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A DIY Festival at Home with the Kids

Festival Time

 

Summer is here and festival season is upon us once again. Across the country rental vehicles are being collected, cars and vans are being crammed with camping gear, food, booze, waterproofs and wellies. Seasoned festival goers who were unsuccessful in the annual Glastonbury ticket bun fight are looking wistfully at the reasonable weather forecast and wishing, once again, that they were heading down to Worthy Farm for one of the best weekends of the year. On the other hand, festival veterans with young families may well be thinking that it is probably for the best after all that the kids are too young for the delights and chaos of a music festival. Fear not, mums and dads, the festival fans at WoodenToyShop  have come up with a few (tongue in cheek) suggestions for creating your own Homestonbury or Housestock* this weekend.

 

1. Make your own wristbands: many years ago, before fences and in the days of, shall we say, ‘amateur security teams’, all you needed was a ticket (or a gap in a hedge/fence) to get in to your favourite festival. Once you were in, you were in and you could go wherever you wished. Nowadays, however, it’s all about wristbands. No wristband = no entry. It could not be easier to cut some strips of paper, illustrate them with felt tip pens, glitter or stickers and then insist on the correct homemade wristband for entry into the kitchen, garden or (dad will love this) the bathroom. You could even decorate some pretty ribbons if you are feeling particularly extravagant.

 

  1. 2.  Sit in the car for hours: get the whole family to sit in the car on the drive for at least three hours. This should be long enough to experience the arguments, frustration, impatience and shouting that take place in thousands of hot and sweaty automobiles in the final 2 or 3 miles of narrow country lanes before your arrive at your chosen festival.

 Monte Carlo Sports Set

  1. 3.  Pitch your tent indoors or in the garden: recreate that essential festival chore by pitching your family tent in the garden or (and this is more fun, isn’t it?) do the old trick of draping blankets or sheets across two or more chairs to create an indoor tent. You can then pile some sleeping bags or duvets inside for the kids to sleep in. If your tent is in the garden, you can also use a hosepipe (bans permitting) or watering can to ensure you experience the archetypal festival weather, in the unlikely event of a sunny weekend. In fact, if you want to do it properly then turn the hosepipe on while erecting your tent and make sure the inside is completely soaked before you enter.

 

Village Shop Village Shop or pop up festival food store?

 

  1. 4.  Build your own festival food stall: if your children are lucky enough to own a toy kitchen or play shop such as the Bigjigs Village Shop, then you can easily convert this into a pop up food stall and serve up all manner of play food or even real food if you don’t mind cheating and cooking some chips and kebabs in the kitchen. Alternatively, the kids could wheel around a toy barbecue trolley or set up a toy barbecue outside your tent if you think festival food is a rip off.

 Camper Van Mini Stove Set

  1. 5.  Make your own music: set up your own stage inside or in the garden and use the children’s toy musical instruments to form your own festival band. Be warned though: you may still need the ear defenders if the kids overcome their musical differences and start playing!

 

Janod Tambourine Perfect for your festival band.

  1. 6.  To mud or not to mud? Could you honestly declare your home festival a success without at least a little bit of mud? Kids love mud so how could you deny them the pleasure of a mud slide or a wrestle in a gloopy puddle? At the very least, let them go mad with the watering can in the sand pit. You can always make sure they take off all their muddy and smelly clothes before they come back into the house, which is exactly what my better half does each year when I return from my annual weekend festival.

 

Plum Square Sand Pit Probably a little bit too clean and dry for your average festival.

 

And there you have it folks. If you haven’t taken the plunge and procured tickets for a family friendly festival then why not turn on the TV this weekend and experience a little bit of festival fun from under a blanket in your living room?

*Apologies for the appalling puns.

 

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