Whether you are a seasoned festival-goer or you are about to embark on a festival with your children for the first time, it can be daunting! However, it can also be a wonderful and memorable shared experience. If you are thinking of going to Glastonbury, Camp Bestival, Latitude, Neverworld, or any other festival with your little ones, and are a little hesitant, these handy tips from Katherine, the festival mum behind the NEW children’s book, Molly’s First Festival – could help you! Read her Tips for Going To Glastonbury With Your Kids below + hear a little bit about how this wonderful and beautifully illustrated children’s book came to be!

Tips for Going To Glastonbury Festival With Your Children

1- Identify the best family-friendly festivals – festivalkidz.com has some great guides on their Instagram.

2- Make sure you bring: Ear defenders, snacks-a-plenty, a trolley and/or a carrier. We used a rucksack as it allowed our two-year-old to see up high and doesn’t get too in the way in crowded places.

3 – Kiddies will likely get excited as soon as you start setting up your campsite. Before anything else, put down a blanket with some snacks/toys while you unpack everything so you can get the main setup done in peace.

4 – Older kids can help with camp setup as soon as they are able – even if it’s just sitting on the tent/tarp so it doesn’t blow away!

5 – Make sure your tent zip goes up all the way to prevent escapees. Even littlies work it out pretty quickly.

6 – Opt for lots of layers rather than big, thick things. This goes for blankets too – and remember, a blanket on the floor is just as important as a blanket on top.

7 – If you have a young baby, fork out on a black-out tent, you won’t regret it. I recommend the Coleman Octagon as you can stand up in it all the way (good for walking around, and rocking your baby to sleep for hours….)

8 – Most importantly – don’t worry too much about routine. Things will be forgotten, and things will go wrong, but remember to keep in mind that you’re ALL there to have fun. Give each other breaks when you can. And in the words of Queens of the Stone Age, “go with the flow…”

For more tips on going to festivals with your kids, follow @mollysfirstfestival on Instagram where you will find advice & festival tips on their story highlight.

How becoming a festival mum inspired a new business venture!

Katherine a festival-goer and professional illustrator from Somerset, is the mastermind behind “Molly’s First Festival” – The music festival children’s book which is carving a path by being the first and only kids’ book about a child’s music festival experience. Katherine kindly shared her story with me about how her two worlds of writing and music festivals collided to produce a book which is contemporary, relatable, engaging, inspiring and fun!

Katherine’s Story – How It Started …

It all started in 2022, when I was made redundant, and found myself home alone with a toddler and an idea that wouldn’t go away.

Specifically, it was on June 26h in a field in Worthy Farm. I have just been to Glastonbury Festival as a mum for the first time. As I looked down at the lights in the valley and thought about the magical, beautiful experience we had been through together, the idea of creating a children’s book about a music festival came to me in an instant.

Having been a children’s book illustrator nearly a decade ago, I understood what it takes to make a picture book happen, so the idea of creating another after so many years was both exciting and intimidating. I put it to the back of my mind where it quietly grew and grew.

The idea that grew and grew…

Over the next few weeks, I kept thinking about all the other festival-loving parents out there, who want to read a story to their kids that reflects their own experiences. And the desire to make this a reality for them started to overtake the reasons not to do it. 

There were three big obstacles in my way. The first, and most obvious, is time. As any new parent understands, the time you have to dedicate to anything outside of work and childcare is shaved down into little slivers and so, as I was still working at the time, anything extracurricular seemed impossible.

The second obstacle was money. I had nothing to put into this, except what I might raise myself.

The third, and probably most important obstacle throughout the whole process, was confidence. 

Overcoming Obstacles…

The first and second obstacles resolved themselves through a mixture of fate, determination and the kindness of strangers. 

Fate came in the form of the business I worked for closing down, something which felt like a terrible devastation at the time. After a period of gloom and doom on my part, I brushed myself off, told my husband my mad idea, and took it as a sign to give this project of mine a chance to exist. I banked my redundancy pay and my saved-up holiday and used it to resolve the second obstacle.

Money. My savings bought me a bit of time, but I needed more financial backing behind me to cover the print costs and fund what would be an all-consuming, months-long project. So I decided to run a crowdfund on Kickstarter. I knew this audience was out there. I just needed to find them and see if they were as excited as I was about the idea of a festival children’s book as I was.

But I still needed confidence. The first day it launched, I felt like giving up. I had a handful of donations from my family and friends, and I had an Instagram following of less than 200 people. I couldn’t understand how it would be possible to reach my target. But to my absolute surprise, a voice awoke in me and spoke some sense (it may have been my inner Dave Grohl as I was reading his autobiography at the time). I realised when you have absolutely nothing to back you – no investors, no publishers, no huge following – there is still one thing available. Yourself. I knew I had the power to summon up some ideas to make this work, and I had my little support network of family chats and WhatsApp groups, telling me to Just Keep Going.

I came up with the offer of drawing Kickstarter contributors into my book, so they could really be part of the story. To my complete astonishment, it worked. After a month of campaigning, the Kickstarter fund went beyond the target by over a thousand pounds. The people who donated were more generous than I had estimated, both with their donations, and their shares.

Where the story ended is just begging…

In the end, I’m so glad that I took a risk and went ahead with this project. I now have a very special book about my little girl’s first festival, which other families can enjoy together. Glastonbury made me realise that going to festivals with kids, just like everything else to do with parenting, is all about letting go of expectations and enjoying the ride.

After all – who knows what could happen next? It could be something amazing!

Thank you to Katherine for her amazing guest blog post – All the photos, illustrations and tips, and of course, her incredible story!

If you want to guest write for That Festival Blogger, simply get in touch!