Festivals in NI with Camping 2016

Please find a list of Festivals for Summer 2016 - If you find I haven't included a particular festival, please let me know and I'll add it in. 

I have focused on the Festivals where you go and stay for the weekend (camping, campervan etc), as opposed to the town festivals of which there are many. A full list of various town festivals arehere: http://www.culturenorthernireland.org/festivals

Northern Ireland

Sunflower Fest

www.sunflowerfest.co.uk

Hillsborough Co Down

5th - 7th August 

Headline Act - The Strypes

Dalriada Festival

www.dalriadafestival.co.uk

Glenarm Co Antrim

16th - 17th July 

Stendhal Festival

http://www.stendhalfestival.com/

Limavady Co Londonderry

12th - 13th of August 

Monsters of Rot

 http://monstersofrot.com/

Letterbreen Co Fermanagh

1st August 

Ireland

The Sea Sessions

http://seasessions.com/

Bundoran Co Sligo

24th -26th June

Headline act Primal Scream 

The Rory Gallagher Festival

/www.rorygallagherfestival.com

Ballyshannon, Co Sligo

2nd - 5th June

Headline Act Wilko Johston

Vantastival (VW Campervan festival)

www.vantastival.com

Drogheda Co Louth

3rd - 4th June

Headline act - King Kong Company

Castlepalooza

www.castlepalooza.com

Charleville Castle Tullamore

1st - 3rd July 2016

Headline act - Caribou

Electric Picnic

www.electricpicnic.ie

Stradbally Hall Co Laois 

2nd - 4th September 

A quick kit list for newbie Campers.

This list is specifically for a couple, who are thinking of throwing a few things in the car and heading off on a mini adventure, It is inspired by an overnight camp I did in Corgreggan Mill, near Dunfanaghy. The nicest, craziest, most ill prepared couple came along and camped nearby me and I nearly wet myself when they tried to get a double airbed into a tiny, single skinned pop up tent. They were like an upturned turtle and the pair of them were in fits of hysterical giggles. We parted friends and it is in tribute to them that I write this post. 

Tent

Editors Choice Camping Magazine Awards 2014 chose this tent for good reason. It costs a shade under £120.

The Quechua 2 Seconds XL is double skinned, so it will keep you nice and snug in an inner pod which is breathable, will wick away all the condensation from your breath and will prevent your bedding from coming into contact with the waterproof outer tent. The tent is a pop up, so is easy to put up and although there's a knack, just as easy to put away. 

It's small enough you can probably dry it out in your living room when you get home. It's big enough to let you sit up in comfort, and gives you the space to get changed. It's super strong, even a strong wind will only flatten it but it will not break it. This particular one even has a built in light. 

It's a three berth tent which makes it better for two people because tent manufacturers are always a bit on the mean size when it comes to calculating how much room a person needs, and it has a porch for your smelly shoes, your clothes bag or for storing that little backpackers stove you've picked up to make a cuppa with. 

QUECHUA 2 SECONDS XL III ILLUMIN FRESH POP UP TENT - 3 MAN, WHITE/GREEN

Link to website

Argos Ready Bed Double

This is a budget solution (about £40 but often on sale) to a double sleeping arrangement in a tent. It is not the best airbed on the market, but then even the most expensive ones are prone to leakage, as anything inflatable is. I'm a fan of Ready Beds because they are one of the few sleeping solutions that have a sleeping bag built in to the design. It is essentially a double sleeping bag with an airbed slipped in to a big pocket on the underside. That means that when you turn around, the bedding stays put, and I find this far more comfortable than struggling with individual sleeping bags that twist around you when you turn. The bed is sealed all around which makes it a better option than taking bedding from home as you will have gaps around the sides which will let warm air out, and cold air in. 

The cons of this bed are that the bedding is quite flimsy. This can be offset by taking a big throw or fleecy blanket from home. And you'll be together, so you can keep each other warm. 

