Is volunteering at festivals worth it?

29/09/2024

Ruby Thorpe and Isabella Greenaway talk about their experiences volunteering at Boardmasters and Reading Festival.

Article Image

Image by RDNE Stock project

By Ruby Thorpe and Isabella Greenaway

Festival ticket prices have grown exponentially over the past few years, meaning that to go to some of the larger festivals in the UK, you will have to pay upwards of £300 for the weekend. Therefore, a much cheaper way to pay is with your time. There are many companies that you can volunteer for that allow you free access to the festival in exchange for a few shifts – the only cost is the deposit upon registration, which is returned after you complete your allocated hours. Here are the differences between Hotbox and Oxfam volunteering and our experiences with them over the summer.

Hotbox Events at Reading Festival with Ruby Thorpe

For the past two years, I have attended Reading Festival for both the whole weekend and the day and as soon as Lana Del Rey and Catfish and the Bottlemen got announced as the headliners, I knew I had to be there this summer. As someone who loves to go to a gig, money was running short by the time tickets came out so I decided to volunteer instead. After some research, I chose to work with Hotbox Events for a multitude of reasons:

Hotbox Events works at a few different festivals in the UK and provide two different roles: fire stewards who are scouts on the fire towers, and CATs who are on the ground helping campers and surveying the campsites. In exchange for festival admission, you have to work three eight-hour shifts which get allocated on a first-come-first-serve basis. There are nearly 25 shift patterns which involve a combination of day (09:00-17:00), evening (17:00-01:00) and night shifts (01:00-09:00). The deposit for Reading Festival cost only £95 which was one of the reasons I chose to go with Hotbox rather than Oxfam, as with them, you have to pay the whole ticket price to register.

I ended up getting allocated a fire tower position and my three shifts were Wednesday evening shift, Friday day shift and Sunday night shift; meaning I only missed a few acts during the day on Friday. The fire tower role involved both scouting on top of the fire tower or sitting at the bottom, ready to run and put out fires. However, we did not see a single one on any of our shifts so the eight hours can be quite tedious. We were able to take breaks and were supplied with sweet treats and warm drinks throughout our shift which made conditions more bearable. One thing I would recommend is to wrap up warm as nights get very cold!

A few things I loved about volunteering with this company was the free wifi, phone charging, quiet campsite, regularly cleaned toilets and staff catering which all made the festival experience feel a bit more glamorous. Because our campsite was located outside of white camp and everyone was working different hours, sleeping was much easier than normal and everyone was able to rest, even after a night shift. As Reading Festival is situated by a river, there was also access to a free staff boat, allowing us to get off shift and get to the arena in under 30 minutes, meaning we could make the most of the festival and jump right into the action. There was also a Hotbox staff portal with all the registration information, fire safety, directions and other essential bits to know before volunteering. This made the process pretty easy as everything was well organised and easily accessible. It is also perfect to volunteer with a friend or two as by registering together, chances are you will be placed on the same shifts. We also made friends with many other volunteers over the weekend, therefore, it is great for solo volunteers as everyone is friendly creating a great sense of community within our little Hotbox campsite.

However, there were a few downsides. Unlike Oxfam or other staff companies, we were not given any free food vouchers for staff catering or arena food stools, instead we could pre-order them for just over £6. You did get a substantial amount of food for this price, but we could not help feeling slightly short changed for doing the same role as some Oxfam volunteers. The shifts were also allocated based on how early your deposit was paid, not when shift options came out, meaning that last minute volunteers were stuck with worse shift patterns even if they were the first people to submit their shift choices.

Despite this, I think that volunteering with Hotbox was a brilliant experience, and is a perfect budget option to go to festivals. I am currently looking at working at Latitude Festival next year as it is more local to me, but I would volunteer with Hotbox again – maybe this time I would take on a CAT role instead. Overall, my volunteer experience was so enjoyable and I was able to fully enjoy the festival more with all the staff perks and I left with my pockets being a lot heavier than if I paid for a general admission ticket.



Oxfam Volunteering at Boardmasters with Isabella Greenway

As June rolled into July and the initial joy of returning home for summer ebbed away, I became in search of something to do that would be both productive and fun. That’s when I remembered a conversation I had had with a friend earlier in the year about how she was volunteering at a music festival with Oxfam. I looked into this and was surprised to see that there were still spaces for volunteers. Dragging another friend into it with me, we signed up for Boardmasters (motivated mostly by the presence of Sam Fender), and that’s how I found myself arriving half way through the welcome talk in the staff campsite on the evening of August 6th, weighed down by a tent and sleeping bag with not much of an idea of what lay ahead of me.

Volunteering consisted of three eight-hour shifts over six days, which may sound like a lot, but it didn’t feel like that – we still had more than enough time to enjoy ourselves, and the eight hours went faster than expected as there was always something interesting going on. My first two shifts were spent scanning tickets, putting wristbands on and giving directions, while my last was a nightshift where I had to patrol campsites from 11pm-7am. Volunteers are generally given one nightshift in the week, though sometimes it is possible to swap. These were allocated on a random basis but you can opt out of shifts on the first and last day.

If you’re planning on volunteering with a friend you can specify this when you’re signing up so that you can have the same shift times and spend your free time together – you’re likely to have shifts in the same location as well. Volunteering alone is also an option and not uncommon; there are so many ways to make friends there, from talking to the people in the tents around you to getting to know the people you are on shift with.

For anyone thinking of volunteering as a way of getting free entry to a festival, I’d say it’s definitely worth it. Of course, you have to complete your shifts otherwise you don’t get your £250 deposit back but you can spend your free time as you please. Volunteers get so many perks (did somebody say free showers?) and with Oxfam you get one free meal voucher per shift, but you can use these at any time throughout the week and it doesn’t have to correspond with your shift pattern. Also you get to wear a high vis jacket which is pretty cool.

Many festival stewarding opportunities offer similar benefits, but one of the main pros of doing it with Oxfam is that the money raised goes to charity. For last minute volunteers like myself Oxfam is potentially a better shout as shifts are allocated randomly rather than on a first come first serve basis, even though the deposit is more expensive – signing up late doesn’t mean you will get the worse shifts.

Overall, I’d definitely recommend volunteering as a way of attending festivals. Though you do have to commit to your shifts, there is still plenty of free time to do as you please.