Truck 2024

tl;dr #

• Good vibes
• Family friendly
• Good value for money
• Decent line up
• Variable sound quality

Pre-amble #

Three weeks prior to Truck I had no festival plans for this summer. With a just turned one-year-old baby at home, Mrs B and I had reined in our summer plans having over-reached last year, when we took a three-month-old and two-year-old on a four-week tour of France in a not quite fully converted camper van. That meant our objective was simply to see out the summer with some day tips near to home and a one week stay in Spain – nothing too adventurous.

But god bless the NHS, and the Truck organising team’s desire to shift their final few tickets come what may, which meant we picked up a pair through Tickets For Good at the princely price of £9.50. Our girls’ tickets were free, and the Tixel auto-buy feature worked remarkably well and quickly to bag us a camper van pass within 24 hours of deciding to take the (essentially) free tickets. All in we’d spent £134.50 – just £2.50 more than we’d have spent on four nights camping at a campsite here in sunny North Devon, with no entertainment provided. It’s worth noting here that even had we paid full price Truck represents pretty good value for money, with super early bird tickets coming in under £100 and even the most expensive full four-day tickets only costing £165.

So, at short notice, we found ourselves prepping for a first visit to Truck and a first visit to a festival with two children in tow (one was a doddle). This travelogue style review should be seen through that prism, so apologies to the non-parents reading.

Travel #

Come the festival we headed up on Thursday morning, a little later than initially planned, but made good time with a fast asleep baby and a toddler engrossed in her new busy book. We made it two hours, stopped at Leigh Delamere, which mercifully had a soft play for the girls to burn some energy and then had a good run onwards from there, arriving on site around 4pm. The journey home would not be similar.

We didn’t pick up signs for the site until pretty close, meaning sat nav was pretty essential to arrive into the right side of the site. There was no traffic or queueing on arrival and the traffic stewards couldn’t have looked less interested – but then they didn’t need to be interested. We got given a pitch, said hello to our friendly neighbours (always a good thing) and got the awning up. As our girls both have dairy, egg and soya allergies (iknorite) we’d bought some frozen meals we’d batch cooked at home, so fed them and then headed in to get wrist-banded and catch The Mysterines and Idles.

Thursday #

With Thursday entry being an add-on it was fairly quiet and we easily strolled up to the bar for a drink, before heading to the Ferris Wheel to for daughter #1 to have a ride – which involved pulling on a poncho at the top as a squall of drizzly rain blew in. Thankfully there were just a few more of these in the next half an hour before it dried out for the weekend, leaving glorious weather for the duration of the festival. Daughter and I watched the first couple of songs from Mysterines from the Ferris Wheel, while daughter #2 fell asleep in the buggy – result. We watched the set from between the sound desk and bar, where sound was of passable quality but quite quiet.

After The Mysterines we caught a little of Dirty Blonde on This Feeling while we walked around the arena pushing the buggy for our eldest to sleep, and felt a bit gutted we couldn’t go in and enjoy from closer up as they sounded great. Mission accomplished we headed back to the main stage and met friends to watch Idles. We picked a spot which would become the one we returned to all weekend whenever at the main stage – between the Falafel stall and sound desk, just ahead of the accessibility desk and repeaters. We reckoned this was the optimum position for a good view, space for the kids, ease of access with buggy/trolley and clear enough sound which wasn’t too loud for the kids (who obviously had ear defenders too). Idles did their thing, getting a really big pit whirling, a wall of death etc, all while fostering a community spirit of togetherness. With both girls asleep Mrs B and I were even able to take it in turns to hit the pit for a few songs each. Unfortunately, this meant the death of my walking boots, ironically, while I was dancing to “Never Fight a Man With a Perm”. It seems my boots weren’t made for stomping.

Kids #

On Friday we explored the kids’ area, Little Truckers – arriving just in time for Silly Olympics. It looked like great fun, albeit the dodgeball tournament was a bit full on and dominated by 7-10-year-old boys, meaning my daughter opted for crafting instead, making a tickling stick and festival sunglasses. There were two or three different craft activities on offer every day, with all materials supplied FOC, which was fantastic – especially given my girl’s proclivity for “doing some crafting.” Over the course of the weekend my two took part in a kids rave, spun plates, played organised games, coloured, played and even entered a family game show. I was filled with pride watching my three-year-old on stage playing “Welly Welly Boot Spoon” and being the Littlest Pirate as Team Pirates won the Family Game Show. In a strange quirk, there seemed to be very few other children of her age – there were a few other small babies, but the majority of children present seemed to be five or older, so for her to join in the way she did was amazing. A special shout out here for the entertainer in the kids’ field, who wore a pink ARXX t-shirt one day. He was the hardest working man at the fest, was really kind, fun and warm, and I was very grateful for it. There was also an accessibility and inclusion space across the way from the kids’ area, which brought out bubble making equipment each evening, which was really helpful on a few occasions, giving us a space and opportunity for the girls to burn off more energy at the end of the day when they weren’t quite ready for sleep yet.

