14 tips for making the most of your Deer Shed Festival weekend

How to make the most of your family festival weekend

We were sent tickets for the purpose of this review. 

Post contains products sent for review and affiliate links.

Last year Deer Shed Festival 8, set in beautiful grounds of Baldersby Park in North Yorkshire, was our first ever family festival.  We had a great time and we kicked off our holidays with Deer Shed Festival 9 again this summer.  With two years under our belts now, I thought I’d share our top tips for making the most of your visit to Deer Shed Festival.  Here are 14 things I wish I had known our first time around.

You can also read seasoned festival goer North East Family Fun’s opinion of her first Deer Shed Festival this year.  She gives a great look at how it stacks up to other festival experiences.

1. Get to the festival as early as you can

You can set up your campsite at the Deer Shed Festival from 10am on Friday morning.  Although we’ve never gotten there quite that early, I do recommend arriving as early as possible.  There will be a pitch space for everyone no matter when you arrive, but it does get harder to find a good spot.  Our first year we arrived late on Friday evening and set up on a slope.  If you’re planning to go with a group this is even more important as you’ll need to find a larger area if you’re all planning to camp together.

2. It’s hard going without a transporter

Our first year as festival newbies it didn’t occur to me to get a trolley or transporter.  However, we quickly realised it would be a huge job to get our gear from the car to our camp spot without one.  We hired one that year but it was quite a wait in the ques.  This year we loved having our Outwell Cancun Transporter which doubled up as a kid carrying case.

3. Pack light

I also made the mistake of packing for the festival like I was camping my first year.  For the second year I tried to keep things to a minimum as we didn’t spend nearly as much time in the tent as I expected.  I tried to only bring the essentials and left most of the ‘camp furniture’ at home aside from a few fold out chairs.

4.  Sign up for activities early

There are so many great things to do at Deer Shed, from art and craft workshops to sport and science activities.  Many are drop-in, but there are also a big variety of paid for activities that you must sign up for.  The more popular activities can fill up fast so be sure to sign up for the ones you want as early as possible.

5. Don’t get too attached to plans

Deer Shed Festival takes place on the very Friday my kids break up from school.  This makes it a brilliant way to kick off the holidays, but it also means the kids are pretty worn out before we even land at the festival.  Both years we’ve had acts we’d planned to see but the kids have needed to get back to the tent before they were on.

This isn’t to say we didn’t get plenty of music in.  There were over 50 musical acts on at Deer Shed Festival 9 including the delightful Hyde Park Brass Band who walked among the festival goers playing music all weekend.  My advice is to relax and go with the flow as much as you can!

6. Take advantage of free activities

We had a great time with the free activities this year.  Our top three had to be the den making, the chance to hitch a ride on a Newfoundland pulled cart and an unforgettable sock wresting match.

There were also lots of free crafts and art to be enjoyed as well as music, comedy and workshops!

7. Set a budget for the kids

With so many tempting activities, trinkets and goodies on offer, I found it much easier to set a budget for the weekend.  That way the kids can decide if something is really worth spending some of their money on or not.  If you let the kids try everything it would be easy to fly through money pretty quickly.  I found that Lily really enjoyed managing her money and ended up choosing lots of free things to do.  She ended up with enough left on Sunday to buy a small carved cat as a memento.

8. Plan in downtime

With so very much to do it can be tempting (for me at least) to try to cram in as much as possible.  However, we found it really helpful to head back to the tent mid-day for a rest and a late lunch to let the kids batteries recharge.

Lily brought a few stuffed toys with her and had a rest in her fab new Outwell sleeping bag from Simply Hike (we loved the colour and the built in pillow). I do wish I had brought a few colouring books and reading with me as well just to create a bit of calm space for her.

There is also yoga and a quiet sensory tent for those who need a bit of a break from the activities.

The Wilder Wild is also a good space for a quieter experience with nature based crafts and activities.

9. Bring a hat and lightweight jacket

I’m not normally a hat wearer but I’ve worn one the past two year at Deer Shed.  Perfect for covering up for un-washed hair and keeping out the sun.  There are showers to hire at the Deer Shed Festival but I’ve always just gone the body wash and dry shampoo route.  I also find a lightweight jacket like this one from Simply Hike great for cooler nights.

10.  You probably won’t want to cook

Although cooking over a camp stove is a big part of our camping weekends, I find during a busy festival I want food that is realy easy to prepare.  In fact, the only time I used the camp stove the last two festivals was to heat up water for coffee.  Instead we ate granola, cereal, snacks and sandwiches for the morning and lunch and treated ourselves to dinner at the festival.  There are lots of great options to choose from.  I had tacos one night and felafel the next.  We saved a bit by having the kids share an adult sized fish and chips and drinking water rather than juice but adult meals (without extras will set you back £7-£10).

11. Embrace the theme

Each year the Deer Shed Festival has a new theme and I loved the ‘Making Waves’ at this year’s festival.  We met mermaids and giant fish.  Some people had mermaid inspired festival outfits as well.

12. Bring your own face paint

If you have face paint bring it along!  The kids loved having their faces painted in the tent and it also meant they could save their ‘budget’ for other fun things.  It does help you if also bring a creative friend along like I did!

13. There’s lots on for little ones

As I attended Deer Shed with two 7-year-olds I think it’s pretty clear that that age was well catered for as were the tweens and teens.  However, the under 5’s had lots of activities provided as well.  The NCT has a baby change tent set up along side a soft play area and there is a special under 5’s activity tent featuring the fantastic Boom Chikka Boom. There is also a sand pit, theatre and story telling sessions as well as messy play and the Pig Sty where kids can play in the hay.

14. You can get cash at the festival

There are ATMs and some of the stalls do accept cards.  There is around a £3 fee for using the ATM so you are better off bringing what you need with you, but there is a cash option for back up.

Deer Shed 10 is set for 26th-28th July 2019 and tickets will be available from 10am on 6th September.

Do you have any top tips for attending a festival as a family?  I’d love to hear them!

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