Festivals ─ A Survival Guide; Cope With Everything: Tents, Toilets, Torrential Rain, Too Much Booze, and More

Every year when summer rolls around, millions of us sacrifice the joys of a comfortable bed and warm running water in favour of a weekend of debauchery in a field in the middle of nowhere. Whether you're planning a weekend hobnobbing with the A-listers at Coachella, trading goods in the desert at Burning Man, raving through the night at one of Croatia's beachside parties or seeing the biggest bands in the world at Glastonbury, the pull of a music festival is undeniable, but it can all be a bit daunting. No doubt you will have heard stories of monsoon rain reducing the festival site to a giant mud bath, or stumbling home after 24-hours non-stop raving and finding an inebriated stranger sleeping in your tent, but how do you cope with these situations?

Whether it's getting a ticket (often considerably harder than it sounds) or picking the perfect spot to pitch a tent, FESTIVALS: A SURVIVAL GUIDE will talk you through everything you need to know about a weekend of music, mates and mayhem. Providing insider tips gained from years of festival going, learn what to do when you lose all your friends and why it's never a good idea to put together a strict timetable of bands you want to see. Then there's information on the festival characters to befriend and the ones to avoid - nobody likes to be woken at 6.30am by a group of hippies starting up an impromptu drum circle outside your tent. The practical advice offered also includes how to plan your day, use social media to discover where the secret gigs are, fool-proof ways to smuggle booze past security guards, and why only a fool would wear a playsuit when having to use a festival toilet.

Based in London, Jo Hoare is Style Editor for heat magazine and the author of This is Normcore (978-1-909313-59-0) and The Office: A Survival Guide, also published by Dog ’n’ Bone.