We’re here in Australia for new experiences and, believe it or not, Ben and I have never been to a camping festival together! To have the experience and save a bit of money we signed up to volunteer at a festival in Australia.
Which festival?
We signed up to volunteer at Bluesfest, a contemporary blues and roots music festival in Byron Bay, Australia. It probably isn’t a festival we would have considered paying for, but to volunteer we were more than happy to go and have a good time!
Do we pay to volunteer?
Nope! We didn’t pay anything in order to volunteer and got the tickets for free. You can sign up for pre- or during-fest volunteering and we signed up for the latter (pre-fest required you to agree you can lift heavy items and I did not want to agree to that considering my stoma). The exchange is 25 hours (5 hours each day) for your entry into the 5-day festival.
We paid $50 for a camping spot for all 5 days, which had the nicest porta potty I’ve ever experienced that FLUSHED, with a running TAP to wash your hands. It doesn’t end there, there were also, wait for it. Warm showers ladies and gentlemen. Can you believe it?
Wednesday, day 0
We arrived at 10:15, 15 minutes after the camping opened. We parked, registered, then moved the van to the camping site. The downpour of 35mm of rain plus our 4 tonne van equalled, you guessed it, a mighty bog. With the help of 5-6 people we got it out and parked the van, not to be moved again until we left.
There was an exclusive event for campers on Wednesday night so after eating up our shakshuka for dinner we wandered over. And wow what did we walk into? Have you ever seen someone play 4 didgeridoos at the same time? We hadn’t either. The only way I can describe it was animalistic-rave fusion. Absolutely bloody loved it.
eMDee was the band’s name, who were followed by another surprising act. Taj Farrant plays the electric guitar like I’ve never seen. He was incredibly talented as well as a naturally born performer. Taj enjoyed every second on that stage showing the world what he loved and it was a pleasure to watch. The surprise? He’s only 14 and currently touring America! I mean if this is the event before the festival then this is going to be a blast! Right?
Thursday, day 1
Classic ‘Laurenism’ we call it when I woke Ben up at 7am for our 8:30am start when really we didn’t start until 2:30. Nice one. Anyway, when we did start we were sent to parking which was easy enough. My job could have been replaced by a stick because all I did was hold a sign up. Ben was off helping people park in the right spots.
Once we signed off (an hour early at 6:30) we made some food, drank some beers, headed into the festival to enjoy the music and have some churros.
Friday, day 2
Okay so this day we actually did start at 8:30am, or at least we thought we did until we got there. They’d swapped our teams so we had a 7:30am start. They’d sent us a text a 11:45pm. Sorry, not sorry that’s not enough time to let us know and we were also sleeping so very soundly at 11:45pm (call us boring, I don’t care, I love sleep).
We had to wait about half an hour to be assigned to our jobs for the day. That job was well uh, interesting. I don’t know about you, but when you read earlier ‘we were volunteering for a festival’ did you expect me to end up telling you I was asked to make someone’s personal bed and sweep their office floor and decorate their office fence?
The person we were assigned to saw us as some sort of housekeepers/personal assistants. I had thought in my head I’d be helping the festival run smoothly, not doing all of someone’s personal chores for them. About 1 hour in and it was clear this lady did not like Ben, as she was driving us about, gave Ben a task that would take all of 1 minute like ‘lock that gate’ and then just drove off once he was out of the vehicle. She didn’t tell him what to do next or where to go.
She handed us some bamboo panels and said “use that to cover this fence, I can’t stand looking at the black anymore. I wanted to do it but have had no time” while she settled herself on her sofa with a tub of fruit salad and watched us put up her fence. Later, she drove me to get some floor mats and while I put them in the back of the truck she got herself a shower and got changed. It doesn’t scream good leadership does it?
I’m sorry but I feel like it’s taking the piss a bit, making her bed, sweeping the floors, eating fruit salad and taking a shower while we’re working. Just in general not treating us very respectfully. Really, she just wanted minions to do the things she didn’t want to. She had said to me “it’s good to have you guys around, I get so fatigued doing these jobs”. As someone who has experienced fatigue due to illness, I find it difficult to believe she understands the meaning of this word, and if she were truly fatigued, she would actually be a danger in the workplace driving around that motorised buggy.
