How to Make the Most of a Rainy Family Festival Experience

Joanna Armah-Kinson Author

Jun 08, 2024 |

British summers are filled with rain so your next festival may well be a wet one. But just how do you make the most of a rainy family festival?

How to Make the Most of a Rainy Family Festival Experience.

Have you got tickets to family festival, but your worried because the weather forecast is for rain all weekend?

Even if it isn’t the case this time, the chances it will be on another occasion because it’s the British summer and that always involves a good chance of rain.

During the decade we’ve been going to festivals, we’ve danced in puddles, been towed out of the mud by tractors, had acts interrupted by thunderstorms and even had a lightning strike on site (no one was hurt, thankfully).

Last weekend saw the start of festival season in the UK with lots of big names such as Shindig, Elderflower Fields and Bearded Theory all holding their 2024 events. As often happens, the glorious British weather threw a spanner in the works, with substantial rainfall both in the week preceding and during the festivals themselves.

The online communities for these events were filled with worried people wondering what to take, how to cope, and in some cases, whether they should they even bother going with such terrible weather forecast for the weekend.

I thought I’d write this quick blog in response, so that if and when it happens to you, you have all of the information you need in one place.

Because let’s be honest - if you go to British family festivals even semi-regularly, it is going to be rainy at, at least one of them!

1. Be prepared to Get Stuck

Rain + Fields + Thousands of Vehicles & People = Mud, mud, glorious mud.

We live very close to Bearded Theory. This year they opened a day early to cope with some new traffic restrictions on the main routes in. It was definitely a great plan.

Unfortunately, it coincided with the heavens opening and something like 3 summers worth of rain falling in one day (technically it was a month’s worth in a day, but it felt like 3 summers when I was doing the school run).

For the first time ever that I know of, cars and vans were being towed ONTO a festival site.

However unusual that may have been, a festival doesn’t have to start like this, for it to end like it. If it’s been a wet few weeks anyway, you may find the mud takes over even if it doesn’t rain too much during the festival itself.

Wet ground plus lots of unusual traffic can make for a lot of stuck vehicles.

Be prepared

Check your tyres have good grip and ensure that you have a towing hook accessible.

Most festivals will have people ready to help you get unstuck, whether it’s local land owners or organizations like Peak 4x4, a brilliant bunch of volunteers who work tirelessly all summer long getting people safely home from festivals all over the UK.

When you get there

Once you start driving on grass, do it slowly in a low gear.

If possible, always keep moving. Going slowly but consistently is much better than stopping and starting.

If you do start to feel the vehicle losing traction move your steering wheel a short way left and right to move the wheels around and dislodge any mud stuck in your tyre tracks.

When you want to Leave

Remember, that the thousands of people who parked near you also want to get home as quickly and safely as possible. So don’t forget #4!

Wait your turn, and do what your told and you'll have been towed out and be on your way in no time.

Finally, once you are home make sure the mud is washed off your vehicle as it can cause problems if left.

2. Set up Well to stay Dry

One of the best things about family festival fashion is that anything goes. So wear whatever you need to stay as dry as you can!

You can get some great all in one waterproofs and ponchos and wellie design has certainly come along way since you used only be able to choose between black, green and blue ones.

A few more tips on staying dry:

• Put your tents up properly. I know, sounds basic. But we’ve been known to not carry the internal section of our tent from the car as we had too much stuff and thought we could cope without it! Big mistake. The inners are there to help keep you warm and dry and to separate out the area where you’ll be taking off those mud caked boots and soaking wet clothes.
• Get an internal clothes line for your tent so you can dry things out. Choose fabrics that dry quickly and easily.
• Pack your clean clothes in dry bags and then even if your tent leaks, you’ll still have some dry things to change into.
• However many pairs of warm, dry socks you think you need, throw in a couple extra just in case.
• Take good shoes with plenty of grip. There’s lots of debate over whether wellies or walking shoes are best, but the truth is that it’s whatever works for you. Just ensure they have plenty of grip and are as waterproof as possible.
• Assume you’ll fall over. It may sound really obvious but take your time and look where you are walking when moving between stages or you definitely will and if you are anything like me, it’ll happen multiple times. So get the waterproofs out and have things to help you do an emergency dry out in your day bag.