The dimensions of the bed are 180cm by 132cm. Considering the above tent has a sleeping area of 210cm by 210cm there's plenty of space left over. 

Ready Bed Double from Argos currently £28

Extra Insulation

As airbeds are essentially a big bag of cold air, if you have it adjacent to cold ground then the result will be that you will possibly get quite chilly. Counteract this by using a layer of insulation underneath the airbed. This can be something like cardboard from a local shop, or a foil backed picnic blanket. A few pounds spent on foam camping mats, or even yoga mats will help enormously.

These Yellowstone mats from Amazon are foil backed which will help reflect your body heat back at you. They are about £6 each and you will need two for putting under a double airbed.

A free alternative, other than the aforementioned cardboard, is if you are installing some laminate flooring at home keep a bit of the insulating layer that you put below the laminate for under your airbed. If you really have nothing else, a couple of newspapers spread out will be better than nothing.

Seating

A very basic seating area can be achieved with a picnic blanket. I think that if you are just trying this camping lark out and you are young and reasonably fit, you can't go far wrong with a picnic blanket as your seating solution for your first camping adventure at least. Then, if you really like camping you can start to look for camping chairs. 

These picnic blankets, from Home Bargains are £4.49 each.

I haven't touched on cooking or basic tea making facilities, because in my eyes you start to get in to a whole lot of extra equipment. However I would recommend taking snacks, drinks and a picnic and store food in an airtight container to minimize attracting wild life into your tent. You will probably find you eat out in the evenings at least. Just go, enjoy and if the weather turns bad shove it all in the car and go home. There's always next weekend! 

Sunflower Festival 2015

The Sunflower Fest has come of age. No more are we the punters struggling with unnecessary hardship, the place was clean, the portaloos were plenty, the mud was minimal despite some rain. The bands were fantastic, the food was plentiful and varied, and the outer corners held some special little spaces that you came across by surprise such the Coconut Water Bar, a lovely little chill out spot.

There were lots of little tweaks. The main stage used to have an undercover area to one side that was VIP only, now opened up to all who needed it as a shelter from the rain. A Marquee right beside the sound tent (mid centre of main arena) that used to be occupied by a frankly dodgy burger vendor who took up most of the space for his customers, has been vacated with just a few simply constructed low tables that served as seating and/or coffee table, under cover and out of the elements. The hot food vendors lined the sides of the field in the main arena and the prices were reasonable.No more is the guy that served one slice of pizza and a can for a fiver - now you can get a whole pizza, any topping for a tenner. Also on offer was barbecue sticky ribs, a Burrito Bar, traditional Chippy, Thai and down in the 'Bliss' Valley vegetarian Falfatel.

The band of the whole weekend, in my opinion, was a band called The Screaming Eagles. They are a bluesy rock band that are sharing stages these days with such big name bands as Airbourne and Black Star Riders. 

The Screaming Eagles

The second best band was called 'The Love Street' hailing from Cornwall, with a surprisingly celtic rock flavour and who won over the crowd with a rousing rendition of 'Whiskey in the Jar', always a winner in my book.

The Camping Bit

My eldest son and I carried everything in on one run, using a decent trolley and a crap one. The crap one really let us down and will be replaced before we take this type of thing on again. The little wheels just weren't up to uneven stones and grass. We'd worked really hard to condense all we'd need down to as little as possible, and decided to take the Quechua Base Seconds with the optional inner you can buy, to serve as our 'home' for the weekend. In hindsight, considering the weather could only be described as iffy, it would have been better to take something a bit more spacious. 

In all it was a lovely weekend and although we were tired at the end we were happy and a bit smelly. I met a lady called Denise who I'd corresponded with on Facebook prior to going and who turned out to be camping right beside me. She was working hard as a volunteer and I would consider doing volunteering there in the future, now that they seem to have sorted out all the teething problems five years in to the start of running this festival. 

Festival Camping List

With only a fortnight to go before the Sunflower Festival here is my guide to packing for a festival. Please comment below with your own suggestions.

