A few weeks ago, my friend Roisin and I went to Latitude Festival. We’d both been in 2011, and she went last year as well, but this year (both of us being poor students) we decided to volunteer as stewards, meaning that we could both go for free. We needed to work three eight hour shifts over the course of the festival, but we arrived on the Tuesday afternoon and got one of our shifts out of the way before the festival even began, meaning that we didn’t miss out on too many of the acts.
Other perks of working at the festival (besides getting in for free) include discounted food if you ask nicely and being able to walk around the deserted arena on the Wednesday before anyone else is there (it doesn’t sound that cool, but I promise you it is!). The foodie highlight of the whole week for me was getting the biggest pile of cheesy chips I’ve ever seen in my life for £1.50 (clearly, I have very discerning taste in food)
Unfortunately, we were working on the Friday night, meaning that we missed out on seeing Bloc Party. We weren’t that far away from the arena though, so we could still hear most of their set and see the light show, which sort of made up for missing them, but also just made me wish that I was actually there. Friday was the only night we were working, so we were able to see Foals on the Sunday and Hot Chip and Alt-J on the Saturday. We decided not to see Kraftwerk, as we hadn’t managed to get any 3D glasses and I thought I would have a better time watching Alt-J (and I probably did). Alt-J were amazing, probably one of the highlights of the festival for me. They seemed genuinely humbled to be playing to such a large audience, and they performed almost the entirety of their debut album, An Awesome Wave, as well as a cover of Kylie Minogue’s ‘Slow’. The only issue I had with their performance was that the arena was completely packed – they were playing in the BBC6 music arena, but could easily have filled the Obelisk arena (Latitude’s main stage).
Other highlights of the weekend for me include James Blake on the Sunday afternoon – soaking up the sun in the Obelisk arena whilst listening to the chilled sounds of his new album was absolutely blissful. It was also a nice reminder of the last time I came to Latitude, when James Blake, having just released his first single, played on the Sunday night on the Lake Stage.
Disclosure, playing in the BBC6 music arena on the Sunday evening were also amazing, and I’m definitely looking forward to seeing them again at Leeds in a few weeks time.
Latitude is great because it’s ‘not just a music festival’ (their words, not mine!). There is so much to see and do that’s not music – from comedy to poetry, film to literature. Russell Kane was hilarious (better than comedy headliner, Eddie Izzard, I thought), and ‘What Would Beyonce Do’ in the Caberet arena on the Saturday was seriously funny too. Every time I’ve been to Latitude I try and spend as much time as possible looking at the non-music acts, as there is so much talent there it seems a shame not to.
Working at Latitude had its good points and its bad points. It was such a plus to have access to relatively clean toilets without a queue, as well as showers (seriously, when you’re there for almost a week, the showers are definitely not optional). It was also really nice when I felt like I actually helped to improve someone’s festival experience, as that was the point of my job (as well as just being a generally nice thing to do). However, the shift pattern that Roisin and I were allocated was quite annoying and we only actually got the Thursday night off to properly enjoy the festival, as we were working on Friday evening, and then we had a night shift on Saturday. The night shift was definitely the worst thing ever – we were working from 1am until 9am in Family camping, just walking around making sure there was no trouble. It’s obviously a very important job, it was just very dull in reality, and meant that we had to leave the arena early on Saturday night. Luckily, when we work at Leeds at the end of August, we don’t have any night shifts at all, which is brilliant. I worked with Hotbox at Latitude, and I will again at Leeds, but there are lots of other options if you fancy volunteering at a festival. Oxfam and Festaxi are a couple of others who were working at Latitude, but it tends to vary from festival to festival. If you want to find out more about working at Latitude, there is a link to all the information here.
Latitude 2013 – thumbs up from me!
thisisisrachel 