Bestivallers arrive at a site that's already muddy carnage

Bestival, set on the rolling hills of Robin Hill Country Park on the Isle of Wight from 5th-7th September 2008, is famous for its fancy dress-loving crowd. This year the fancy dress theme of '30,000 Freaks Under the Sea' seemed to take on a more literal dimension as the heavens opened and festival goers were forced to deal with rain that poured and poured and poured.

This was the first year Bestivallers have been allowed on site on Thursday ahead of the festival's Friday lunchtime kick off, and those who were there for the extra night this year told of howling wind and thrashing thunder storms that threatened to blow their tents away. As we arrived on Friday morning the site was already muddy carnage, making wellies and waterproofs not just preferable but indispensable, and my heart went out to those I saw arriving in trainers or shoes with looks of horror upon their faces.

Walking into the site from the car park we were struck by the over-zealous security procedures in place. Even though there seemed to be relatively few people arriving with us at 9:30am on Friday morning, there were still huge queues for security to check inside your bags and exchange tickets for wristbands. Even after we began our descent down the hill into the festival, at every possible point our wristbands were checked again and again. With the wave of tent-robbing that has hit the UK festival scene this summer, I suppose I ought to be grateful the organisers were going to so much trouble to keep undesirables out, but this did seem a little excessive.

Once in the campsite, it was instantly clear exactly how poorly prepared for the weather the organisers had been. The campsite was a boggy mess with none of the corrugated walkways I have come to expect in such conditions, leaving Bestivallers to struggle through the mud without even the hope of somewhere to rest and put their bags down if they didn’t want their stuff coated in thick, gloopy mud. With the nearest campsite that had spaces left a good 10min walk away, I was not best pleased by this and we saw many people slip and fall on the walk there, taking all their clean dry clothes and camping gear with them.

It felt as though the rain would never stop and plenty of tents had already been decimated by one night of such inclement conditions. Many people seemed to be packing up and leaving even before the festival had properly started. Clearly this weekend would be something of an endurance test for those prepared to tough it out. Fortunately the rain eased off just long enough for us to erect our tent and once that was in hand, we headed straight into the arena.

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