This could of course be used as a basic camping list for an occasion when you want to travel light or may not have access to your usual transport.

The Sunflower Festival is on at Tubbys Farm, Cabragh Road, Hillsborough from the 31st July - 2nd August. Tickets available on the website.

The Sunflower Festival Website

Festival Camping List 

General

Tent of choice – choice of big (stand up height) or small (easier to carry) and don’t forget pegs and mallet

Bed of choice – foam mat or airbed or self-inflating mat

Airbed pump if using an airbed

Pillows, inflatable or from home

Three season sleeping bag

Waterproof backed Picnic blanket for sitting on and use as an extra overblanket at night

Eating

Cool box, non-electric and cheap. Fill with ice from supermarket and a couple of 1 litres of frozen milk. Use as an extra seat or use as a table for putting stove on (carefully)

Single stove with fuel canister

Collapsible water carrier or 5l sized bottled water from supermarket

Pan set with optional kettle

Tin opener/bottle opener

Mug per person

Disposable cutlery and paper plates

Roll of bin liners (tip – do not take a whole roll, take a used ‘thin’ one from home – bin liner can also be used as emergency poncho)

Tea/coffee decanted into a clip top plastic box

Leftover sugar, salt and pepper satchets from your local eatery in a Ziploc bag

Small Hand Sanitiser (lidl, 79p)

Matches or Lighter

Pot Noodles, rice crackers, breakfast bars, fruit, fruit loaf, bagels, plastic jar of peanut butter etc etc.

Personal

Lightweight back pack for day use (day pack – Decathlon do a lightweight one, £2.99 range of colours)

Ziploc bag with your phone inside it

Travel pack of wet wipes

Wad of toilet roll

Paracetamol / prescription meds

Smidge or other insect repellent

Sun cream

Camera

Head Torch

Wallet with one card (pre-paid credit card is safer) and cash
Ear plugs

Clothes and Toiletries

Wellies / second pair of resilient shoes such as trainers

Poncho or pack a mac

One change of clothes

Lightweight comfy clothes for sleeping

Jumper or warm jacket

Sun hat

Sunglasses

Dry Shampoo

Travel Wipes

Toothbrush/toothpaste

Optional

Folding chair, preferably one with a carrying strap

Toilet seat liners, ebay £1.30 for 10

Tip – if taking a car keep a clean change of clothes and shoes for going home in as you may stop off somewhere for a bite to eat on the way.

Tip 2 - check the weather and if there is any windy weather forecasted, take a smaller tent preferably a pop up tent which will be much more likely to survive gale force winds. The bigger the tent the more surface area which will just pull the pegs out of the ground. Take a selection of different types of pegs especially rock pegs which are longer and stronger than most. 

Stendhal Festival, Limavady

The great thing about the Decathlon Base Seconds 4.2 is that it folds into a circle which can be carried like a rucksack, making it ideal for a Festival situation. It is heavy, the circle is bulky too, but carrying camping gear in to a festival site is never an easy task no matter what and having a tent you can carry on your pack at least frees up both hands to carry other things. 

At Stendhal Festival only two in my family were going. Myself and eldest son aged 16. He's a big strapping lad of 6ft now and so he gets the job of carrying the tent on his back. I carry a large rucksack with all the soft things in it (clothes, blankets, sleeping bags etc). Then we have a trolley which carried our coolbox and everything else bungeed to the top. It was heavy going, festival fields are generally quite far from the car parking area, but it was doable! 

