This year I went to the Festival International de Benicàssim and I would give you a short roundup of my personal experiences and expressions. If you decide to get there next year, you should read this.

In a few words

Music & sunshine, very nice and friendly employees, good camping, exorbitantly expensive food and drinks (10€ for a pizza, 2,5€ for a 0.5l water, 1€ for a small banana), over-organized (too restrictive securtiy everywhere, employees counting toilet paper sheets), badly organized (cash machines, info points), long distances between camping and the ozean/venue (especially from the camping area Benicamp).

Details

If you like to listen to good music, combined with a good camping experience and hangin’ around at the beach, FIB is for you. I went to the FIB 2008 three days before the official beginning to make FIB a summer holiday.

Arrival, Shuttle Bus, Camping

At arrival, one of the two camping areas was already full (Benicamp). So my camping area was the FIBcamp, which was fortunately much closer to the venue (where the bands were playing) than the other camp. If you get to Benicamp you should keep in mind that it is at the opposite end of the town, I estimate about 5km minimum away. I wandered there one time and it is quite a walk. You can get to the venue via shuttle bus. This is good. But you loose a lot of flexibility because you have to keep an eye to the bus shuttle schedule. To get to the Camping area from Airport Valencia you can buy a FIB shuttle bus ticket for about 30€ which is what I did (it is called “Fiber Club Plus”). The ticket is valid for arrival and departure. The bus drive took about 1.5 hours. A Taxi from the Airport is about 90€. Or you can take the train from the Airport to Benicàssim (I think) to get to FIBcamp 2km away. The bus stopped about 1km far from the camping area, which I had to walk (in day heat this is a bit exhausting but should not be a problem). I If you get to the camping area early you luckily get a place beneath some sun shades. I never experienced unusable toilets but you should have toilet paper handy. Showers were mixed (m/w) under free sky with cold water only. Simple but functional and funny. Just to mention it: I don’t know why, but most people there were from England. I asked a few of them, why that probably is. But no one had a clue. There are some beer tents at the camping area, selling beer, water, drinks and food. The personell is very friendly and good humored. Only a few of them speak a few words of English. BUT the prices are very high. I could not believe that the price for a simple pizza (diameter about 20cm) was 10€; a bottle of water (1l) was 2.5€; a small beer (0.2l or 0.25l i estimate) was 2.5€; a big beer (1.5l) was 7.5€; rum, vodka and so an was 7.5€. You had to buy drink tickets first to get something, which was no problem but I did not like it. But I soon recognized how pricy and commercial the FIB is. Just to give you an impression: the price for a bottle of 1.0l water was about 0.30€ at the super market!

Venue, Bands, Organziation

If you like the lineup there is no drawback in sound or stage experience. The sound was really good, the light shows were really good. I have nothing to complain about the stages. But I could not believe the effort the FIB orginzer put into security, just to avoid bringing in some alcohol to the venue. There were so many “security” employees walking between two fences around the whole venue, I think I spent about 15€ of ticket cost for this nonsense (people got some alcohol in anyway). By the way: some of the security stuff offered not security but cocain to me, altough the policemen standing around everywhere were trying to avoid drug selling. A big downside was money. Everthing was quite expensive. At the venue the water was even more expensive than at camp side (2.5€ for a shitty bottle of 0.5l water at the venue compared to 2.5€ for an equally shitty bottle of 1.0l water at camp site). You hat to buy tickets but you could not pay by credit card. There were two cash machines at the venue for thousands of people! The row at each side was about 100 people everytime I had a look at it. To get it worse: the machines were open from about 18 to about 3 o’clock in the morning. Everything was so unbelievably organized, but this clearly not. What I mean with unbelievably organized is for example, that there was staff counting toilet papers just to be sure people are not using too much (that is what I think about it). Furhermore you could bring in a small bottle of non-alcoholic drink but it was only allowed if you drop the bottle cap at the entrance. I think they wanted to be sure that you drink you water as fast as possible so that you had to buy some new. Unbelievable! On the other hand you could not talk to staff at info points, because there were closed at night. Besides that, some told you different thing about the same question. I asked a few entrance personnel about the shuttle bus at night (because the info points were closed) and nobody knew anything about the shuttle buses. Too bad.

Beach and Daylife

I spent the days at the beach. It was very hard to find shade and you could not stand the sun longer than 30 min. without any shade. If you are in luck, you can catch some of the palms or sunshades at the beach. But this is beach life as usual. Love it or leave it. But remember: a hangover in 30 degrees sunshine really sucks! To get to the beach you had to walk for about 25 to 30 minutes from FIBcamp. I do not know how far Benicamp is away from the beach. Or you can walk to town, which is about the same distance. By the way: In town are some more cash mashines you should use to avoid the queue at the venue cash machines.

Departure

If you leave, the bus will not not pick you up at the same place you arrived. You have to walk to the Benicàssim Train Station, which is about 2km away. I decided to walk early, not in daylight and I got one of the first three shuttle buses in the morning. The bus will probably take more time than at your arrival, caused by the traffic when everyone wants to leave at the same time. I advise you not to get an airplane at the first day after the event sooner than 13 o’clock or you are about to miss it.

Summary

I really liked the combination of music festival and summer holiday. For me the festival was extremely expensive and restrictive. Everything is too much organized. Except for the camping area, really every feeling of freedom and laziness is about to get lost. This is clearly to commercial for my taste. Really. I know about other (big) festivals. The rules are quite similar at most of the sponsored festivals. But this one was the most restrictive I experienced so far. And I know bigger festivals where the spirit of free living is still there, prices are more moderate and the spirit is less fake. Fake? Yes. For example: there were signs telling you “not to waste a single drop of water”. Good idea. But every beer was served in disposable cups and every night billions of cups were laying around. Refund tickets for that would be a really reasonable idea (but not profitable). Sometimes I had the feeling a pig must have, just before execution: get the pigs from the camping area to the venue, suck all the money out of them and get rid of the remaining dead meat as soon as possible. The next day, when the pockets are full of money again, welcome them, milk them, get rid of them.