3. Keep the camera ready!

Mud is both sticky and slippery.

Having a boot get stuck in it and left behind when your walking is as probable as you sliding over in it. Puddles are great for jumping in. And when the rain stops, rainbows happen and the sun glints on raindrops creating sparkly magical views.

All of these make for unique photos that you can take to help you remember that year when it absolutely bucketed it down at such and such a festival.

You’ll definitely not get the same photos in drier years!

Whether your using a camera or a phone, its worth putting it in a waterproof cover so you don’t need to worry if it gets dropped in the mud or rained on.

4. Bring extra helpings of kindness and patience with you

Festivals don’t just magically appear. They take days, if not weeks of work to organise, build the site and get everything ready for those three magical days. There’s often thousands of people involved, many of whom are experts in their fields and countless others who do it not for money but for the love of the festival.

The organisers may have had to make lots of last minute changes to accommodate the weather, resulting in 2 or even 3 times the work for them. You can bet they’ve considered every alternative and tried lots of different things to make the weekend work.

They probably don’t need to hear you and 20,000 other people telling them how you would have done things differently and how much better that would have made it.

But they may well appreciate a cheery smile, a thank you and to see lots of people enjoying all of their hard work despite the weather!

And the same goes for the thousands of people who work at the festival. From the traders, to the performers, security and the people who clean the festival toilets their jobs all become more difficult in the rain. But they are still out there helping ensure you have the best weekend ever.

So please pack your patience. Accept that thanks to the great British weather it’s going to be a different weekend to what you’d pictured.

And that it will still be brilliant thanks to these hard working dedicated people. They definitely deserve an extra dose of kindness and appreciation for getting out there and making it all happen in the rain.

5. Focus on the Good

You could mope, whine and be miserable all weekend that it’s raining and you don’t have the opportunity to make the long lazy summer day memories you’d dreamed of. Then you could search out all of the other likeminded people who look miserable and are happy to spend hours discussing all of the issues and how miserable it. And finally when you get home, you could go online and be a keyboard warrior about it all over again!

If this is you, I respectfully suggest you give your head a wobble and question why you want to go to a festival in the first place.

Embrace the fact that it’s raining.  You are at festival and so it’s likely to still be an unforgettable amazing weekend. Different maybe, but still amazing.

• This maybe the weekend that Aunty Edna got her “mud monster” nickname when she slipped over in the puddle and then chased all of the kids around trying to catch them and make them muddy too.
• Or the weekend that the stage had to be shut for an hour whilst the storm passed over so you went back to your camp and played cards and chatted by torchlight (this actually happened to us).
• Or even the weekend that the sun finally started shining just as your favourite band played your favourite song with a rainbow perfectly framing the stage.

Yes a rainy festival weekend will likely be different to what you hoped for.

But there are still plenty of magical family festival moments to be had and memories to be made.

Embrace them and you’ll still have an amazing time.

Plus you’ll get bragging rights that you were not only there the year it rained but you had the best time ever!

Conclusion

Most people in this country are used to the British summer and know that rain is always a possibility when they book their festival tickets. If you really don’t want to be out in the rain, maybe a different, perhaps indoor event would be better for you.

Remember, it’s unlikely it will rain every minute of every day that the festival is on. Get out there and enjoy the sunny spells whilst you can!

By the end of the weekend those same online communities I mentioned at the start of this blog post were filled with people saying how it was the best weekend ever. The rain hadn’t stopped them having a good time, they were more likely to be moaning about the lineups/prices/neighbours singing loudly until dawn of course!

If your well prepared, go with the right attitude and relish all of the unique situations the rain brings, you’ll still be able to have an amazing time at your chosen family festival.

And if you want some more tips on how to best enjoy your first (or next) family festival you can download our free guide and get 24 more top tips on taking your kids to festivals.

Download it Here

Share this Blog Post

Categories: : Family Festivals, First time Family Festival Goers