The microphone screeches as the Festivalbus rep explains the rules of the journey. The first - talk to people you don't know - is cheerily accepted. But the second - don't drink on the bus - is met with derisive boos from the coach-load of students on their way to the inaptly-named Dour festival in Belgium.
Little wonder. This group of 20-somethings is here to party. Fed up with the British summer, the cost of beer and the lack of originality at many UK festivals they are heading to the continent for four days of music and mayhem.
"English festivals are just so expensive," shouts Sarah Holton, 21, above the pounding drum and bass on the coach. "I can [get] a four-day festival ticket in Belgium and pay for my travel and drinks for the same price as a ticket to Reading. And it's like a little holiday."
Like thousands of others, this summer she is going to a festival abroad, lured by the promise of sunshine, cheap tickets and eclectic line-ups. Last weekend more than 8,000 Brits went to the Exit festival, which is held in a 17th century fort in Serbia, and about half the punters at Benicassim, in Valencia, Spain, this weekend are British.
And where there is a hedonist with money to spend, there is a canny soul ready to help them spend it. Often young, media-savvy and festival fans themselves, entrepreneurs are cashing in on the trend. Festivalbus - which has brought 106 people to listen to artists such as Wu-Tang Clan, Foals and Roni Size, at Dour this weekend - is the brainchild of Max Lewis, 21, a student who set it up after organising a coach for friends for a trip to the festival last year. For £75 his passengers get a return journey from London direct to the festival. "There's no hassle involved, it's cheaper than getting the Eurostar and you have made a big bunch of mates before you even arrive at the festival," he says. He set up his company mainly using the networking site Facebook, using the internet to spread the word. This year he has sent coaches to three festivals but plans on catering for more than 20 next year.
Quest for the Fest, a group that sets up tents, airbeds and cooking gear at European festivals before the visitors arrive, also uses Facebook, and the classified ads website Gumtree to promote its service, set up with three friends by Eugene Skewes, 26, an Australian. "We abandoned so many tents at various festivals, that we thought there must be a better way of doing it," said Skewes. "We thought, if we can make a living from doing this, what better job in the world could we have?"
But the opportunities for these firms may already be ending, according to Max Bolland, 26, who set up Into Exit, a website offering a travel and accommodation service for Britons going to the Serbian festival this year. "The competition is already growing as everybody gets the same idea. It's only a matter of time until the big companies move in."
Nick Blackburn, chief executive of See Tickets, the UK's biggest online ticket agency, believes the promise of sun and cheap beer may not be enough to protect foreign festivals from the vagaries of the market. "If we see a big increase in the price of oil and the costs of flights, coupled with a recession back home, then that could be a real threat to the growth of these festivals."
guardian.co.uk © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2008
