Do you have a busi­ness that you think would go down well at fes­ti­vals? I asked four such entre­pre­neur­ial types, with ven­tures in T‑shirts, vin­tage tents, gourmet cof­fee and holis­tic mas­sage – about their expe­ri­ences as fes­ti­val traders. Is it a com­bi­na­tion of fun and prof­it, and are you guar­an­teed enough time out to catch a favourite band? One sea­soned fes­ti­val trad­er and three rel­a­tive new­bies tell their stories.

Harry Collett lives in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire and together with his father, started boutique tent venture, Vintents (retro canvas tents), which began trading this year. They recently finished their successful inaugural stint as festival traders at Deer Shed Festival in North Yorkshire

How did you get started?
Har­ry: I had worked over pre­vi­ous sum­mers in the bou­tique camp­ing scene. I’d seen how big it is grow­ing, and the demand for it. So togeth­er with my father, we start­ed col­lect­ing can­vas frame tents from the 1970s and ear­ly 1980s. My dad has a pas­sion for them. It has to be said, they aren’t easy to track down. They’ve been stowed away in people’s garages and sheds, and find­ing them in good nick has been hard – we’ll only take them if they are in good con­di­tion. But we’ve man­aged to accu­mu­late around 25 now. We’re lucky in that we’ve got a real old-school repair work­shop near us in West York­shire, and we’ve been able to get the stitch­ing re-done and zips repaired.

How did your first fes­ti­val work out for you?
It was real­ly suc­cess­ful. We did it pro bono, as a try out and to test the mar­ket. Delight­ed to say that every­one was pleased with how it went. We did Deer Shed Fes­ti­val and they used the tents for VIPS – John Grant’s musi­cians and man­ag­er were amongst those who stayed in them, they loved them. And the fes­ti­val ran a com­pe­ti­tion with the prize being one of our tents for the fes­ti­val – they enjoyed it too.

So what’s the next step?
We are already on the phones, see­ing if we can sell the idea to more fes­ti­vals. When we start­ed, most had already got their plans sort­ed for 2015 and weren’t look­ing to start on 2016. Now we’re back from Deer Shed, we’re look­ing at 2016.

What about costs? And storage?
We had a stor­age facil­i­ty any­way, so we’re able to use that. And we bor­rowed a car­a­van to trans­port the tents to the fes­ti­val. Obvi­ous­ly we’ll have to look to hir­ing a van as things build up, and even­tu­al­ly per­haps buy one, but we’re not at that stage yet.

Did you get to see any of the bands, or was it all work?
Yes we saw lots! Our hard­est work is before the fes­ti­val set­ting up, and at the end. Dur­ing the fes­ti­val, we always made sure that some­one was on hand and able to sort out prob­lems, but it’s the sort of busi­ness that allows us to have time out to enjoy it too.

Vintents.co.uk

In the 1990s, Simon Jones and his partner created Mental Peace, a clothing company, in Amsterdam. Glastonbury and Womad were just two of the festivals they traded at regularly. 

Chris Kingshott started his gourmet coffee company, King Shots, a mere 12 weeks ago. Chris, from Cheltenham, has already done his first festival and there’s another on the horizon

What made you want to start a cof­fee company?
Chris: When I was younger, I went trav­el­ling and end­ed up in Aus­tralia, where I learnt to be a barista and absolute­ly loved it. The place I worked was seri­ous about their cof­fee, and I devel­oped a pas­sion for it. Ear­li­er this year a friend here at home was sell­ing their cof­fee van. I decid­ed it was the right time to go for it, so I bought the van, rebrand­ed it and bought all the equipment.

So how are things progressing?
I was lucky as my first book­ing was a pri­vate event for restau­ra­teur and pre­sen­ter Pru Lei­th at her house, and I had an incred­i­bly pos­i­tive reac­tion from everyone.

You start­ed as a fes­ti­val trad­er ear­li­er this year, how did it go?
I start­ed a bit late for this year’s fes­ti­val sea­son but I did Rovin’ Fest in Chel­tenham, which was a great expe­ri­ence and I learned a lot. The atmos­phere was real­ly good and there was great cama­raderie amongst the traders. The next one I’ll be at is Stroud Fringe [free fam­i­ly fes­ti­val]. The plan after that is to com­pile a data­base of all the fes­ti­vals, and email hun­dreds of them for 2016.

How are you find­ing the expens­es for festivals?
A lot of them want the mon­ey up front. Then there’s insur­ance, PAT test­ing on elec­tri­cals, and hygiene rating.

What cof­fee do you use?
It’s a spe­cial roast, roast­ed for Green Bean Machine in Chel­tenham. I tried lots of cof­fees before select­ing this one. Obvi­ous­ly this ven­ture has to make mon­ey, but it’s about more than that, this is some­thing that is my pas­sion. Every cof­fee we make is fresh­ly ground to order, and cus­tomers can have it how­ev­er they want. I get the beans every week to make sure they are at their freshest.

Are you a sea­soned fes­ti­val goer?
Yes, I used to go to the Isle of Wight, and 2000 Trees. I love the atmos­phere and I knew I’d enjoy work­ing at festivals.
kingshotscoffee.co.uk

Nina Milburn is a professionally-trained masseuse and has been working at festivals as “Massage for Wellbeing” for three years

What kind of ther­a­py do you offer?
I offer holis­tic mas­sage, it’s is designed to improve your men­tal and phys­i­cal state, which is why my pro­fes­sion­al name is “Mas­sage for Wellbeing”.

 

Do you enjoy work­ing at festivals? 

I real­ly enjoy it, it’s so dif­fer­ent from the usu­al mas­sages I do at home. It allows me to work with such a wide vari­ety of clients and has giv­en me an oppor­tu­ni­ty to gain more expe­ri­ence. It’s a great way of meet­ing loads of inter­est­ing peo­ple and, espe­cial­ly at Glas­ton­bury, the Heal­ing Fields had such a strong com­mu­ni­ty where I learnt so much about oth­er treat­ments and com­pli­men­ta­ry therapies.