I will remember Sunday at the Isle of Wight Festival 2024 for some time.

The setting was about as good as it gets, with the sun shining and a big-name headliner lined up to close to the festival. The prospect of Green Day's set was particularly exciting as they had never played the Isle of Wight Festival before.

It was clear that several thousand people had arrived with a chair-based-strategy to ensure they made it to the evening. This involved plonking themselves down with a camping chair and an umbrella and not moving for 10 hours. I have no objection to this, particularly as there is a rule about not setting up a camping chair at the front of the crowd.

​However, it did make navigation a little tricky. As we wiggled our way through the crowd we frequently found ourselves hitting a camping-chair-cul-de-sac. Eventually we realised that the only option was to head for a footpath, even if it wasn't exactly in the right direction.

The chair dwellers and the minglers (Ed: Great band name) were served up an afternoon of pop music in the sunshine, including McFly and Zara Larsson. I impressed my fellow attendees with the fun fact that Zara Larsson is currently achieving a similar number of monthly streams on Spotify as the Rolling Stones. Another fun fact is that she previously played at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2017.

It was also the second time McFly had played at the Isle of Wight Festival, with the previous being 2009 when they must have been about 11 years old.

For us, there was something of a difference in opinion as to what we should watch on Sunday. This hadn't happened on previous days, when my fellow attendees had generally been happy to be dragged to wherever I fancied. 

And so, I found myself half way through a crunching set from Nothing But Thieves when one of my festival friends politely asked if we could go and watch a Phil Collins tribute act.

The gear change here was a little hard to comprehend, but after a couple more songs I agreed that it would only be fair to head for the Electro Love tent.

What I didn't quite bank on was that the Main Stage and Electro Love stage are basically at either end of the site. I also hadn't remembered quite how large the site is. As we finally approached the Electro Love venue, via camping-chair-city and everything in between, we realised that the tribute Phil Collins had long since finished his set. We had walked so far that I expected to be given a medal by the people who organise Walk The Wight.

We did an about turn at this point and headed back towards the main stage, with a short detour to listen to a Clash tribute act (more my kind of thing than Phil Collins).

The next treat at the main stage was Simple Minds, who last appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2009. This seemed like another intelligent booking, as it delivered some massive sunset singalongs. It also had a very different tone and - I assume - quite a different fan base to Green Day, Zara Larsson and Nothing But Thieves. I've said before that I am a big fan of varied line-ups, which helps ensure that the Isle of Wight Festival has a wide age range in the crowd.

Finally, it was time for Green Day to close the festival - a responsibility that has recently fallen to Muse, Robbie Williams and Duran Duran. 

I consider myself to be only a moderate fan of Green Day, but I had remembered a conversation with my brother from about 20 years earlier. He is also not a mega-fan but had seen them at a festival and concluded that they were the highlight of the weekend.

My fellow festival attendees didn't share this opinion and made a bit of a face when I said I was keen to get near the front. A few harsh words were said and I would like to take this opportunity to apologise to Darren and Ian for repeatedly using the phrase "old farts".

We decided that the best strategy at this point was to split up the party. Two other friends were big Green Day fans, so I arranged to meet them whilst Ian and Darren headed off to see a nine piece funk band called Beatroot and Jo Whiley's 90s Anthems.

Green Day certainly didn't disappoint. We had a ring of fire onstage, frequent flame bursts, an inflatable aircraft floating across the audience, a guest vocal spot from an exuberant teenager who was plucked from the crowd - plus the full catalogue of Green Day's biggest hits. 

By the time they closed with Good Riddance, we had worked our way quite close to the front and got the full effect of the explosion of confetti (is it still called confetti when it's not at a wedding?)

The fireworks began and Perfect Day began to play as we made our way home.

Thanks to everyone who made the Isle of Wight Festival 2024 happen. Let's hope there are many more nights like this to come.

Saturday afternoon had a definite pop theme to it, including Natalie Imbruglia, S Club, Jessie J and Jake Shears. I have never been a huge fan of pop music, but I am a big fan of a) eclectic line-ups and b) acts that haven't played at the Isle of Wight festival before.

Jessie J played at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2012 and 2018 but the other three acts were making their Seaclose Park debut (well, that's according to my history of the Isle of Wight Festival). Personally, I think they were all good bookings as the Isle of Wight Festival would be much less interesting if it was one demographic listening to a series of similar artists.

