Golf buggy hire for music festivals

What matters for music festivals

• 1

  Break it down by department

  Artist liaison needs clean, presentable passenger buggies to move performers and their parties between the artist area, the stages and the exits, often to a schedule tighter than anything else on site. Production and site need utility buggies with load beds to shift flight cases, cable, staging parts and tools across the whole footprint through the build. Medical needs a dedicated vehicle that is theirs alone, because a shared buggy is no use to a medic when it is off carrying scaffolding at the far end of the site. Sizing each of those separately, rather than pooling one fleet everyone fights over, is what makes festival transport work. Tell us the departments and their rough movements and we will build the fleet around them.

• 2

  Electric is not a preference here

  On a music festival electric earns its keep in specific places. In the artist area and around the quieter corners of the site, a petrol engine idling past a hospitality tent or a wellbeing space is intrusive in a way an electric buggy is not. Late at night, when the stages have finished and the site is winding down, quiet running matters again. And a festival trading on its green credentials has a harder time explaining a yard full of petrol buggies than an electric fleet. The trade-off electric brings is charging, which on a green-field site is a planning job. There is no socket by the production office cabin unless someone put one there, so overnight charging has to be built into the power plan with your generator contractor. Raise it at the same time as your other power needs and it is straightforward.

• 3

  Surviving the field

  Festival ground is the variable that undoes optimistic planning. A dry field takes a buggy well; three days of rain and a few thousand vehicle movements turn the main routes to mud, and a standard buggy is not a tracked vehicle. Where the site has trackway on the main arteries, the buggies live on it. Where it does not, be honest with us about the ground and we will tell you what will cope and what will not. The build and breakdown are the heaviest days and the muddiest, because that is when the biggest loads cross the site and often when the weather has had longest to work on it. Hire for the full period, plan the routes onto trackway where you can, and accept that the far corners of a wet field are sometimes a walking job rather than a driving one.

• 4

  Keys, crew and the safety picture

  Festivals run on rotating crews across long shifts, which is exactly the condition in which buggies wander off and go flat in a corner. A key policy, a named vehicle owner per department and a charging discipline save more time than any extra vehicle. On the safety side, vehicles moving among crew and, in some areas, public, belong in your event management plan with routes, a low site speed limit and marshalling at the pinch points. The licensing authority will expect to see it, and we operate to whatever you set.

• Blenheim PalaceOxfordshireBuggy hire at this venue
• GoodwoodWest SussexBuggy hire at this venue
• Stonor ParkOxfordshireBuggy hire at this venue

See all venues we cover

Common questions

How many buggies does a festival need?

It depends on the site size, the length of the build and how many departments move, not on the audience. Tell us the footprint, the build and breakdown dates and the departments needing transport, and we will size a fleet around the actual movements rather than a headcount.

Can you supply a dedicated medical buggy?

Yes, and you should have one. A medic's vehicle has to be theirs alone so it is never off carrying kit when a call comes in. Tell us your medical provider's requirements and we will match the vehicle and keep it ring-fenced to that job.

How does charging work on a green-field site?

It has to be planned into your power distribution, because there is no socket by the cabins unless one is provided. Raise buggy charging with your generator contractor alongside your other power needs and we will confirm the arrangement. Plan it early and it is simple.

Will the buggies cope if the field gets wet?

On firm grass and trackway, yes. On a saturated, heavily rutted field a standard buggy struggles, as any wheeled vehicle does. Keep the fleet on trackway where you have it, be honest with us about the ground, and we will tell you plainly what will work for your site.