By Leo Stiles
As the World Cup moves in to its later stages, the summer will begin to get back to normal with blockbusters in cinemas and music festivals at the weekends. On July 9, Oxegen, the biggest music event of the summer will kick off. This year it’s looking like it will be one for the record books, with an unbeatable line-up of acts and the very real possibility of some fine weather for a change.
Even for those of you who know what to expect, three days of music, alcohol and debauchery can take its toll, leaving even the best kept man looking like an extra from Dawn of the Dead. Things can get even worse for the uninitiated, with tent accidents and poor clothing choices quickly resulting in a world of pain.
Fortunately, JOE has seen and done it all before and has the scars to prove it, so we thought we might as well give you the benefit of our mistakes as we present the ultimate Oxegen survival guide.
Getting Ready
If your preparation usually involves a trip to the cash machine and the purchase of two slabs of Dutch Gold, then you’re probably not going to need to read much further. If on the other hand you want to go to the festival, have a laugh, party till dawn and hopefully wake up with somebody that looks as good in the morning as they did at 4am, then read on.
One truism is that the weather dictates everything at a festival, from clothes to tents so it pays to know the forecast before you go. Unfortunately another truism is that Irish weather forecasts are only good for ogling Irish weather girls and have been known to be a bit unreliable. If it’s been raining during the week expect mud, lots of mud, from the car park to the campsite, so runners are out and wellingtons are in.
Getting There
There are good few transport options available and your choice will depend on personal preference and how many of you there are in your group. There are pros and cons to all of them with bringing a car giving you extra haulage and using the bus or park and ride services giving you ease of access. Early starts are a must and will allow you to avoid the worst of the traffic and entrance delays. If you can get an extra day off work, you can drive up to the car park on the Thursday which is a great way of beating the stampede for the Friday’s 1.30pm festival opening.
Camping and Tents
Have a look at the specifications of your tent because not all tents are made equal. Shower proof is NOT rain proof; it means that the tent will just about repel flecks of sweat from the armpits of people passing by, but not much else. Ultra cheap options from your local Dunnes Stores might make financial sense, but when the rain pours down and you find yourself trapped in the tent equivalent of the Titanic, remember that we told you so.
Boutique camping options aren’t cheap, starting at €650 for a 2sleeper beach hut (garden shed), so it might be worth investing in a large tent and airbeds if its comfort you seek.
Picking a good spot is equally important and camping next to the site shops may seem like a good idea, but when they are blaring music at five in the morning you’re going to be glad of the distance you put between you and them.
A good sleeping bag is worth its weight in gold, it might be 25 degrees by day but after dark all that heat is going to disappear, so go the extra mile. When you offer someone the chance to see your tent, that offer will be that more enticing if you can add that you have the same sleeping bag that Ranulph Fiennes uses.
A small head torch is a campers best friend, as are a supply of munchies for when you can’t be bothered trudging to the shop. Optional extras that will be a bitch to carry but make it all the more civilized are an air mattress, fold up chairs and a gazebo but it’s really down to how much you want to bring with you or buy there.
One last camping tip: remove your wellies before you enter the tent, but don’t leave them standing up outside… they’ll become urinals.
What to wear, and what not to
It might be second nature to many of you to pack your best pair of jeans but as far as festivals go there is nothing worse than denim. If it’s a scorcher then you will probably get away with them but if it’s all-day rain, then your jeans will drive you demented as they retain every drop of water and once soaked, they will stay that way. Combats or shorts are lighter and infinitely more comfortable and if they do get soaked, they stand a far better chance of drying out.
Packing light and disposable is the only other rule. A combination of weather, alcohol and fast food can often see you leave with far less clothing than when you first pitched your tent. If you are hoping to pull during the weekend, remember that fancy clothes do not make the man at music festivals and a clean t-shirt will do just fine if deployed with your winning personality, so leave the Louis Vuitton shirts at home.
If you want to stand out a little more; ironic or amusing shirts will ensure people slow down long enough to read them, giving you an in. But this doesn’t mean that you can wear that ‘show me your boobs’ t-shirt because if you do, the only boobs you will see will be on the guy camped across from you. We’re talking stuff by people like Hairy Baby.
Getting down to the essentials, you need: a hoodie, plenty of spare jocks and socks, a handful of t-shirts and shorts/combats, a decent hat, sunglasses, sunblock and the ubiquitous wellington boots. Holding aside some emergency money is a good idea as there are always tons of stands that will be able to sell you some overpriced emergency threads.
Under no circumstances be tempted to wear your flip-flops, no matter how nice the weather may be. Remember, a Portaloo will often have more matter on the floor, walls, handle and ceiling than in the actual bowl.
Security
Don’t keep all your money in one place, hide it around yourself, that way it’s not such a loss if you do lose anything. Take out all your cards, except maybe one, and leave them in the car or at home. Bringing enough cash can be a tricky thing to gauge, but we would factor in a sickening €5.50 for a pint in the gig as well as all those sloppy meals, novelty hats and spray on tattoos you’re going to invest in… and then multiply it by two. ATMs are dotted around the site but the queues are so epic that they should only be thought of as a last resort.
