End of the Road Festival,
9th September ~ 13th September
My last festival of the summer and the first one I actually signed up for.
I chose this little festival down in Dorset because a friend of mine really wanted to go but didn't want to go alone, so the easiest and cheapest option was to... volunteer!
This was the first time that I wasn't camped with the other stewards, nor did we have our own facilities other than a medium sized marquee with the comms guys and a little kitchen where for £2 you could have access to hot water, bread, tea, soup and general snacks. Most of this was gone on the second day, I did manage to get a couple of bags of crisps and a roll which made up for the £2 but was a little bit of a shock compared to 3 free meals from Oxfam.
However the 'chicken guy' with his free wings and a whole chicken with potatoes (for 2 people) for £10 was a welcome change from the over priced festival food I had experienced so far.
I got allocated 'Main and Gardens' which is basically the Arena of this festival, I felt a little guilty having a more coveted position considering I actually knew very few of the bands and basically had a front row seat for all of my shifts.
Guard the Pond!
Yes that was my main job, guarding the pond/pool, it was apparently very deep and as part of the festival license it had to guarded and patrolled whenever the public had access to the arena. It was actually a pretty ok job, hang around an ornate garden with a grotto and a statue of Poseidon for 5 hours a day, occasionally telling the naughty bar staff that they weren't allowed to be in there (never had a rude comment from these guys, just a generally lack of knowledge that they shouldn't be there) and generally listening to the radio to laugh at what people were talking about and get the scoop on bands who had missed their ferry from Bestival.
I am glad this was my last festival of the summer, not only because I had totaled 3 weeks of Tent Living, but because 'briefing' consisted of a ten minute group meeting just outside the Stewards' Tent, now compare this to the 3 hour event in London that I had to attend and by had to I mean it was recorded and if we didn't then we couldn't steward at all that summer. This plus my 2 festivals worth of experience really helped me to be pretty confident in what I was doing.
Also a big thumbs up for the stewards wristbands at End of the Road, pink silk, it's like they knew just how to make me question my allegiance to the Dutchband wristbands of Download...
So an uneventful end to an eventful summer of free festivals, a lot of spending money and a lot of miles on my Mini's clock.
So I am officially a 2nd year of Events management and I already have my next stewarding role lined up.
Check back soon for the continuation of my summer of volunteering!
However the 'chicken guy' with his free wings and a whole chicken with potatoes (for 2 people) for £10 was a welcome change from the over priced festival food I had experienced so far.
I got allocated 'Main and Gardens' which is basically the Arena of this festival, I felt a little guilty having a more coveted position considering I actually knew very few of the bands and basically had a front row seat for all of my shifts.
Guard the Pond!
Yes that was my main job, guarding the pond/pool, it was apparently very deep and as part of the festival license it had to guarded and patrolled whenever the public had access to the arena. It was actually a pretty ok job, hang around an ornate garden with a grotto and a statue of Poseidon for 5 hours a day, occasionally telling the naughty bar staff that they weren't allowed to be in there (never had a rude comment from these guys, just a generally lack of knowledge that they shouldn't be there) and generally listening to the radio to laugh at what people were talking about and get the scoop on bands who had missed their ferry from Bestival.
I am glad this was my last festival of the summer, not only because I had totaled 3 weeks of Tent Living, but because 'briefing' consisted of a ten minute group meeting just outside the Stewards' Tent, now compare this to the 3 hour event in London that I had to attend and by had to I mean it was recorded and if we didn't then we couldn't steward at all that summer. This plus my 2 festivals worth of experience really helped me to be pretty confident in what I was doing.
Also a big thumbs up for the stewards wristbands at End of the Road, pink silk, it's like they knew just how to make me question my allegiance to the Dutchband wristbands of Download...
So an uneventful end to an eventful summer of free festivals, a lot of spending money and a lot of miles on my Mini's clock.
So I am officially a 2nd year of Events management and I already have my next stewarding role lined up.
Check back soon for the continuation of my summer of volunteering!
your blog is really interesting!
ReplyDeleteI'm going to glastonbury next week but paying full price, however I'm volunteering at End of the road festival at the end of the summer - Any advice??
Also, I paid my £50 - was that a deposit that they return? Hmm
After signing up, I've actually received very little in the way of response or confirmation - did you find this too? x
Hi Alice,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed End of the Road but I didn't pay any deposit, I think it's new for this year because of the number of people who just didn't turn up. My last shift on the Sunday eve was meant to have around 20 people on it, there were 5 of us that turned up. Whilst I don't agree with not turning up £50 is actually a lot less than a ticket and last year it was free so I see why people would do it and why places like Oxfam take a whole ticket's worth of deposit and also have a lot of systems in place to catch those who don't turn up.
So now for tips:
Take food, there aren't a lot of places to get food, they are all good but when you compare it to Glastonbury its like comparing a corner shop to 7 ASDAs :)
Take warm stuff for night shifts, waterproof stuff because if its raining you can't leave and also don't expect a break we just used to eat on shift and no one seemed to care that much. It's very relaxed compared to bigger festivals and the stewarding reflects that.
Also something I wish I had realised earlier would be to make sure you let them know if you don't want to do something, they are actually really nice and totally understand if you don't want to be standing on your own in a lonely part of the forest for 4 hours.
Are you working with someone you know? If not make sure you get chatting to someone pretty early on as most of the roles were in pairs which was ok for me as I went with my then boyfriend but I saw a lot of people who didn't know anyone pretty much ignoring their role partner and that seemed pretty boring.
In terms of communication I got nothing from January to August 18 (I just looked that up in my old emails) which is when I got sent my rota which is just a big excel of everyone's rotas so don't worry too much. I emailed Wicked Events a couple of times because I didn't know what date we had to be there and I was arranging things. We actually were asked to be there the same day as the camping opened which was odd as we were used to going 2-3 days earlier.
If you like working at End of the Road I would recommend working for something like Oxfam or Shelter because I like the idea of the money going to a charity rather than a festival just making a bit more but EotR need volunteers because they make very little in terms of profit.
Feel free to ask anymore questions as and when you think of them.
Thank you so much for all the advice! I got back today from volunteering there, and had an amazing time. Met some wonderful people and found that stewarding is a great way to make friends.
ReplyDeleteI was put at the garden stage/gardens which was fun!
Definitely going to volunteer at other festivals next summer, really enjoyed it! :)
That's where I was! Did you get to guard the pond haha?
ReplyDeleteI would recommend Oxfam if you really want to work at a few during the summer because they have quite a wide range of festivals for 1 deposit so that saves you needing to shell out a few deposits to different companies and then only working 1 with each. You also get a really good training session before you start and that lasts 3 years.