Saturday, day 3
Saturday was our night shift starting at 7:30pm. This day was somewhat redeeming after Friday. We’d been put on the disability platform on the main stage. Essentially, we had to make sure it wasn’t over crowded or unsafe for wheelchair users and others with a disability.
Ben (thankfully) was happy to deal with the public while I showed my muscles. It was a pretty uncomfortable job to do. There was hardly any more room on the platform, we had to turn people away with disabilities and probably worst of all, we had a lot of people fake disabilities to gain an advantage on the disability platform.
People would wander up and have a chat with you, you’d ask them to leave, politely, and they wouldn’t budge. I had one guy reply when I asked him to move off the ramp we were told to keep clear “oh yeah, my disability isn’t visible, I’m half blind and 70 years old”. Oh, your disability isn’t visible? I’m holding back the urge to rip off my stoma bag and shove it in his face. *overcomes intrusive thought* I insist he leaves and eventually he backs up and gets off.
People were hanging off the edge and I had to tell people multiple times to get off. It’s a safety hazard, some people got off and jumped back on when they thought I wasn’t looking. Some people got sarky and said to Ben ‘well stop leaning on it then!’, some people said ‘come on love’ some people just outright ignored me.
It was probably halfway through Tom Jones’s set (hahaha yeah it was Tom Jones, but still, you wouldn’t fake a disability would you?), people settled down and found their spots and we could finally relax and had a little bop to his songs! It was the best view in the house to be honest. Better than the VIP stand.
One guy hobbled his way up onto the platform and stole a chair from a carer, then danced on the platform for the last 4 songs (the last four! Like come on mate, for god sake). Not to mention I saw him the next day, miraculously, his hobble had gone. Some people are so despicable.
Speaking of despicable. Ben has a soft little heart and let a woman on stage to take a video because her mum had cancer. Then after taking her video she’s calling up her two able-bodied friends to join her on the disability platform. Sorry, love, are you about to tell me these two have cancer as well? Honestly.
Sunday, day 4
Well here we go, we’re getting there! We were each sent to an entrance, I was on the South entrance, Ben on the North. All we had to do was put wristbands on the children that came in. Easy peasy right?
Yeah it was, until the frikken security guard I was working nearby decided to slap my thigh. Slap my thigh. Slap. My. Thigh. I hope you’re just as shocked as I was. No context, no nothing. This guy just walks up to me, slaps my thigh and continues walking as if nothing had happened.
Of course I was fuming. Gobsmacked too, I didn’t say anything because I was taken aback. I spent the next, maybe hour deciding what I would say if it happened again. I was literally texting my friend about what happened when he went up to me again and said “are you texting your boyfriend”
“No I’m texting my friend”
“Well if it was your boyfriend you could send him a picture of us like this” and pulled me in as though we’re taking a selfie.
“Haha. My fiancee is a security officer too actually”
“Oh is he? Well, he’ll say it’s just classic security things.”
Ha. ha.
Thankfully, shortly after my team leader checked on me and I told her what happened. Soon I was taken away by the head of volunteering. She handled the situation really well by telling the head of security, he was then removed from the site. We spoke to HR and they asked me if I wanted to press charges. I decided not to because he made me feel uncomfortable, not scared. If I had felt scared I would have seriously considered pressing charges.
Monday, day 5
I don’t know if you’re already getting exhausted reading about it but we were becoming exhausted living it. After that experience we said “look we’re done here, we’d really like to leave and discontinue volunteering”. It was taken really well, they were apologetic about our volunteering experience and we’ve been invited to return next year with better volunteering roles, or even positions as team leaders.
That evening we tried to enjoy the festival, but packed up and left the morning after, obviously, getting bogged again.
Would we do it again?
In the end it was such a weird experience, but I do believe it was an atypical experience to have as festival volunteers. Would we rush to volunteer again? Perhaps not, or perhaps a pre-festival volunteering role so we can get it over and done with then enjoy the festival entirely.
