Is Boardmasters Worth the Money?

 by Juliette Franks

Having spent over £500 at festivals this summer, the question about whether it was worth it has been bouncing around my head as friends ask “Are you going to Boardmasters next year?”, or “Anyone going Isle of Wight?”. 

I camped from Thursday to Monday at Boardmasters, getting about 22 hours of sleep overall, and yet still had the time of my life. However, the ticket cost me £250, and I spent over £50 whilst there on food. So, on my tedious journey home on the bus I considered if all of that was worth the experience. 

Camping was probably the most fun part of the festival, although it did cause a lot of stress. The main problem was the issue of getting a tent and chair and taking it all the way to Newquay, Cornwall. Depending on how you were getting to Boardies, this varied in difficulty, I was lucky enough to get driven, and still struggled with lugging my tent from the drop off point to the Pipeline campsite, especially down the hill. 

On the other hand, something about the shared craziness of the campsite made it all the more fun. Watching people get into bins and ride them down the hill, showering with water bottles outside their tents, throwing chairs at bras stuck on poles was perfectly normal for some reason. On the Sunday night after all the music had finished, the campsite was a mess of collapsed or even slashed tents, rubbish everywhere and on top of all of that it was chucking it down with rain. With six of us crowded into my tent singing back and forth with another group across the campsite, it definitely became a memory I won’t ever forget. So I would say that if you can get into the crazy spirit of the camping then it is incredibly fun; however, if you don’t feel very comfortable with the idea of being dirty and slightly delirious for five days, then maybe it's not for you.

Being conveniently located next to the beach, the ability to get out of the festival and dive in the sea definitely improved the whole experience for me, as it meant that there was somewhere to go and something fun to do during the day rather than either sit in the campsite or being on your feet all day listening to the music that started at about 12:30. 

In terms of the music and headliners, I wasn’t too excited before and I would say that it about met my expectations. Florence + The Machine was amazing even though I only knew a few songs, Liam Gallagher was average although I know some will disagree, and Lorde was pretty cool but the crowd wasn't quite as fun as it was on the Friday night. Overall, though, I question why I spent so much money to go to a music festival when I wasn’t a big fan of any of the headliners, so the whole music part seems not quite worth it. I could have bought two tickets to see my favourite artist with that money.

However, when I consider it in its entirety, I didn’t really go to the festival for the music, it was for the experience and the time spent with my best friends in the crazy campsite, on the beach, waiting in a crowd in the pouring rain, or even singing 70s karaoke on a stage in a D&B tent. So in conclusion, Boardmasters was one of the best parts of my post GCSE summer, and definitely an unforgettable experience so it was worth the money and effort. 

To go back to my friends asking about plans for next summer’s festival season: I won’t be going back to Boardies. For the price that I paid, the music wasn’t worth it, the camping was quite stressful, and getting all the way to Cornwall is expensive. So why would I go again when the Isle of Wight festival for example, has equally good if not better headliners, camping, and is only a ferry trip away. 

Boardmasters was a one time experience for me: a fun, independent adventure with friends to commemorate our summer of being 16.