Thinking about next season’s festivals is giving me chills

I had such an amazing summer this year and before the dust has really settled from all those festivals, I am already going full speed ahead with plans for next season. The main festival my friends, boyfriend and I are hoping to get tickets for is Tomorrowland in Belgium – an electronic rave of epic proportions! The stages alone are immense and I am so excited at the prospect of being part of the crowds of thousands I witnessed on videos of the last few years at the festival. Watching this video gives me chills!

I’m also hoping that my status as Editor of This Festival Feeling will give me the freedom to claim free tickets to some of the following – WeAreFstvl, Secret Garden Party (if we don’t get tickets for Tomorrowland), Bestival, Shambala, Boomtown Fair and any others that come my way. I hope to make it to at least two on this list if nothing else!

Last year I went to Hideout Festival in Croatia which was billed as one of the biggest of the year with some of the most sought-after tickets – I’m curious to know which festival will be the same this year…

What festivals is everyone else looking to go to next year?

Reliving my HUGE festival summer as the official videos are released

Hideout Festival 2013 on the Island of Pag, Croatia, was the biggest week of my year. I partied around-the-clock for seven days straight with my boyfriend and amazing friends from home and university. I even made some new friends while out there that have since become my raving buddies. It was a huge week and so much fun. I watched the sun rise and set every single day, I danced on stages, sand, in pools and the sea, on buses and boats and anywhere else I could find. I made incredible memories and can be sure I’ll never forget them. It’s amazing to see the final video, but to be honest this is a very tame version of the Hideout I experienced. However, I can’t deny that when I hear that beat and bass kick in, it’s like being back on Zcre Beach! If only I was, instead of in chilly old England!

Boomtown Fair 2013, in Winchester, was officially the craziest weekend of my life. I saw so much while I was there than my brain felt like it was melting and my eyes couldn’t take in any more. The festival was vast, the stages huge and the music was incredible. I loved every second, again went with fantastic old friends and made some new ones there. It was such a peaceful place and yet so intense and mind-boggling. The theatre acts and side-shows were my favourite because they were always what you least expected and transported you into crazy new worlds. I still don’t believe, and can’t explain half the things I saw there. It was like falling down the rabbit hole.

Reunited and reliving those precious memories of university

After a long six months, the House of Boobs girls (as we were nicknamed at University of Hertfordshire) were finally reunited for a weekend of catching up, drinking champagne and cocktails, eating copious amounts of chips and dip, and most of all, making enough memories to tide us over until the next meet-up.

After living together and spending nearly all of our time together over the three years of university – supporting each other through the course stresses and deadlines, cheering each other up over boy trouble, staying up into the wee hours with drunken tears, celebrating each other’s achievements and having each others’ backs on every night out. We’ve been through a hell of a lot together over the years and we’ve all come out of it stronger than ever. Boys truly have come and gone in that time, as have jobs and other friends – but the one thing that has stayed constant is that we are all – without fail – always there for each other no matter what.

After arriving in a village near Chelmsford, Essex, at one of my former housemate’s house, we unpacked the mountains of stuff we had brought along, tucked into a delicious dinner and had a quick catch up before heading upstairs to get ready. We all glammed up in our high heels and fabulous outfits – my top is from Missguided and skirt from Ark – and after a couple of glasses of wine and making sure we had all remembered our ID’s, we clambered into the cars and headed out to Leigh-On-Sea.

Our destination was a bar called Bellinis, which was quite small but served great cocktails! To be honest, we could have been anywhere and I wouldn’t have noticed what was going on around us – we were all having so much fun dancing like loons, drinking Jam Doughnut shots and laughing, a lot! It was amazing to be surrounded by the girls again, because they are all the type of women who I wish existed everywhere – none of them will ever put you down or say a bad word about you if they have your back. It was so nice to be surrounded by such supportive friends who were nothing but happy to hear everyone’s news and celebrate everything going on in their lives. It is rare to find a group of girls who honestly act this way, who don’t put each other down, and I am proud to have friends like these.

I have such fabulous friends. Nearly all of them are in very happy, loving relationships with great guys (not something that they could boast in university!) and the ones who are not are confident and happy in going solo. Some are nearly finished battling through their PGCEs and are now teaching classes of little ones, while another is working in Asos marketing department, another travels to Germany and America regularly for work. Another is heading off travelling around South-East Asia and Australia at the end of the year and another is working as a para-legal and loving it. I am proud of everything they have achieved and have yet to.

Am really looking forward to the next meet-up and hopefully we won’t have long to wait. The main DJ from our old student union is holding a huge reunion party so hopefully we will all make it along to that.

The best is yet to come – forgetting my post-festival blues

After a busy summer of travelling around the country, and further afield, to some really amazing festivals – much of which was spent either looking forward to the next event or enjoying the moment at one. I was left feeling pretty bereft when it hit me that there were no more as the season drew to a close. My excitement over my promotion to editor of This Festival Feeling helped to ease my post-festival blues for a short time as the thought of next summer’s festivals sent a thrill down my spine.

But now that too has eased and one must think ahead to the wintery months ahead in which I plan to continue dancing and raving with the same good friends I spent my summer with. It’s funny, during the day I’m the sort of girl that loves vintage clothes, acoustic music and a good book. But at night, I’m the girl who lives in her denim shorts and bum bag, and dances until the sun rises in trainers.

Right now, it is just two weeks until I do just that in Norwich, when I will be seeing one of my favourite DJs, Sub Focus, playing at the University of East Anglia. I downloaded his new album just yesterday and have yet to listen to it, but I think it will definitely spice up my workout and drive to work this week. Here is the video for one of my favourite songs by him, it’s just one that always gets me dancing and singing along.

He headlined the dance stage at Glastonbury this year, and I was gutted he wasn’t at Hideout Festival. I have seen him before at UEA and it was an amazing night, I’m sure it will be even more so this time because we are taking along some amazing friends, and joining in a Zombie Fun Run during the day! There are still tickets available here if anyone else is interested! I’ll be sure to post a review of the night afterwards.