Music #

The kids field took up a lot of our time during the festival, and thankfully it was close to the Nest, the stage with a program most to my taste. Despite large crowds at the tent for a lot of the acts we were able to watch The Menstrual Cramps on Friday, Fat Dog on Saturday and Vlure, Heartworms and Bob Vylan on Sunday, all from outside the tent with fairly good sound. Due to its location in the corner of the site it was quite easy to take in the Nest’s offering from the left-hand side of the tent without any sound bleed from other stages. I was also able to get into the pit for chunks of Fat Dog, Vlure and Bob Vylan’s set, all fairly easily by accessing from the back of the tent by the sound desk. All three nearly blew the roof of the tent off – it had a great vibe. Admittedly getting access for Bob was more difficult, as the huge crowd meant security had been deployed to ring the tent and prevent access to its interior. Thankfully I was able to sweet talk a steward by telling them I was on a five-minute parenting break as I entered the pit for the last ten minutes of the set. Thankfully Bob played 15 minutes past their stage time, so I got a really decent dance and emerged incredibly sweaty. Bob referenced the security and stage capacity in a not-at-all veiled dig at the bookers, but managed to do so in a good natured way. Being able to pull off the ‘friendliest band in rock” gimmick while calling for anti-fascist violence and dissing festival organisers is a fabulous trick. We also caught Juice Pops on The Nest, for some fairly inoffensive but easily listenable indie.

Our evenings were all spent at the main stage, in large part because we liked the line up but also because The Nest’s programming finished at 20:30. On Friday we had missed Peace and NewDad there, due to parenting decisions and then headed to our spot for Holly Humberstone, who was enjoyable. As our girls were settled in playing with friends’ children we opted to stay put for Declan Mckenna, who suffered from sound issues from our position. This meant missing English Teacher — probably our biggest regret. We’d planned on seeing Jamie T, but had to make him the one headline set we dipped on, as the girls just wouldn’t sleep. Off up the hill (which makes the van field Hill Of Death at Glastonbury look like a piece of cake) we went.

Saturday actually started with a main stage act, as a shocking number of people, probably around 4,000 got their day going with Mr Motivator — good fun, even if his motivational speaking left a little to be desired. We ended our day there too, with the slightly disappointing Wet Leg. They played their hits, and seemed to be having fun, but a combination of having to look after the girls and the sound not being great in our spot (discussed further below) meant it fell a bit flat. We also got a slight feeling that by having no new material, over two years since their break-out and Glastonbury Park Stage super crowd, they might just be blowing their shot at making it properly big.

Saturday saw three-year-old daughter catch her favourite act of the festival, Frank Turner playing acoustic as a secret set in the tiny V&V Tent. We were walking by and recognise a familiar sound, remembered there was a secret set and pulled over to watch. Daughter #1 actually saw Frank when she was just 10-months-old and seemed to genuinely recognise that fact. She asked to stand on my shoulders to see better and to walk further into the crowd. “Go forward Daddy,” she repeated until we were clearly inside the tent. As always, Frank didn’t disappoint and kept the crowd which spilled out of the tent happy. Another act we caught during Saturday was Elin Grace, who drew us into the market Stage as we found her enchanting while walking by. We tried to return to the Market for Sub Focus after headliners, but the sound woke up the sleeping girls in the trolley / buggy so we scarpered back to the campervan.

On Sunday we weren’t sharp enough out of the blocks to catch the reputedly excellent Oxford Symphony Orchestra, but ended our festival with a hit of nostalgia from The Kooks and The Streets. We had a bit of a sing along to the ear worm that is Naïve, which instantly transported me back to the summer of my A-levels, when I’d hear it a minimum of four times every night shift, playing on local radio piped into the factory floor as I earned the money to pay for a week-long Ibiza blow out before uni. Mike Skinner really delivered in the final set, his on-stage patter making the set more fun than most. Daughter #2 refused to sleep but was really happy dancing along to the Brummie beats of “Original Pirate Material”, “Fit But You Know It” and “Never Went to Church” before we watched the festival ending fireworks from the hill. The fireworks really stood out as some of the best I’ve ever seen, perhaps helped by the fact it felt like we were at the same altitude as them, having started the walk back to the van two songs before the end of the set.

