trying to convince a 5 yr old to lie about their age and say they are 4 might be trickier!
Think those checks are only for people pure taking the piss by getting a free ticket for a 10 year old. No volunteer steward is going to quibble with you taking a 5 year old in as an under 5, and I think you’re in the clear morally with the year postponement.
Buy a t shirt if you feel guilty
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I’m sure we’ll end up spending lots of money on food at a minimum, let alone other stuff. That’s the other thing. Do people take food to Settlers? We can’t take a weeks worth of food, but I guess there are shops nearby. Is there a shop in the settlers area? I’ve no idea what conveniences they might have. Showers?
Think there’s a decently stocked mini supermarket on site but not been to green man in years so not the best to answer. Short hop to Abergavenny though if you’ve got the car
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Yeah i did this with a 4 yr old trying to make them three. Spent bloody ages prepping them, trying to explain about money and being ripped off and all of that. Before even got to talking number of tickets etc with the ticket person they gave my son a flag and asked him how old he was to which he answered “i’m 4!” with a helluva lot of glee as they do. I of course shouted him down saying don’t be silly, not until your birthday you’re not (whipped out the ‘you’re 28 until you’re 29’ conversation on twitter to highlight my point 
) and then asked for free entry. To which the ticket person said “well, he’s clearly 4 but why do i care” and let him in free!
Felt like a winner that day i tell you.
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Any sign of rain or mud I wouldn’t bother….dragging them through a quagmire is abject misery……
And what about the trolleys?
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I had the same for EOTR - had tickets for 2020 but rolling over to 2021 also took her in to the next age bracket. I emailed them and they just changed the ticket type but didn’t ask me for any more cash.
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What do me and @hankscorpio 's child have in common
Were both going to get trolleyed at end of the road 2021!
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They’re really nice too - I hired one at Green Man but we found ourself in a queue for over 2 hours to get in and thought I’d have to pay an absolute fortune when I finally returned it. But the guy only charged me for an hour without me even asking.
Any pearls of wisdom or stories of catastrophe from Green Man to share?
We took the kid camping in the New Forest as a warmup a few weeks ago and she bloody loved it. Staying up late, looking at animals, watching me drink beer quietly in a camping chair. All the festival classics.
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It was our first time festivalling with ours (5 and 7 yrs old). We did the whole week as Settlers. This was good as it got them adjusted to the way of life and environment before it all kicked off properly.
They loved it, loads to do for them. We’re exhausted though! We didn’t see anywhere near as many bands as we’d have liked because we focussed on keeping them happy. But still had a great time.
the biggest thing we learnt was shifting their sleep time. The youngest is normally in bed at 7.30pm and wakes up at 6.30am. By the start of the main festival we’d managed to shift it 2 hours later. Even still, the headliners didn’t start until 11pm-ish, which was way too late for either of them, and us it turns out. If we’d been with friends we could have done shifts and had a good time with others but going back out to the main stage on my own to stay up til 1am, then get up early with the kids, just didn’t seem like an attractive option.
The other thing was toilet breaks. We constantly had them refusing to go for a piss with us then literally 5 minutes later they were dying for one. So we lost a lot of time taking them to the loo. We need to work on that somehow.
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Yeah I’m taking the approach that any music I can watch is a bonus and it’s a camping weekender with some bands playing that we might stumble upon. Mine is 3 so I’m hoping late-ish night (9:30 or something) then we can take it in turns sneaking out to drink beer and watch later bands…but who knows how that’ll pan out!
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That was our plan for the headliners but tbh after a full day entertaining the kids, walking miles and getting up early I was pretty knackered by 11pm!
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Took mine to green man aged 7 and 9 and we had a bloody great time. Would heartily recommend. We actually got to see loads of bands and they were super enthusiastic about the music itself which was fab. The key for me was listening to lots of the bands that were playing loads beforehand. We had father John misty, Courtney Barnett etc on hard rotation in the car for weeks beforehand so they were pumped about seeing them and knew the songs. Also really helped that my youngest was already a huge Slowdive fan (see hgatr for details).
There was loads for them to do in the morning before the bands started and they were happy to watch the bands in the pm and eve. We brought camping chairs and usually alternated a “bounce around to Viet Cong in the far out tent” with “chill on the chairs on the slopes behind the mountain tent and listen to the Antlers.” Worked really well and the food was also great. Expensive but totally worth it.
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We thought it was pretty good value, but we went for Settlers. So that goes from £200 each adult and £40 for each child for 4 nights and only adds £100 for the extra 3 nights. We probably spent another £500 on other stuff over the week, so that’s around £1k for family of 4 for a week. I think that’s not bad…
Of course, we’ve already spent all that money on camping gear
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Yeah the actual green man wasn’t that expensive, this was 2015, but we spent more than I expected on food etc. Could have cooked more on our camping stove but there were so many absolutely brilliant food stands…
I reckon we cooked 2 out of 5 meals at the tent. You always try to balance actually doing/seeing things with saving as much money as you can and not taking loads of stuff too. It was a bit different at Glastonbury where time out to go back to your tent and cook would lose you an hour and a half of entertainment!
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We’ve done a bunch of festivals with our two. Started with Latitude 2016 when youngest was three, then did Latitude and Camp Bestival in 2017 with her when she was four. Then took her and her brother to Camp Bestival in 2018, Latitude in 2019 and then Latitude last month. Obviously they are very kid friendly festivals, which it sounds like EOTR is also.
Family camping is a godsend. Standalone facilities (showers!), unlikely for someone to have a full on soundsystem with them, child friendly activities first thing in the morning. Plus everyone is there as a family so it’s super safe and everyone looks out for everyone else.
Top tips - take some entertainment. Kids tend to wake up with the sunrise, which you yourself might not want to necessarily do. Our two are allowed their iPads until the TV and I are ready to face the day. We usually take stuff like bubble wands, a small frisbee, maybe a ball.
Pack ALL the snacks plus water bottles - kids need constant refuelling 
We have one of those flat camping stoves powered by a gas aerosol and usually cook up porridge in the morning and then maybe pasta/gnocchi if we are around the tent at dinner time. Also wet wipes. And bin liners. And a lot of spare clothes. Have you got a plan about child nighttime toilet trips? We held onto the kids’ potette travel potty for quite awhile but then upgraded to a, essentially, camping bedpan that sits flat and has a screwtop and male/female adapters. Again, bring wipes…
Watching acts, we try and alternate watching a band with doing something kid specific. Although our two enjoy live music, they do not enjoy watching endless bands in a row as much as I do. That said, they both get on festival-time quite quickly - they’ve seen numerous 10pm headliners over the years. I remember our first Latitude with offspring I in 2016, the two marquee headliners were Grimes and Soulwax and I was disappointed that we’d miss both. Nope - got video of her dancing away to both at around 10:30 both nights. We’ve never bothered with ear defenders as a) neither child would keep them on and b) we don’t get close enough to the front for it to be that loud.
I have two of ^these 
Folding type as otherwise there would be literally no room in the car for anything else. This style…
They allow you to take a ton of stuff (including your massive tent) and then double up a mobile beds once the kids get tired. One word of warning, it’s tricky transporting a child down a hill in one (Camp Bestival, I’m looking at you). On the flipside, have used them to sneak a ton of booze into festival arenas over the years. What security guard is going to search a trolley with a small child in it 
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All that sounds very familiar. Except we couldn’t get our 5 year old to stay up. We even had that exact trolley, the last one, and he would go to sleep in it. Maybe next time he’ll find it easier. But there was no way he was staying up for 11pm Green Man headliners. We might have pushed him to make 10pm.
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