BEFORE THE FESTIVAL

DO....

Find out your mobile phone's unique security code, and pin it on the wall at home for your parents to look after, along with your network provider's helpline. In the event of you losing your mobile or it being stolen, you can ring home, and ask someone to ring the helpline and deactivate your mobile phone (along with your mobile number), rendering it useless - this is especially important if you have a contract phone, as some of the more unsavoury characters at Reading Festival will probably see fit to make some very expensive calls!

DON'T....

Get a new piercing or tattoo in the 6 weeks before the festival. It will be a bitch to keep clean, and you risk it getting damaged, infected or healing badly. For the same reasons DON'T GET A PIERCING OR TATTOO AT THE FESTIVAL ITSELF. It might seem like a great idea, but it's more hassle than it's worth.

CAMPING (oo er missus)

When setting up your tent:

DO.....

Take a look at what's around you! Look for landmarks so you can find your way back to your tent in the dark.
Get to know your neighbours - keep an eye on each others tent's if you're not in the arena.

DON'T......

Get pissed. Or at least not straight away - if you get pissed, and then wander off, when you try to come back, you may not find your tent ever again! Unsurprisingly, things look very different in darkness/daylight, and even more so when you're somewhat inebriated. Instead, take the time to get to know the site, what camp you're in, what letter, where you're tent is in relation to the arena, and to the site entrance. this will make things a whole lot easier (assuming you can remember where your tent is when you're paralytic).

DON'T......

Set up camp in the middle of a road - These roads are generally lined on one side with telegraph poles which hold up the lights, and there are notices on every pole telling you to camp at least a metre from the designated road. This shouldn't be too much of a problem as by the time you get there, most of the roads should have been established, (there will be 3m wide metal gridding laying down the main roads) but much like in carparks with no lines for parking spaces, you get stewards telling you where you can park, i presume there are stewards telling you where the boundaries are for these roads, and where you can camp.

These roads allow easy access throughout the site for emergency vehicles, slurry tankers (these are especially important as they come and clean the toilets so that they are vaguely bearable to use at least once a day!) and also cars. If you are stupid enough to camp in the middle of a road in spite of the warnings, the hairy scary Scottish security men will come and remove your tent whether you are there or not. I have no idea where these tents go, but i have a sneaky suspicion that they get put on the back of one of the little runaround mini-trucks and are taken beyond the cracks of doom, to the far end of Brown camp G (and that is the dustiest bit of brown camp by far). it is then up to you to go and find it. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

And this isn't just about getting vehicles through - you will have your set route back to your tent (ie turn right at the donut van, walk straight, past the camp which is wrapped in red and yellow warning tape, take the right at the first fork in the road, past the enormous blue 3-compartment tent that is tall enough to stand up in, take the left at the next fork, and head for the L-shaped metal tracking underneath the telegraph pole with 'Green Road B1' on it.) it is very confusing if you walk past your turning because it doesn't look like one, just because 4 tents have been plonked in the middle of it. So you end up completely the wrong side of your bit of field, and wonder where you went wrong. It is highly frustrating, so please don't do it!

DO.....

Pitch your tent BEFORE you get your wristband. Getting a decent camping spot should be your first priority. Get your wristband AS SOON AS POSSIBLE after pitching tents.

DON'T......

Try and carry all your gear round Wristband Exchange. It is awkward, and all the time you are stood in that queue, other people are pinching all the good spots!

If you are taking a camera (like you should be).........

DO.....

Use most of your photos taking pictures of your mates being silly and other stupid things you come across in the campsite (regardless of time of day). And perhaps silly things you see in the arena (ie, mudfights and those random men who turn up each year covered in blue/orange/green body paint), and you with band members if they let you have your photo taken with them in the signing tent. you will not find these photos anywhere else!

DON'T.....

Use up all your film taking pictures of bands - especially if you're a long way from the stage! you will get a picture with alot of heads along the bottom, and a few small distant figures, and when you get them developed, assuming they're in focus, the flash has worked and you've managed to aim your camera at the stage and not at someone's head/a post/the roof of the tent, you will have to rely on the stage backdrop to work out which band it is. There is a gap between the front barrier and the stage where professional photographers will be taking good quality close up pictures of bands - get the pictures of bands off the net, and be smug in the knowledge that you took the hilarious pictures that the professional photographers didn't!

(1) If you are planning on getting some semblance of sleep over the weekend, try to camp away from the roads. The roads are busy and noisy, and you're more likely to have people falling on your tent/generally making lots of noise. You are most likely to get a good night's sleep if you stay up until about 3am, get yourself properly tired and then go to bed - you will be out like a light.

(2) Get a decent sleeping bag. A mini pillow as well if you can get your hands on one.

(3) The ground beneath you is alot colder than the air above you, so ideally you want to lay out your bed so you have a foam mat, then a blanket, with a lilo*/airbed on top, and then you in your sleeping bag, with perhaps another blanket on top depending how cold it is.

(4) Wear layers of warm, dry clothes. It is amazing how many people go to bed in clothes that are slightly damp from either sweat or rain - ideally you want thick socks, jogging bottoms, a tshirt, a jumper/fleece and a woolly hat - you can lose up to 80% of your body heat through your head! Ideally keep a set of clothes for you to just wear when you're asleep, so that they don't get wet.

(5) The more of you in a tent, the warmer you'll be, as you will retain each other's body heat. To make things fair, if there's more than 2 of you, take it in turns to sleep in the middle.

* My lilo cost me £5 from one of the stalls, and its the best thing i bought all weekend!

CLOTHES

DO......

Take an extra pair of shoes. Wellies if it is going to be RRRREEEEEEEAAAALLLLLLLLYYYYYYYYY muddy.

DO......

Tie your shoes on properly. Then they are less likely to fall off. If you lose a shoe (as i did while crowdsurfing in 2003) its a bit of a pain having to wander round with one shoe one, and then having observant people coming up to you and saying "you do know you've only got one shoe on, don't you?"

DON'T......

Take footwear that is too big/too small - you will have evil bastardy blisters on your feet and they will hurt.

FOOD AND DRINK

DO........

Drink lots of non-alcoholic fluids (preferably water or fruit juice rather than fizzy drinks) throughout the day, especially if its hot and sunny.

DON'T......

Get really pissed if its hot and sunny - alcohol dehydrates you (because it makes you piss more often), and people get heat stroke because they haven't drunk enough non-alcoholic liquid, they get too hot, collapse and end up in the first aid tent and generally miss bands that they want to see! Don't let this happen to you! Its all cool to have a few beers during the day, just don't get absolutely bladdered. there's plenty of time for that at night! in much the same way, try to avoid drinking too many caffeine-filled drinks (tea, coffee and coke), as caffeine also dehydrates you, even if it does wake you up!

Food essentials that most people forget to take.....

Salt and Sugar.

Don't bother trying to take any from home in a little bag as police will suspect its drugs, and if you've got any ther real drugs on you, they'll soon find them. And if the bag splits you'll have tiny salt/sugar grains in and on everything and won't escape the little buggers all weekend. Don't go and buy a big load in the supermarket either - OK its cheap but it feels completely pointless when you know you probably only need a few grammes of each over the weekend. instead, in the weeks before, go to your nearest pub or restaurant and 'liberate' some of their salt and sugar sachets. then keep those in a plastic bag and use at will over the weekend.