I've learnt a few little things about festivals now, although I am sure I have much more tweaking to do. I feel this was our best effort yet. I think I generally brought the right equipment. At previous festivals I've brought a whole kitchen outfit only to spend a lot of money on food from stalls anyway. This time I only brought tea/coffee making facilities, and I gave both of us a food budget of £50 each to do food and drinks for the whole weekend. A meal is averaging out about £6 - £8 with soft drinks being £1 for a can and alcoholic drinks (for me) being nearer the £4 mark. The £50 was about right. I still brought multipacks of soft drinks and crisps and also cereal bars for breakfast. There was one breakfast at another festival, when I had no milk left so went to the kiosk for coffee and something to eat. One coffee and a bun in a plastic wrapper was £5 and I had two of us to buy for. Ouch! £10 for a breakfast and still hungry! Never again, bring cereal bars and if you are even better organised, bring large home made flapjacks which will be far nicer. 

The festival had brilliant music with the highlight for me being 'The Plaintains', a local group made up of pupils from a Special Needs school. They did Status Quo's 'Rockin all over the World' and it was the most feel good band I think I've ever been to see. 

This Festival was very good value at £35 for a family. A far cry from the Sunflower Festival who put their ticket prices up this year and it would have been £140 for us both to go! 

Coleman Mini Table - Review

I have used this little table quite a lot now for over a year and feel that I could give an accurate review that reflects it's performance with actual use.

This little table won the Camping Magazine award in 2010. It is unusual because in this category there is no other brand making a table of this size and this 'folding suitcase' design. It folds up quite tiny, not much bigger than a laptop bag and so it is really handy even just to keep in the car. I have used it as a 'sitting kitchen', ie, I can relax on my camp chair and boil up the kettle and spoon in the coffee at the same time. Much better when on holiday! I also use it as a small dining table, three of us sit our camp chairs, which do tend to be quite low, and it's a better height to eat from. If you want to, you could sit on your knees on the ground. I also use it as a drinks table, plonking it right between two camp chairs it's just the perfect swing your arm from table top to mouth distance. 

Stock promotional photo

I am a big fan of this little table but it has one drawback. It is a bit wobbly on one axis. The longest dimension of the table is quite steady but along it's shortest dimension there's a bit of swing. This is fine as long as you know about it.

The pro's of this table is that it is a great height for so many functions, the adjustable legs mean it can be level on uneven ground or even gradients (although I hate pitching on a slope!) and the cargo net is utterly fantastic. Why all tables don't have this feature I don't know. Here's a scenario of why the net is so great.

Take one day, everyone sitting around and having coffee and a chat. Sometimes you reach forward to pick up a pen for that all important word finder puzzle you're working on. Sometimes you check the phone, just to see what's happening on Facebook. Once checked, you reach forward and place the phone back on the surface. Suddenly, it's lunch time. It's easy to heat up that can of Heinz Tomato Soup and it's served in big chunky bowls with a plate of roughly sliced up baguette. Oh No!!! The table is covered in pens and phones and sun cream and a pack of cards . No Problem. Just chuck it all underneath and enjoy soupy heaven and fresh french bread in a jiffy.

Coleman Mini Table 9 and a half out of 10. 

Memories of past seasons and saying goodbye to a faithful tent

Feeling a bit nostalgic about past camping trips I thought I'd look up some old camping photos, so here goes:

Following pictures feature a Royal Tarn 4, my two kids and one loopy dog (see if you can spot the dog)

An oldie, taken in France 2006. I took that particular tent to a car boot sale yesterday, and asked for £20 for it. I ended up bringing it home again :(

Same tent, taken in Benone in 2010, can't believe how much these two boys have grown since then! Both of them have overtaken my height, and it's no wonder we started to feel cramped in this tent when the only place my eldest son can stand is right in the centre.

Most recently this tent was used at the Sunflower Festival, August 2011. Not a bad pitch considering I did it single handed, in complete darkness, by feel. And that included trampling down the wheat (which was the designated camping area for the festival, I don't make a habit of trampling down farmers crops).

That trip convinced me we'd finally outgrown the tent. I thought I'd hold on to it for a 'borrowing' tent but as no one has borrowed it for one year I think it's time to get rid of it. It'll be brought to the next car boot sale, where I may or may not get a tenner for it.

The boys have outgrown our old tent, time to say goodbye to an old friend.