Just a Stage - One Father's Music Festival Experience with His Kids

When this dad decides to take his kids to a concert festival, he and his family must face the music together—from standstill traffic to finding water and all the issues inexperienced festival-goers face.

"I will take you to a music festival.”

Perhaps it’s because my children are boys, but when I’m on my own with them in public I’m often conscious of setting either a good or a bad example. I’m worried they’re learning how to be men from me, or worse, that they’re just learning too much about me. I’ve always been gratified by the extent to which my children have not taken after their father—they seem fairly confident, easygoing, and at home in the world—so I try to limit their exposure to the sight of me operating outside my comfort zone. The problem is that most things worth doing lie outside my comfort zone. Back in 2007 a music festival struck me as the sort of managed environment where not too much could go wrong. That’s probably because at that point in my life, I’d never been to one.

It’s already dusk when I arrive with the older two, having squandered valuable daylight hours in standstill traffic a regular festivalgoer would have known to expect. What I had expected was some sort of system for transporting our gear from the distant car park to the festival proper that didn’t involve me just carrying everything. There isn’t. They do have a system for taking my two bottles of red wine off me at the gate, though.

“No glass,” says the gatekeeper. 

“How convenient,” I say.

“You can either drink it here or leave it here,” he says. This is precisely one of those instances where I’m conscious of setting an example. I can’t down two bottles of wine in front of my children. What about one bottle? Half a one?

“Hang on,” I say. I shrug off all my baggage and pull a full 1.5 liter plastic water bottle from my rucksack.

“Drink,” I say to the oldest. “Drink a lot.” I pass it to the middle one and command him to do the same. I take a large swig and pour the rest on the ground. The two bottles of wine fill it to the brim. They’re not the same kind of wine—they’re not even from the same region—but the situation warrants desperate measures.