I went with my future (hopefully) sister in law Kerry-Ann to this festival and arrived thursday and were completely lost from the start, for such a deserted place this town was hard to make its way around but finally as the night got on all the volunteers started to come. We had a tour of the festival and then we all grouped together in this big old circle playing drinking games and getting to know each other. It was like we'd known each other from the start again.
To be honest right now I can't tell one day from the next I'm really struggling to remember the order things happened in because I didn't sleep the entire weekend until the last night. From the get go our neighbour Frankie's tent was banjaxed so we adopted him into our big old tent and then our tent kinda became the refugee tent with everyone kipping in it. I really struggle to sleep in tents and at festivals so I just rather stay up and that's what I did, until about 7am when I really wanted to sleep and along comes the Lurgan boys after jumping in the sea sopping wet and up for a laugh.. also they cracked out the banjo and alan pipes right beside my head so there wasn't much chance of sleeping.
Right so from here on I'm going to just throw out what I can actually remember because this is a struggle to how each day actually passed
We had our first shift at 4pm Friday and were on campsite duty which was meant to be checking wristbands but I got pulled into security to help out searching bags, which was awful. I struggled through half asleep but got to 8pm in the end. We just about got back to change, have some pre drinks, meet Tamra and Little Lewis and head down to the festival before Example was on. Now there was a good few acts I actually wanted to see at Sea Sessions and Example was one of them.. turns out he was also the only one I actually got to see. He was absolutely class and we had a great night raving to him. We headed back to the campsite and most people wanted to sleep but a good bunch of us headed into the main campsite to see if there was any fun. I kinda became part of the Lurgan boys group because they spent most nights in our tent and me in there's. I've never met lads like them they were so unbelievably nice, like they were off the faces yet they still looked out for each other and made sure everyone was there (tbh I don't know how they even could ring each other when they hardly knew how to stand) so when I became ill I couldn't get over that they were the ones to look after me. I swear it was the dodgy food not drink but I could not even stand without throwing up.. I'll spare you the details but anyway they picked me up (quite literally) and kept me witht them, one of them handed me water and it was the pick me up I needed. Volunteers kind of created an area in the middle of the campsite and we got all the music going and had a laugh. As it started to come unbelievably cold we headed back to our camp and into Pringles (real surname) tent which wasn't much better to be honest as me and Pringles tried to get warm in a saturated sleeping bag. About 4am I hoped into Pablo's (real name Kyle) tent and it was amazing to be in dry warm tent.
Unfortunately I was on the 9am shift and just about dragged myself up to the campsite entrance where I had to scan tickets. Luckily for us it was too early for people to be arriving so we didn't have much work to do and the brilliant Apple, Lemon and Strawberry heads had music to keep us going till 12pm. It was so amazing to be done at 12 we didn't know what to do with ourselves. We headed down for dinner and picked up a good bunch of fellow volunteers, Tamara, Little Lewis, Ciara, Matthew, Dean, and. William/Paul on the way so there was a nice crowd of us in a lovely little restaurant where I had the best 3 minute sleep across the table. We headed back to the campsite after as the sun came out and it was just amazing to lie and dry off. The Lurgan boys arrived and decided to go to the beach so we headed with them. Now it wasn't amazing but it was a change from the campsite. But it was so freaking cold it wasn't worth it. We sat down on this tiny blanket watching nutcases play drinking games until we decided it was too cold and headed back to camp. Everyone else had to go on there shift at 8pm so I stuck around with the Lurgan Boys and we headed into the festival. I really can't dance to music I don't know and the sheer tiredness was getting to me but I stuck in there until everyone came off the 8pm shift at 12pm and found us. The thing about being quite small at festivals is everyone picks you up and I was greeted many of times by people just picking me up and shaking me. Stupidly I said Meghan being on someones shoulders looked like fun and without a second thought William/Paul whipped me up on his back. It was going great, Tamara had me from falling but dang William/Paul wouldn't let go off my legs and wanted me to get higher then all of a sudden he kind of just throws me across a bunch of people to the ground. My hip took the whole force but apparently I landed on my head too as I stayed on the ground trying to figure out what the heck happened. Praise the lord who ever picked me up cause I could have just stayed there. We stayed there until the music went off and the lights came on, then we made the cold trek back to our tent. I don't even know who was in our tent that night but my god we had a laugh. William/Paul has to be one of the funniest Drunks I've ever seen. We were literally sardines in a tin and it didn't matter that I was the smallest there wasn't even room for me so I bunked in with Pablo/Kyle again much to the poor fellas delight, he was sound asleep with his back to me for the night. Again I didn't sleep but as it got brighter people started to get up and Pablo/Kyle headed off and let me stay in his tent until about 1pm when I head the others in my tent getting up and felt about ready to manage to get up myself. We headed straight for the shops to get food and then back to the tents to get ready for our shift at 4pm. We managed to pick up a pizza on the way thanks to the lovely waitress who wasn't open till 4 but we said we were working so she got us in. Staff privileges at this festival were amazing like places in town where even letting us in.
Stupidly we didn't even think that this shift was at the entrance to the festival which was on the beach and we were not prepared for the cold. There was about 12 of us on the same place too so we pretty much didn't do anything only huddle trying to keep warm. 8pm could not have come any slower and I was out of there like a shot, much to my amazement this lovely girl on her way in gave me her drink as she just opened it and couldn't bring glass in and oh did it warm me up nicely. It wasn't till we were half way to the camp that we realised how warm it was away from the sea but I still put on every bit of my clothes I had with me ready to head back into the festival. We all really wanted to see the Riptide Movement but at this stage there was all of the Lurgan Boys, Frankie and Kerry, Kai and his mates and well pretty much all the volunteers who weren't working grouped together and making our way to the festival but by that time there was just Breen, Micky and Me. We spent most of that night all trying to find each other until finally we went to the VIP section which became the volunteer hang out. It was the last night and people did want to go mental but we were all so wrecked as well and we had this blow up couch which was the first seat in days and was so unbelievably comfy that me Micky and Ciara just chilled on that for the night, Eventually as the music went off again we headed back to the campsite through town again losing everyone. Those staff privileges certainly came in handy as I needed the loo and wasn't allowed into the pub until they seen I had a staff wristband then finally we made our way to our tent. This was my first night in my own tent and I couldn't get over how comfy it was for a change to be just me Micky, Kerry and Ciara. We just chilled and got warm as we were all so wrecked we didn't feel like going out in the cold and we didn't miss to much as most people were the same. We did however get up for a toilet break, end up in a really nice caravan, have drinks with the Lurgan boys and then eventually it was Kerry, Mikey, Me, Pringles and Ciara in our tent for the night. I was not in the mood to get up that morning though as the tent was so warm but everyone was so wrecked we just wanted to go home. I went around delivering peoples stuff back who had stayed in our tent and had to go in search of Frankie to get his stuff and I've never had such a good laugh in my life. I went up to a group of lads my sheer accident to see if they even knew Frankie and they just said so causally he was 'in the tent over there'. I could not believe my eyes that the poor fella was in the tent I had passed many of times thinking there couldn't be anybody in because it was upside down against the fence. Opening that tent and looking down at Frankie in the corner had to be the highlight of the weekend and kind of summed up how we all felt that morning.
I was actually so gutted to be leaving and really upset to be saying goodbye to the people especially the Lurgan boys as they had welcomed me into the group so much. I get attracted to people and hate goodbyes but to be in the warm car heading for a shower, a pot noodle and then passing out for nine hours was sweet relief.
Again this was another amazing festival and one weekend I will never forget. The people made this festival for me and I do honestly hope we will meet again.
Ah yes sea sessions 😉
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