Festival season has started for little old me and I could not have asked for a better festival to kick it off with than The Great Escape. For those of you who don’t know, The Great Escape is a city showcase festival with loads of artist playing from like 12pm to 3am all around venues in all of Brighton. I was lucky enough to be a volunteer, and even though we are at the very bottom of the hierarchy I still had a blast, learned so much and made amazing friends and contacts!
I arrived on Wednesday and went to my friend Sofia’s to drop my bag and have a quick catchup with her before heading down to registration and briefing. When I was down there they asked if a few of us could stay and help finish a box of goody bags that needed doing, naive little me thought that it wouldn’t take that long and that one box shouldn’t be that much… Hours. It took us hours to get through that bloody box..
Thursday was the very first day of the actual festival so I went to sign in and then to the North Lain Brewhouse, or as I call it, work. There I met Tyler who was the Sound Engineer Volunteer and when we finally managed to get inside we met Symond (Venue Rep), Sam (Sound Engineer) and Jack (some other important role that I can not for the life of me remember!) One hour in to the day and our backline hasn’t turned up for soundcheck and there’s bands missing and everything just seems to be going mad and Symond hands me the radio and says “I have to pop away for a bit, I’ll be back, but you’re in charge.” Yeah, inside I was panicking, on the outside I was as calm as can be. It went ok though, nothing really happened. We finally got another backline and the show went on, a bit late, but we managed to catch up the time we lost. At the end of the night I was so knackered I just went home and went to sleep, to be honest.
Friday was a good day. Another show day and two of my friends came around which was very fun, got to spend some time with my people whilst doing what I love! At the end of the night I was very keen on going out, because why not? I somehow ended up in a club with Jack (boss person whose role I can’t remember) and his mates, and we were dancing, there were Jägerbombs going around and before I knew it I was walking home at 4am. Safe to say Brighton people know how to party! I thought my Spanish side could take it but the level of my hangover the next day was ridiculous…
Saturday morning I got to the venue and asked for water, loads and loads of water and tea and just kept myself hydrated all the time because I was dying! Not only from my hangover but from tiredness as well. The day was long but I had Paige there so we had a nice chat and then I went off to see Mindofalion at another venue as well so I had a little break. For some reason I was very keen on going out again but when I was heading home no one was going out and as soon as I got in to bed I got a text saying where people were! Yeah, very annoying…So I stayed in bed and had a very long and nice sleep!
Sunday was epic. The festival itself was over on Saturday and so all the staff and volunteers got free drinks from 12 to 6pm and I can promise you, we made good use of those free drinks! I was meant to just pop down for one drink and say proper goodbyes to the peeps but instead I started drinking beer and going to the photobooth and dancing and all of the sudden I was getting the 10.44 pm train home which was so slow and annoying and I didn’t get home/fall asleep until like 2am, which normally wouldn’t bother me, but I had an exam this morning, hee hee…
Anyway, the festival was amazing, Brighton was amazing and everything this weekend has just been amazing and fun. I can honestly say that I’ve come back from Brighton a changed person, being more honest with myself about what I want in life and how I’m going to get there.
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