This year I took my girlfriend to a festival for her birthday, it was she who chose The Big Chill and was my first experience of a family festival since Glastonbury many years ago. Despite our weeks of preparation prior to the festival, things did not get off to a great start at all and after turning up early Thursday afternoon, within 24 hours we already wanted to leave.

We were due to set off from Plymouth around 06:30 to ensure that we arrived at Eastnor Deer Park in plenty of time to get set up and to ensure we had plenty of room to erect our 7 man tent (yes, a 7 man tent just for two of us...) but after deciding to start the party celebrations the night before we were meant to set off, we ended up leaving four hours behind schedule! The venue was very well sign posted and to getting there without the aid of a sat nav was no problem at all, when we arrived, cars were already tailing back out of the access road (blue zone) and only once we had parked up did we realise the extent of how far we had to transport our belongings from a to b.

We had a car loaded up to the roof with our camping gear because my girlfriend has a bad back (this is the reason we required such a large tent) and needs many luxuries when camping that others can get by without... Nowhere on the tickets or the website prior to arriving on site were we warned that if we needed to hire one of the trolleys to get our stuff from the car park to the campsite would we have to cough up a £50 deposit. This resulted in us having to try and get to a cash machine to withdraw £50 to hire a trolley and the only cash machines onsite were located in the main arena... When attempting to get into the main arena (this being about 15:30), we were advised that they are delayed opening instead of 15:00, they will now be opening at 17:00. Upon explaining the situation to various stewards and security personnel, no-one let us into the main arena to just briefly nip to the cash machines so we could hire a trolley and start transporting our belongings from the car down to where we wanted to camp.

We had been at the venue for six hours by the time we were able to get a trolley and start loading it up from the back of our car! By this point, it was going to be tight to get all set up before we lost daylight... And due to this complete shambles, we unfortunately missed the mass Zombie Gathering at 19:00... As it turned out, I was tapping the last tent pegs into the ground just as daylight completely disappeared (about 22:00), thankfully a group of other campers next to us, helped me get the tent up as due to it's size, it's just simply not possible on my own and my girlfriend isn't able to assist much with tent erecting.

It took us the best part of 36 hours before we could get all our gear down to our tent as one of those trolleys you can hire was nowhere near big enough to fit everything. By this point on Friday, we realised that we should really have been camping over in the accessible camping which we made our way to seek help ready for when we left the venue on Monday (as I knew I would not be able to pull two trolley full's of our gear from the tent back to the car all uphill). In hindsight, I would have thought the most direct route from blue camping to accessible camping would have been diagonally through the main arena but were we directed that way? Of course not! We were directed along the side of the main arena and around to the artists reception at one of the main entrances and then out onto the main public road (outside of the entire venue) and back in another entrance just to get to where we needed to get to (I think this was something like Castlegate > Woodgate > Stonegate). When we did finally locate accessible camping, the stewards and staff were, fortunately, much more helpful and we were eventually advised to speak to a manager over at production office where we were able to arrange assistance with transport back to the car from where we camping when we were to leave on the Monday. Woohoo, we can now enjoy the festival after being onsite for almost 36 hours... This was the first opportunity we had to explore the main arena and see what was about and then it was back to the tent to get ready for Basement Jaxx on the main stage that evening.

From this point, thankfully we started to enjoy ourselves (which was great considering how much it had cost us already) and it just got better and better by the day!

We got back into the main arena in time to see the remainder of Calexico's gig on the main stage, we had never seen or heard of the band from Arizona before The Big Chill and we liked what we heard. Up next was DJ Ashley Beedle with a good set before Friday headliners Basement Jaxx took to the stage. Despite the majority of the feedback on Basement Jaxx since this year's Big Chill festival, we thought they played a decent set and weren't as bad as people have made out... There were certainly tons of people having a dance to them and was great to hear the classics such as Red Alert, Rendez-Vu, Jump N' Shout and Bingo Bango.

Click here to see our videos of Basement Jaxx @ The Big Chill 2009

The weather kicked up a notch after Friday night and we experienced the heat wave that was forecasted. We made the most of the lovely weather exploring the awesome variety of stalls and arenas in the main arena from the afternoon onwards, managed to catch the last 15 minutes of Craig Charles' set at The Frisky Bison Cocktail Bar and it was brilliant, the crowd were loving it and he certainly knew how to get the crowd going with some great tunes. It was the first time we had seen Craig Charles and we were hoping to see all of his set if it wasn't for the fact it took us ages to get into the main arena as so many people were heading in at the same time. Hypnotic Brass Ensemble were great to chill to on The Open Air Stage throughout the afternoon, were very impressed with their performance.

After chilling out for the afternoon checking out various acts, the next act we were planning on seeing were Lamb, my girlfriend loves them! We weren't disappointed either, a brilliant performance, Lou Rhodes has a beautiful voice and was an emotional moment when she sang ‘Gorecki'. After Lamb came Spiritualized, an English band playing Space Rock, we had good things about them although we didn't go a lot on them... Again, it was the first time we had seen them live and I have seen some decent footage and performances from them online but weren't spectacular at The Big Chill. Justin Robertson, that played a dj set before Orbital was awesome though, playing a set consisting of techno and electro-house, it was the perfect warm up to Saturday's headliner Orbital.

