I started going to festivals when I was 17, paying for a ticket to Shambala in Northampton with money I’d saved from my first job. I had the best time, and going every year was already a tradition for my friends. But the next year the ticket price went up, so I looked for ways to go to the festival for less. I volunteered that next year as a litter picker, and did the same the year after that. All I was missing out on was a few hours a day of sitting around with my friends and I was saving £300! It felt like the ultimate hack as a teenager and I have continued to volunteer or work at almost every other festival I’ve been to in the last 6 years.
You can probably imagine that running a 5 day event in a field for 10,000 -200,000 people takes a considerable amount of man power… for weeks on end. So I thought I would shine a little bit of light on the world of festival work and how you too could go to your favourite festivals for free, or even earn money!
Volunteering vs Working
First you need to know whether you want to volunteer or work. Volunteers tend to work shorter shifts for less hours across a festival, typically around 18 hours, in order to attend the festival for free. In my experience those in paid roles will work about double that, but will be paid minimum wage. If you’re going to a festival with paid ticket holders I would recommend volunteering as you will still be able to enjoy yourself with your friends. You just don’t have the same amount of time to do this in paid roles, and you will have a very different experience to paid ticket holders.
Always have a look at the websites of the festivals you want to go to first for how to apply to volunteer or work. You can usually find this on a page like “Get Involved” or “Contact Us” from February-April time onwards. Some festivals will organise staff themselves while others will outsource. I have linked external companies I know of below. The earlier you apply for positions the better in my experience. Do be prepared to pay a deposit the same price as a ticket. This will be returned to you usually within a week or two after the festival as long as you complete all allocated shifts. Large deposits are less likely to be necessary the more experience you have, and in paid roles.
Volunteer roles:
- Stewarding: Oxfam, MyCause, FestStaff
- Litter Picking: Greenbox Events
- Ticketing: MyCause, FestStaff
- Charity Ambassador: WaterAid
Paid roles:
- Bar staff: TWG, HAP, Hotbox Events
- Parking attendants: DC Site Services
- Recycling & Clean-up Crew: Greenbox Events, DC Site Services
- Set-up / Take-down Crew
- Crew Catering: Red Radish Catering
Food Vendors
A more intense way to earn money during the festival season is working for a food vendor. People working for food vendors tend to work a full season travelling to different festivals with the same vendor. The shifts are long (10-16 hours) and you don’t get much time off to enjoy the festival. But you do make a good amount of money. If this is something you’re interested in, I recommend getting in touch with specific vendors directly a couple months before the season starts. Or, ask when you’re buying from a vendor if there’s an email address you can get in contact with!
Ticket Selling
Some festivals will have schemes where you can earn a free ticket by selling around 6 festival tickets yourself. Its not the most common scheme but by far the easiest way to earn yourself free festival entry. I wish I knew about these as a teenager when we had huge groups of friends paying for tickets.
How much I enjoy working at festivals was one of the motivators for me to leave my full-time job. But working at these awesome events has also enabled me to go to a lot of them by myself because of how friendly I’ve always found crew to be, and the amount of people I always meet. Another big benefit to being crew is having access to crew camping! Even if you choose to camp in General Camping, having access to crew showers is un-paralleled. Crew catering is usually also available to most volunteers and all working crew. It’s common to receive one meal voucher for crew catering per shift, but you can sometimes purchase extra meals too. These tend to be cheaper than food from festival food vendors and like home cooked meals – a godsend if you’re working festivals back to back I promise.
Not sure what festivals are happening when? This festival guide lets you filter by date, size, music genre etc.
Do you know of any other employers that work at UK festivals? Please let me know in the comments!
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