JOE has seen so many people crying and moaning in car parks after a hard weekend when they find their car keys gone and have to get towed; the moral of this story is to attach such vital things to a chain and wear them around your neck. Do this and no matter what happens, you have a way out of festival.
Oxegen will have secure lockers, so if you are leaving the camp site you can deposit high value items worry-free and pick them up when you need them.
Mobile Phones
Get an address label and write the numbers of two of your festival friends on it, stick it to the back of your phone for the weekend. This way, if it gets lost and runs out of battery, there’s a chance that whoever finds it can get in touch with somebody and get it back to you. Honest people are more common than you might think, so if you do manage to lose your mobile don’t give up on it being found by someone decent.
Spare your battery if you don’t want to join the massive cues for recharging. Switch your phone to airplane mode to save on power and only connect to the network when you have to because coverage will tend to be patchy at best. Avoiding using your phone for anything but essential calls and texts should see your battery last until the end of the weekend. Keep in mind that essential texts do not read; “IM @ OXEGEN†or “IM SO WASTED!!â€
The secure lockers on site also have a charger socket (12v cigarette-style power outlet) so if you have a phone charger in your car, make sure to bring it with you.
Hygiene
Babywipes are the shower you wished you could have and a toothbrush and toothpaste can make you feel like a human being, even after a second sleepless night. In the wake of the swine flu epidemic that didn’t take hold here, the shops are now well stocked with little bottles of hand sanitisers that are good to bring along for the weekend.
If you really need to scrub up, then the showers in the blue campsite will sort you out. The queue for the showers will be massive regardless of the time of day, but when you realise that the bulk of people in the lines will be female, we doubt that you will get bored.
If you find out too late that you have forgotten any of these essentials then a visit to the site’s many Spar shops, should have you covered.
Anyone who has been to any large-scale event will recall the horror that is the Portaloo. These innocuous looking boxes hold within them the stuff of nightmares and are to be avoided as much as possible. But given the nature of the human body and the levels of food and drink most people will be partaking in, a visit to the dreaded box ends up being inevitable.
If you need to take a leak then you shouldn’t have too much to fear beyond the queue and the smell, but if you need to drop the kids off at the pool then we recommend that you try to do it in the morning when the toilets have been recently sanitised. Set an alarm if you have to because making the effort here will save you from the mental scarring of a festival toilet in a 28 degree heat after a couple of thousand people have used it.
Bringing your own supply of toilet paper is always a good idea and never underestimate the usefulness of an empty plasic bottle for peeing in; just be sure you can tell it apart from the others when it’s full.
Alcohol
Drink sensibly; alternate the drinks with water, especially in the sun. Bags will be searched at the gates and no glass will make it into campsites so decant everything into plastic bottles. Handcarts come into their own when it comes to schlepping drink and gear into the venue and means you can also pack a cooler which will make you a hit with your neighbours; who doesn’t love a man who brings cold beer.
Very little will taste nice when it’s hot and that cooler has limits but to solve this problem, Heineken are offering a nine minute can cooling service in the camp site. You might also consider pre-ordering your slab onsite to save yourself carrying it in, just don’t expect supermarket prices.
Drugs
While head shops may be closing there will no doubt be drugs to be found and all we can suggest is that you don’t take anything from anybody that you are not sure about. What you choose to do is your own business but caution is the way to go here as there have been many people who have horsed into ketamine like Charlie Sheen in a cocaine factory, only to wake up a week later in a hospital bed.
Every year the Red Cross deal with the fallout from people who take things they neither know nor need and spend the festival in the medical tent instead of enjoying it. Just remember, your friends won’t thank you if they have to miss every gig while they babysit your sorry ass.
Sex
Just because you are imbibing enough alcohol to kill a small whale, it doesn’t mean that it will make you immune from Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs). Alcohol is one of the biggest contributors to the spread of STDs and while a quick fumble in your tent might sound like a great idea after the gigs are done and someone has caught your eye, failure to use a condom might leave you feeling worse for wear when your penis swells up and starts seeping green stuff.
Worse still, many of the most common STDs like Chlamydia can be asymptomatic, so you might not even be aware that you have one with any further bouts of unprotected sex resulting in you passing it on; so be a man, pack those condoms and use them.
Enjoying the festival
One of the best and least expensive purchases is an Oyegen lanyard. The lanyard has a map, line-up and stage guide so you know where and what to get to. Decide on what you can’t miss and let the adventure take you where ever else. Try to arrange meeting places with the lads and make sure everybody knows exactly where that is, especially as phones will become increasingly obsolete as the weekend wears on.
Going home
With Eminem closing out the festival on the Main stage on Sunday night, the last round of partying will be a mission to drink through what remains of your stocks, find your tent that you left on Thursday and get that permanent marker off your face.
The powers that be will turn on speakers on Monday morning that only the dead will be able to sleep through. Sobriety might be an issue, so before you try to get the car out take a walk up to the Gardai on the gates who will be happy to breathalyse you for free.
Once you’re feeling better and below the limit you can drive away, just remember to take your time, drive safely and congratulate yourself for being a certified Oxegen survivor.
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