Thursday, January 23, 2025
It's story time. Are you sitting comfortably? Then we'll begin…
Back in 2003, a person called Harmony Blake, the then Deputy Licensee of Festival Republic's Latitude and Leeds Festival and assistant to Melvin Benn, asked a person called Mark Hatchard to head up to Leeds Festival and run a small group of volunteers in the Leeds Festival campsites. The goal being to create a friendly, helpful, customer service focused team at the festival, assist with the reduction of crime, and improve the overall experience for festival goers. At that point Mark had been running teams of festival staff for around 10 years at festivals such as Glastonbury Festival, Womad Festival, Reading Festival, The Big Chill, and Homelands, so already knew a thing or two about looking after festival goers and festival staff, and thought this sounded like a fun new project. At Leeds 2003, just 7 of the 30 volunteers Festival Republic had recruited rocked up at the festival (although on the plus side one of whom still joins us every year!), so this merry band of festival volunteers formed the humble beginnings of Hotbox Events and the Campsite Assistant Teams...
From here, Mark and some of those first volunteers took over planning for 2004, resulting in the number of CATs at Leeds quickly increasing, and not long after the team being asked if they could put together a squad of CATs to be the eyes and ears of the Reading Festival campsites in 2006.
Roll on 2008, the CATs were asked to head to Latitude Festival where the introduction of CATs to the Latitude campsites resulted in a dramatic reduction in reports of crime, tent thefts, and a huge improvement in customer service. You can read more about this, including a letter of thanks from Chief Superintendent Mark Cordell, Eastern Area Commander of Suffolk Constabulary, where he talks about the 80% reduction in overall crime at Latitude 2008 here.
Following the success of the volunteers at Leeds, Reading, and Latitude, over the past 21 years Hotbox volunteers have headed to The Big Chill, V Festival, Download Festival, Camp Bestival and BBC Proms in the Park. Leaving a trail of helpful information, crime reduction, fire safety, and in Latitude's case pixie dust along the way!
Now the time has come again for the Hotbox volunteers to head off on another new adventure ✨
We've been asked to take a team of campsite and arena volunteers to improve customer service, provide support and information, and be the friendly face of the festival at an independent festival, with stunning festival grounds, a 🔥 line up and incredible set design, and we're very excited as you can tell!
Here's a quick run through of where we're heading:
Festival: Forbidden Forest
Location: Belvoir Castle, Grantham, Leicestershire, NG32 1PE. Located a 30 minute drive from Nottingham.
Dates required onsite: Wednesday 28th May - Monday 2nd June 2025
Roles: Arena and Campsite Volunteers
Shifts: 2 x 7.5 hour shifts spread from Thursday - Monday, so lots of time off to enjoy the festival! No night shifts!
Line up: Camelphat, FISHER, Wilkinson, Skream & Benga, Hybrid Minds, Chris Stussy, Jamie Jones, Skepta, Sub Focus, Bru-C, Patrick Topping, Bou, Paige Tomlinson, Hedex, Gorgon City and LOADS more!
With the main arena set in the woods in the grounds of Belvoir Castle, you'll be dancing to the biggest names in DnB, house, techno and dance music under the cover of trees, surrounded by unreal set design. You'll then wander through the forest to find individually designed and themed stages, iconic lighting displays and top tier sound systems! Take a break from the music to lounge by the lake, jump on a ride at the fairground or party at the silent disco.
When on shift you'll be answering questions about set times and performances, giving directions to stages, water points and facilities, helping to pitch tents, patrol campsites and the arena, whilst making sure all Forbidden Forest attendees (all festival attendees are 18+) are having the best time possible at the festival!
You can expect all the normal perks of volunteering with us, such as a secure crew campsite, free car parking, phone charging, crew toilets and showers, and free wi-fi in the Hotbox compound!
Applications to volunteer with us at Forbidden Forest will open at the same time as applications for our other festivals - midday Friday 31st January. The fastest way to submit your application is to have already set up a Hotbox Events PAAM account which you can do here right now!
We hope to see you there! 🏕️
If there is anything you would like to ask or you would just like to chat with us about, the easiest way is to...
You can connect with us @hotboxevents on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn
If you would like to chat with others who have joined us before head to our Facebook Group
On Facebook you will find new and returning staff and volunteers chatting about what it is like to join us at festivals, arranging to share lifts, asking and answering questions about working at festivals and making new friends!
If you have not joined us at a festival before and are wondering what it is like, check out some of our staff and volunteer interviews!
In the interviews you will get to hear from those who have joined us talking about how they found their shifts, how they felt they were looked after by the Hotbox team, what it was like working solo for the first time, taking on more responsibility year on year, and even how the experience and confidence gained has helped with career progression away from festivals!
Another way to see what joining us is like is to check out some of our festival photos!
In our festival photo galleries, you will find thousands of photos covering our festival history over the past twenty years!
It's totally normal to be anxious before coming to a festival, particularly if you're coming solo! We get hundreds of messages every year from people wanting to join us but nervous about doing it, so we promise you're not alone! We're a very friendly bunch so if there's anything we can do to reduce your anxiety please get in touch! Try joining our Facebook Group to make friends with others before the festival - there are even a few WhatsApp groups that have been set up too!
If you have specific questions about joining us at festivals try our festival FAQs!
Our festival FAQs are regularly updated and packed full of answers to the questions we are usually asked, plus lots of handy hints and tips about working at festivals.
We usually send an email newsletter about once a month, if you would like to keep up to date you can subscribe!
If you would like to drop us an email it's info@hotboxevents.com
You can reach our office by phone on the numbers below...
Tel: 01252849600 (UK) select option 2 for Hotbox Events
Tel: +441252849600 (International) select option 2 for Hotbox Events
