Back when he was the baron of big beat, Fatboy Slim surely can’t have imagined that he’d one day look down from the stage and see clusters of families with camp chairs, politely rocking out to his monster grooves.
He certainly could not have imagined that the big talking point after one of his gigs would be seating arrangements. Yet this was the topic of conversation after this weekend’s Camp Bestival, where happy families were claiming plots of land like 19th-century frontiersmen in the American West, setting up camping chairs and rugs in front of the main stage first thing. More annoying yet – they were then toddling off for the afternoon, expecting that their territorial grab would be respected by other festival-goers. It was like being on a sunny holiday where bathers are up at the crack of dawn to bagsie a lounger – only with mud and flying beer instead of golden rays.
Camp Bestival, at Lulworth Castle in Dorset, is part of an upswell / epidemic of “family friendly” festivals – because there is nothing your five-year-old enjoys more than being lugged around a pasture at 1am listening to 1990s rave.
The territorial habits of families – akin to those who fight for sunbeds on an all-inclusive holiday – are ruining the vibe at festivals (Photo: Janice Chen)The problem with family festivals is, of course, that they bring with them all the things that make families so irritating to be around. These include very young children (annoying), overstimulated preteens (annoying) and sulky teenagers who’d rather be anywhere else in creation than in a field while their dad literally dad dances in front of them (in this scenario you, dancing dad, are the annoying one).
Worst of all, however, such events encourage the selfishness that every functioning family unit needs to make it through the world. That “us-against-the-rest” philosophy is fine when you’re queuing for soft drinks at Five Guys or lining up for a flight. But at a festival, that ancient tradition of acting like the convenience of your children is the most important thing in the universe is a recipe for getting massively on the nerves of everyone else.
That is because festivals are three days of potential misery that people manage to make bearable through the collective belief that everyone is having the best fun ever. Sleeping in a tent, eating out of food trucks for an entire weekend, all that walking and queuing – and for what? To stand in a field and bop along to The Rockafeller Skank as if it’s 1998 and we didn’t all have mortgages and insurance that needs renewing?
Fatboy Slim headlines the Castle Stage on the final day of Camp Bestival 2026 (Photo: Leon Neal/Getty Images)No, the thing that renders it tolerable – and, actually, the best fun ever – is the knowledge that we’ve signed up to a shared experience. That it is we, the portaloo-PTSD masses all coming together, who bring that festival magic. Without us hugging, high-fiving, swaying and sweating along together, there is no festival.
However, all of that goes out the window when people start carving out little patches of land and treat the festival sward not as a backdrop for communal love but a great place to plonk a camp chair or six. When three days of lunacy becomes Game of Thrones with deckchairs, then the fun dries up quicker than the hits did for Fatboy Slim.
Look, I’m not saying that children are inherently maddening. I have three myself and they’re perfectly tolerable most of the time. Nor am I suggesting they have no business at festivals (do they, though – really?).
But it’s when you add a chair to the equation that you kick the legs out from under the vibe. For those who believe the only way to enjoy live music is to pull up a stool and take it all in… well, when it comes to festival season, perhaps it’s best you sit this one out.
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