Hanwelcoming people to the Hootie

Bryon and I helped at the Hanwell Hootie, a huge 1 day free music festival, picking up lots of different tasks through the day. It started off with some last minute prep, dressing the Big Top with flowery hula hoops to bring a bit of fun to it and cable tie-ing some fences to keep any ne'er-do-wells out of the VIP area.

Once the gates opened we were sent to welcome festival goers, letting people know about the bag search coming up and apologising for the barrier maze that the regular non-Priority people had to navigate to get in, easily adding 200 steps to their daily total. We also had the unhappy task of turning away any non-humans which resulted in some unhappy dog owners.

Through the day, we bumped into Tracey who was doing very important things to keep the event running, I don't think we ever really knew what she was up to. That's probably a good thing as it meant that nothing went too badly wrong!

After lunch another volunteer and I delivered some cleaners who'd come all the way from Hertfordshire to one of the other venues, then on the way back made an emergency delivery of ice. The slushie van was running out and as it was pretty critical to their business, we were asked to find some in the lovely shops of Hanwell. 20kg of ice and some achey arms later we had some happy slushie makers, ready to give children more sugar highs.

After a spell tidying up in the VIP area out back (I didn't realise I'd have to write the report, so this is the only photo I took), I was sent to welcome people entering Viaduct Meadow again. The feel was very different to before lunch. More drinks had been drunk and a queue had built up out front after the field had hit its 5,000 person capacity, so a one-in-one-out system had come in. By the time the restriction was lifted and people were flowing into the field again, more rules were introduced, so not only did we have to keep animals out, also under 13's weren't allowed in after 6pm. Most people were disappointed but understanding, while a few decided to take it up with Security, without any joy.

That was the last task of the day before I hung up my marshal's high-vis 7 hours after I started. It was time to go enjoy the festival with some other Ealing GoodGym-ers.

Only 52 weeks to the next Hootie, so time for us to start preparing.