Sound issues #

Across the weekend we heard complaints about sound, and also struggled with it ourselves a few times. Many of these centred on the Market Stage, where issues were caused by a decision to split the speaker stacks, suspending half the speakers on each side of the stage ten feet above the other half. This meant we really didn’t enjoy Antony Szmierek, as his vocals were really obscured and the backing track was a little muffled. Being unable to hear a vocal isn’t ideal for an act who is essentially a spoken word poet. The other Market Stage act we saw, Elin Grace, largely escaped these issues, being a very gentle performer not overly reliant on volume. However, people we spoke to reported crap sound for most sets on that stage. We noticed similar on The Nest early in the weekend but these issues were sorted by the end of Friday, meaning we enjoyed everything we saw there as detailed above. This Feeling and The V&V were also largely issue free. We did find that the main stage sound was hit and miss, although this could have been due to our positioning, again as detailed above.

Alternative entertainment #

The alt ent at Truck centred around a barn turned into a gala club, The Rockin’ Chair. We didn’t venture there much, as films and comedy aren’t easy to enjoy with small children in tow. The stars did align for us to head there for one comedian we’d earmarked though, the excellent Andrew Maxwell. Both girls were napping at his stage time so we headed over and were impressed by the way the barn was decked out, the number of tables and bar inside. Sadly the schedule was behind, plus the barn was heaving with people seeking shade so we ended up watching ten minutes of absolutely hack predictable ‘anti-woke’ comedy from Aussie stand up Jack Gleadow while stood at the back of the room alongside our trolley, before giving up and seeking somewhere quiet to sit for some food and a few drinks.

Food #

The festival had a decent line up of vendors offering a wide range of choice, although given my daughters’ allergies it was surprisingly difficult to get them food from vendors – even getting chips seemed an impossible challenge with several vendors saying theirs contained soya or dairy, which seemed counter intuitive. We really enjoyed the Katsu curry stall on Thursday, and planned to get Bao Buns later in the festival, as well as visiting Crumble Pots. However, this didn’t happen as we discovered the food hall, a big top in the middle of the fest with several food stalls inside operated by local charities, selling decent meals for really reasonable prices. Crumpets for £3 from the scouts? Yes please. Jacket potatoes with cheese and beans in aid of the local church roof for £5? Of course. Steak sandwiches for £9 and the local cricket club keep the proceeds? Give it to me now. The steak sandwich in particular was excellent, and the food hall was something that really marked out the festival as different to others for me.

Crowd #

The crowd throughout had a friendly family feel, but also a good percentage of real youngsters. My local festival has a similarly high number of 16-18-year-olds and really suffers as a result, with huge numbers of drink and drug related incidents as kids being set free for the first time over-indulge. Perhaps the fact Truck is in a far less remote location than my home means the kids are less naïve, or maybe not. Either way, we didn’t see anyone struggling all weekend, and if there had been there were sensory spaces and welfare points at hand. Essentially the crowd mixed well all weekend.
Value and comparison

To make a judgement on value for money I decided to compare to other festivals of similar size. Another festival I’ve been to at this sort of size is the Levellers’ Beautiful Days. Tickets this year were £220 – more than double the cost of a super early bird ticket for Truck, and £55 more than the most expensive basic ticket Truck offers. Both offer a similar number of stages and sets, but personally I much preferred the Truck lineup, which definitely had plenty more big names. We saw 19 sets, even with the kids in tow – if we’d paid top whack this averages out at just over £8 per act. You’re not seeing anyone for less than that these days.

The other comparative comment I’d make is that Truck did feel ‘more corporate’ than any other festival I’ve visited, with giveaways of cans of a certain world famous fizzy drink by the arena entrance and stalls offering samples of snuss, iced tea, and cocktails in return for your personal data. That clashed with the far more independent fell of BDs, but it was easy enough to ignore, so I certainly wouldn’t mark Truck down for it, especially not in these days of festivals folding due to spiralling costs.

Conclusion #

Would I recommend Truck? Yes!