Isle of Wight Festival 2014 + Travel Diary

My first ever large music festival and spending my 18th in the Isle of Wight. This is my Isle Of Wight guide on what we did on the island and who we saw at the festival. On the 8th of June (Sunday) I was given the biggest surprise ever for my birthday. My Dad gave me tickets for us to go to Isle of Wight Festival 2014. I had always wanted to go to a big music festival! It ran from the 12th of June to the 15th. I was super excited and happy because a lot of the acts playing there are my favourites; Kings of Leon, Fall Out Boy, The Pretty Reckless, Lawson.

THIS IS MY ISLE OF WIGHT GUIDE TO THE ISLAND & THE FESTIVAL 2014

DAY ONE | THURS 12TH JUNE

We left on Thursday morning around 5am, got up at 4:30am and drove to Portsmouth. We arrived at Portsmouth dock around 6am and got some breakfast. Our ferry with Wight Link departed at 7:30am and took roughly 40 minutes. We arrived on the Isle of Wight in Ryde at 8:10am.

We drove around the island a little bit and explored and then drove to our first B&B which was Seven in Brighstone (near Newport). The B&B location was lovely, in a lovely quite village with cute thatched cottages and houses. A typical sleepy village. The weather was gorgeous which added to the location. The B&B was lovely, the hosts were lovely and really friendly. The room was nicely decorated and comfy. A wide range menu for breakfast and also lunch and dinner in the cafe/restaurant.

Around lunch time, we drove to the festival site and explored the surroundings. We got there a bit too early as not much was happening on Thursday but we saw a few small music acts on the Life’s A Beach stage and got some lunch, I had a pulled pork bap and for a drink I had a strawberry slush because it was so hot.

There wasn’t many acts on Thursday, only small bands and acts that are starting up and promoting themselves but we sat and watched a young girl soloist; Abi who was really good, she had a Jessie J sound to her – she performed in the Life’s A Beach area. Then in the afternoon we saw From The Jam in the BIG TOP and then went early to get some sleep as we were so tired from travelling.

DAY TWO | FRI 13TH JUNE

We got up early-ish (around 8:30am) and got ready. Then had a full english breakfast sat outside in the lovely sunny weather. We then explored some viewpoints and the beach in Brighstone after that we drove to our second B&B in Shanklin which was pretty average, nothing special and the area was pretty boring and old fashioned. And we then drove to the festival site.

On the festival site, we then saw Lawson, Tom Odell, Rudimental, Alison Moyet and Calvin Harris perform and a little bit of Katy B but we was walking home at that point. For dinner we had chinese! I had chicken noodles. As the weather was so hot, I decided I wanted to get another slush drink but we found another slush pop up shop called Slush Rush, they had a wide range of flavours from strawberry, blue raspberry, pineapple to red bull with funky shaped bottles. I went for a palm tree bottle which was £5 and then you could get a re-fill for £3 each time! For my first try I got strawberry and blue raspberry – it was super yummy and refreshing! 🙂

DAY THREE | SAT 14TH JUNE

Had breakfast and then drove to Blackgang Chine viewpoint.

This is the view from Blackgang Chine viewpoint. We explored around a little bit around Blackgang Chine, Dad said Blackgang Chine was a beach so we went to explore it to find it is now actually a small theme park, and we looked at the entry prices to find it was £25 per person! which was ridiculous and we also explored through the other small villages and then drove to the festival site.We experienced some very drunk people whilst waiting for the main acts to start and it was only gone past midday, one guy was walking (or should I say staggering) around the main stage area whilst people were sat down waiting, only wearing his shorts and shoes, and kept walking and nearly falling into people sitting down – it was rather funny and everyone was laughing at him because he had no idea where he was.

I had another one of my Slush Rush slushies, this time I had strawberry and pineapple! The main stage acts kicked off with Nina Nesbitt, then The Pretty Reckless, John Newman, The 1975 then we had dinner which we had chicken burger and chips and then waited for the Red Hot Chili Peppers to come on as the final act of the night.

DAY FOUR | SUN 15TH JUNE

So this day was my birthday! Woke up early-ish and got ready after my shower. And then me and dad exchanged presents as it was also Father’s Day. My Dad got me an ICE watch and it’s awesome. We went down to the local town to see if the jewelers was open so I could get some links taken out as it’s too big for my wrist but no shops were open. We then went to a viewpoint and had lunch before driving to the festival site.

ICE ICE BABY! My Ice watch I got for my birthday.

The acts on Sunday were: Ella Eyre, Passenger, Fall Out Boy and Kings of Leon!

Whilst waiting for Fall Out Boy to come on, suddenly the Red Arrows performed some stunts and tricks above the main stage. I got some pretty good photos if I do say so myself.. 🙂

After the Red Arrows show, Fall Out Boy finally came out 🙂

Then we had dinner, which we finally found a lovely home-made Indian stall called Tikka Masala and had a selection of there food from chicken curry, rice, samosas, chickpea salad – which was really yummy but spicy. xD Whilst waiting for the Kings of Leon to come on, we had dinner and listened to a bit of The Specials but wasn’t really fussed about seeing them, just a bit of background music. Finally the Kings of Leon came on and got pretty near the front in the middle.

DAY FIVE | MON 16TH JUNE

Our final day in Isle of Wight and we spent most of it driving around and exploring a few more places around the island. We drove to a small beach and it had a small cafe called Baywatch where we grabbed a coffee and hot chocolate, as it was rather cold and windy, before our ferry departed.

Our ferry departed around 2pm-ish. On our drive home I caught up with the latest Game of Thrones episode before falling asleep. We got home around 5pm and went out for a meal to our local pub

I couldn’t leave the festival without buying merchandise, so I walked away with two awesome tops! 🙂 And my birthday presents from friends and family.