Case Studies

Festival travel safety guide: tips for a safe and enjoyable journey

Planning to attend a music festival this Summer? Here are some essential tips for safe and sustainable festival travel from the UK’s largest and most sustainable events travel company Big Green Coach. Start your festival adventure worry-free and have a safe journey!

Festival season is just around the corner, and many of you have already bagged a ticket to one of the many music festivals across the UK. Whatever music you’re into there’s new festivals popping up all the time and whether or not the British weather plays ball, festivals are sure to fill your Summer with the best vibes.

But what’s the best way to travel whilst being safe?  How can you travel with uni friends who might be home for Summer and travelling from a different region to you?  

Big Green Coach is the current record holder for coach travel to Download, Isle of Wight Festival, Creamfields, Reading, Leeds, Wireless, Slam Dunk North, Slam Dunk South and Boomtown plus being the official partner to many more including Parklife and Boardmasters. Here are Big Green Coach’s  top tips for planning greener, safer, cheaper festival travel.

Invest in safer festival travel

Plan ahead to budget and have time to consider safety in terms of not driving, and also avoiding waiting around late at night or early in the morning at stations or outside venues. With return travel sorted you can also avoid hotel costs that may be inflated around big events. If you’re considering getting the train, check for a shuttle bus or tram to the station as taxis might be busy. What’s your plan B if there’s a rail strike? If you don’t want to worry about any of this and like to squeeze every drop out of a festival, then coach travel is for you! 

Big Green Coach schedules coaches to collect you from the heart of the festival after the last act has finished – taking away the stress and hassle.  You won’t need to worry about leaving early, booking expensive hotels and taxis or queuing for the tram. 

Coach travel has really moved with the times to cater for younger people and can even pick you up near to your student accommodation.  It’s safer, cheaper, greener and a great way to get hyped up for the good times ahead with people who are on the exact same journey as you; without worrying about putting you and your mates at risk during the journey there or back.

Don’t forget that Big Green Coach travel is tailored specifically to each festival and if you plan your coach trip more than 8 weeks before the event, you can pop a £1 deposit down and pay the remaining balance in manageable bite size chunks.

Consider sustainable festival travel that’s fun

Audience travel accounts for almost 80% of carbon emissions in live events, so it’s never been more important to think properly about travel choices. Coach travel is already proven to be the greenest option for event goers, taking cars off the road and using less land for parking.

Big Green Coach is the UK’s largest carbon-neutral event travel provider and a pioneer in sustainable transport with 15 years of industry expertise.  Since 2021, emissions for every Big Green Coach journey have been calculated and offset through investment in sustainability projects via UK charity Ecolibrium. 674.5 tonnes of carbon will be balanced by Big Green Coach for 2023 with Ecolibrium, via a five figure donation to their Trees+ programme.  Since joining forces with Ecolibrium in 2021 Big Green Coach has balanced over 1500 tonnes of carbon.

For Boardmasters alone, if all Big Green Coach customers travelled individually by car the number of miles travelled would be 1,891,693 miles – equivalent to 76 times around the earth or to the moon and back four times. Each full coach takes approximately a quarter mile of traffic congestion from the roads.

Plan ahead and budget for cheaper, safer festival travel

Planning in advance is so important to travel safety so that you don’t just end up jumping into someone’s car at the last minute, without knowing if they’ll be safe to be the designated driver – after all, we all know that  a festival can be one long party! But do any of us really know how long it takes to sober up, or what the real dangers of driving on very little sleep can be? We’ve all seen the ‘Tiredness Kills’ signs.

Be honest with yourself about how you’ll feel on the way home and plan public transport. Remember that being the designated driver is a big responsibility and it might take some time until you are safe to drive.  Prevention is better than cure, and it’s so much better to plan your travel well in advance.

Road safety in 2024 is about much more than combatting drink-driving. Dangers include drink, drug and mobile phone driving.  Taking the coach is the safer, and most affordable way to travel to and from live events; Big Green Coach partner (Campaign Against Drink Driving) CADD’s message is ‘prevention rather than cure’. You’ll be surprised how generous the luggage and drinks allowance is on tailored festival coach packages and also how helpful the coach volunteers are when you arrive perhaps feeling confused at the festival or depart a bit tired.  You can even finish perfecting your look during the journey.

Travel greener, safer, cheaper with Big Green Coach and pay £1 now for your day or weekend return travel then split the rest monthly. Book your coach now and embark on a journey filled with unforgettable moments and great music!