Family friendly music festivals

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We didn't go to Glastonbury but watched a fair bit on telly and the kids decided that they really wanted to go. However, they are only 4 and 6 years old so I was wondering if anyone knew of any family friendly festivals (in that there's maybe a family camping bit were they can get some sleep and not be fallen on in the night by some pissed up chap. I'm not suggesting a tweenies concert as they like current stuff but Reading might be a bit full on as their first go. We live in Berkshire so anything down south would be easier.

Thanks,

Mark

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Superb, thanks

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Someone at work has just told me about zapfest in oxford. I've never heard of any of the bands but it's saturday only and won't cost the earth so I can try the kids out at that and go from there

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williamp said:

And summer sundae- its in the City centre, so some nice hotels around

http://www.summersundae.com/?cat_id=1&level=1

That looks like a good one too. We have friends in Leicester too... hmmm.

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Plotloss said:

for future reference glasto has family camping.

So I understand. We've never really considered taking them to one before we were watching the coverage at the weekend. The wife and I haven't been to one for year and it's only this year that the kid's interest in music has really taken off. If they take to it we'll do glastonbury next year hopefully.

Plotloss said:

we're taking our daughter to the ben and jerrys festival on clapham common, free ice cream, variety of bands and easy to get to and from worth a look

That sounds good too. So much stuff on. Free ice-cream - lol... good luck with that

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esselte said:

Tuna said:

It might be worth checking out any local folk festivals. Sounds weird I know, but our local one (Cambridge Folk Festival) combines more mainstream music with the beardie-nose flute players and is a cracking family weekend.

We used to go here quite often Towersey

A bit "Folky" but great for kids and a really relaxed atmosphere

That looks like a good one do to the first camping effort at.

I never realised all this stuff was going on so near me.

Thanks all

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Chris71 said:

I wouldn't say Glasto is un-family-friendly in the first place. There's a huge amount of more genteel entertainment on offer (including all the usual kids stuff) and reasonably quiet family camping areas.

Depends what you want - this year I found the best stuff at Glasto was once again the lesser known bands on the smaller stages and I guess you could have that, combined with lesser crowds and cheapers prices at one of the smaller festivals. If however, you specifically want to go to Glastonbury, but you're worried about the family aspect I'd be tempted to give it a go anyway.

Sorry, I didn't mean that we thought Glastonbury wasn't family friendly but simply that it didn't occur to us to go with the kids until we were watching the tv coverage and the kids said that they wanted to go. Sadly it was a bit too late at that point to go.

Also, with young kids, you want to check out a slightly cheaper option for the first time you go to anything simply because you could get there and 10 minutes later they might decide that they wanted to watch it on the telly in preference

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Right, a plan has formulated. A mate is playing with his band at a (very (very)) small festival up north in a couple of weeks so what we're going to do is kill two birds with one stone and head up there to see them and get a flavour of the "seeing bands in a field" thing with the kids. If they like that then we'll try one of the bigger local festivals and go from there.

It's no glastonbury but if you're in the cheshire area... http://www.whatfest.co.uk/

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sjg said:

Don't forget hearing protection for the kids too if you'll be going closer to the stage - the SPLs can be very high indeed.

Good call, thanks