-a-zing. I managed to find myself on top of a three person tower which was literally the highlight of my festival!

Day 5

There was less music I wanted to see on this day so it was all fairly relaxed. I ate some weird mac and cheese with mustard in for lunch, not recommended. Then we went and watched Bastille in the NME tent who is near perfect in my opinion. And later on saw the full set of Greenday, just so we could sing along to American Idiot. It was totally worth it. This day was memorable for Piccadilly party in 3ft of watery mud (which i dropped my phone in, found, and it still worked. Hallelujah!) until 4:30am and then red camp dj until 6am and then a looong trek back to our campsite. Had such a good night, at least compared to the girl we met whilst walking back who seem to have had a series of bad luck. Oh and I forgot to mention - it rained all day.

Day 6

This was my favourite day (apart from Biffy) by far! We saw the 1975 - who I wasn't hugely impressed by - before going to see Foals on the main stage. I have wanted to see Foals for so long that I may have weed myself a little when they came on. They were awesome. And it wasn't raining! We stayed to watch Chase and Status who were pretty epic. I was surprised by how many of their songs I knew, bonus points to me. Then, controversially to some, I chose Alt-J over Eminem (although I stayed for the very start of his set). Alt-J were incredible. I became a little entranced by their music it was that good.

We were then straight onto a 1-9am shift which was like living through the apocalypse. The number of fires we had to put out, thefts we had to report and more generally miles we had to walk through rubbish and mud I think I deserve a bloomin' medal! Strawberry and nutella waffles at 6am cheered me up slightly though.

One of the best weekends of my summer by far.

I am thinking about creating a post more specifically about my time volunteering. Its positives and negatives, how I got into it and whether I would do it again if anyone would be interested?

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