Orbital, making their debut set at The Big Chill 2009 put on an amazing show, it was spectacular, so glad to have been there to see it. The use of lights and programming and coordination of the whole set was extraordinary. At one point I remember standing close to the disabled access and projector visuals tower in the centre of the Open Air Stage and just looked all around me and although it was pretty dark by then, you could still see just a sea of heads going back as far as you could see in every direction, trying to get the best place to witness the show we found to be halfway back up the hill towards the main bar. I only wish my reflexes were super quick whilst watching Orbital as during mid sentence to my girlfriend, we looked up to see a Friesian cow strutting past (cardboard of course) but to have whipped out the camera and caught that slap bang in front of us with Orbital's show in the background would have made an amazingly random picture. Top marks for whoever was behind that!

Sunday was what I was really preserving myself for however, as my girlfriends birthday landed on this day and despite the miles of walking and lugging our gear around with me I had already done, I was determined to make sure she had an awesome birthday so fortunately, thanks to taking it relatively easy with the ‘trekking' and ‘stomping' in the main arena over the first few days, my feet had started to recover slightly and got a bit more life back in them. As it turned out, Sunday proved to the best day of the festival and from what I gather, my girlfriend had a wicked time.

After having a chill at the tent and sinking a few drinks we made our way to the main arena (little sunbathing was undertaken as we found it unbearable hot), fortunately we were able to find spots in the shade every now and then which were a blessing... It was so hot on the Saturday and Sunday that I couldn't even drink much beer (and those of you that know me will know that's a bit out of character). Norman Jay rocked it at The Open Air Stage on Sunday afternoon, the crowd were really enjoying themselves, we spent a bit of the afternoon chilling outside the Rizla Arena as well and we heard some good sounds although I'm not sure who was playing at the time. We headed over to The Coop for 18:00 to watch Tom Middleton presents ‘One More Tune' and it was excellent, great to hear so many classics and have a ‘stomp' to some anthems, after the two hour set, we left The Coop and then my girlfriend suddenly decided she wanted a ‘Felicity Shagwell' (from Austin Powers) outfit from the fancy dress stall (awesome). The other artist that was at the top of our ‘want to see' list was David Byrne so we ensured we were back to The Open Air Stage to see him perform by 21:30, he too put on a good performance as did the choreographed contemporary dancers. We managed to catch a bit of Greg Wilsons set too which sounded pretty good.

Later that Sunday evening, we were invited to the VIP party too which was really good, thanks to our friend who was part of the crew at the festival... And we couldn't leave the festival without stopping by for a ‘brapple' (brandy & apple) "my dear" at Granny's Gaff, we passed on the tea and toast at that late time of the morning however. Heading back to our tent at about 05:30 when we had to up, packed and ready to leave the campsite by 13:00 later that day... We were very glad of previously arranging help transporting our gear back to the car as I knew I was going to be feeling very rough!

Despite my inexperience to family festivals for many years (I normally attend the hard dance orientated ones such as Global Gathering, Creamfields, Escape Into The Park), I was not bothered once by any kids there, they were all really well behaved, was great to see as most places you tend to go these days have screaming little mouths causing havoc wherever you go and the event really catered for all ages which was ace!

Check out my scorecard below to see how The Big Chill 2009 festival measured up!

Directions Excellent directions provided by the festival and signposted all the way to the motorway.
Location Beautiful location, lovely forestry and grounds although far to large to tackle all by foot for some people.
Organisation Awful, many staff/security did not know where things were and weren't helpful. Seemed a complete shambles.
Music An excellent variety of music, catered for pretty much all tastes and heard/watched some fantastic performances and gigs.
Food An overwhelming selection of food stalls providing cuisines from all over the world. Prices could have been slightly more reasonable.
Drink Poor selection, overpriced and not that great. Queuing at bars wasn't too bad however.
Toilets/Showers Shower facilities abysmal, long queues, no control of temperature, intermittent and toilets were generally a state.

For an illustrated version of this review please see here

I've been an active member in the club scene for a number of years now and I have always found it interesting meeting new people from a wide range of cultures and lifestyles. Along the years I have become friends/acquainted with many individuals or groups of people from club to club, area to area across the UK.

Some of the clubbers/ravers I have met along the way range vastly in age from early teens into their late 50's. I also know many clubbers that are 25-30 however, that feel they are not able to keep up with the pace anymore or can't last a night out and feel they are getting to old to go out clubbing. Is there an age where we are classified as "too old" for clubbing?

Understandably, the answer to this question is going to differ dramatically per individual, is it wrong for a 60 year old oap to be raving it up at the front? I would be interested to hear your views on this.

I suppose it comes back to the saying "you are only as old as you feel" but shouldn't everyone be treating as equals on the dance floor? Irregardless of age, and why do some people hit 30 and feel uncomfortable going to a club and being surrounded by groups of 18 - 22 years olds?

What age would you say you need to lay down your glowsticks and pick up your pipe n' slippers? If at all...

Source: Mixmag publisher Development Hell buys DontStayIn.com

Clubnet UK's largest and most successful competitor in the market has been bought by Mixmag publisher Development Hell, the value has not been publically announced although it is thought to be for a figure less than £1 million.

All the existing dontstayin.com admin team will still be kept on to manage the website at the Development Hell offices.

As far as I am aware, the site is due to be revamped so will be interesting to see how it differs from the existing site. Inevitably, this will have a knock on effect for the competition although at this early stage of the takeover, I can foresee positives and negatives that could potentially come of this for Clubnet UK.

What are your thoughts on this news? Would love to hear your feedback.