Are you more likely to be found in bed than halfway up Ben Nevis?
If so then make sure you take a butchers at our essential festival checklist before you migrate to a field for a weekend of flailing and fooling about.
Do not forget any of the following…
Ticket: To avoid heartbreak, keep hold of it at all times until you get your wristband (and then, for Christ’s sake, don’t fiddle with it, it will come off).
Tent: Even in the unlikely event that it’ll be warm enough to sleep under the stars, intoxicated campers urinate everywhere, including on sleeping bodies. Take cover.
Sleeping bag: Or a mouldy blanket from the Salvation Army stall, your choice.
Roll mat: Or an airbed if you’re over 25.
Boots: Vital in the war against trench foot.
Bin bags: Even if you don’t mind sleeping in a decaying cess pit of beer cans and rotting burgers, they make good makeshift waterproofs.
Toilet roll: Self explanatory but can also be used as kindling for camp fires.
Wet wipes: Who can be bothered to queue up for showers.
Painkillers: Don’t let a hangover ruin watching your favourite band.
Plastic bottles: For water and strong alcohol.
Toothbrush: No matter how bad you smell and how hung over you feel, a clean, fresh mouth makes everything better.
Mobile phone: Essential everywhere except the smallest of boutique festivals.
Solar powered phone charger: Don’t let a communication breakdown ruin the last day.
Torch and spare batteries: Because getting into a sleeping bag drunk is even harder in the pitch black.
Cheap ghetto blaster and a pile of CD-Rs: iPods are susceptible to rain, mud, and light fingered creatures of the night.
Waterproofs: Because English summers died in 1957.
At least one jumper: See above.
Sun cream: But we live in hope.
At least one change of clothes: Not compulsory but people might not come near you otherwise.
Cooler: Because warm beer tastes like camel’s urine.
Condoms: Even if you don’t get lucky, someone else in your group probably will.