The first of two acts that I was particularly keen to see on Saturday was Feeder, which will give you a very good idea of my age and tastes.

Remarkably, this was the sixth time that Feeder have appeared at the Isle of Wight Festival. If you are interested, the previous appearances were 2005, 2008, 2012, 2016, and 2018. Anyone compiling an Isle of Wight pub quiz on bands of the 1990s might like to use this fact in a bonus round.

I enjoyed Feeder's set greatly, although they didn't play my favourite song of theirs - Yesterday Went Too Soon. I'm putting in an early request for this song at their next appearance in around 2027 or 2028.

After Feeder, we took a wander and watched a bit of Keane before heading for the Kashmir Tent, which is mostly local band. I enjoyed both acts that we saw - Ugly Ozo and Mowfy. The former had a Last Dinner Party dress code whilst the latter managed to produce a considerable noise with only a bass guitar and a drum kit (the same setup as Royal Blood). The difference was the addition of a female singer, who had a great voice.

During the set, we also completed the traditional trip onto the big wheel. This is well worth it and is still not bad value at £10. I believe the price goes up at busier times.

This was my first trip at night, whereas I had seen it during the day in previous years. My conclusion is that the big wheel is probably at its best at around dusk on a sunny evening, ideally whilst an act is playing their biggest hit on the main stage. The sparkling lights were certainly pretty at night but you could take in the scale of the Isle of Wight Festival much better during daylight.

The Isle of Wight Festival puts on decent big top headliners that continue after the main stage has finished. In this case it was Suede, another act that I was a fan of in my childhood days of discovering the wonder of music. They last played at the Isle of Wight Festival in 2014. 

This was a battle of stamina for us, and I felt myself torn (to quote one of the day's other artists). Do I stay until the end, which would mean finally getting into bed at around 2.30am or watch some of Suede's set and then get to bed by 2am?

Suede were belting out a great set, full of energy and hits but my legs didn't quite share the same energy. In my defence, we had done a 30 mile bike ride in the morning, and I'm certainly not a triathlete (as you'll have guessed from the diet of sausage and chips).

We made our way home about half way through Suede's set, with the sound of one of the many great bands of the 1990s fading into the distance. My first piece of festival advice is always to pace yourself and I decided to listen to myself.

After all, we've still got Green Day to look forward to.

By my count, the Isle of Wight Festival 2024 is the 22nd to be held at Seaclose Park. The first 'Rock Island' event - as part of a two week Isle of Wight Festival of music - was in 2002 and the only year off since then was 2020 (for obvious reasons).

For a long time there has been a well-oiled-machine feel to it, and a sense of familiarity if you've been before. You don't need to spend a few days 'getting your bearings', as mothers say. I'm sure things move about a little bit depending on how many tickets they sell but the Big Top and the Main Stage aren't going to swap locations.

And so, we settled in very quickly to the Isle of Wight Festival 2024 as we arrived on Friday. As usual, the queue to get in moved quickly and we only spent about 10 minutes waiting. I am sure there were longer waits during the busier times, but it certainly compares favourably to when I worked at Glastonbury about 20 years ago and was responsible for a queue that took several hours. I have in my head that it took eight hours, but I might have accidentally exaggerated the story over the years.

We arrived a little later than planned thanks to a slight mishap on a cycling trip earlier in the day, involving flat batteries on Shorwell Chute (I'll save that for another blog).

When we finally got there at just after 6pm, The Darkness was in full swagger, with tops removed like a northern football fan or the swimming pool in Ryde on a warm day. By my reckoning, this was The Darkness' third appearance at the festival, after 2003 and 2012. The former was when the festival was over two days and the Darkness had just emerged. The latter was the only really wet year, when mud caused chaos. Let's not talk about that too much.

We then began a tour of the site, for the benefit of a neighbour of mine who was attending his first ever festival at the age of 60. Before the festival I eased his worries that he would not stand out for a) being too old and b) wearing a wild Hawaiian shirt. 

He soon realised that a) the Isle of Wight Festival has a remarkable age range from toddlers in trollies to teenagers and older folk in camping chairs and that b) his shirt was bland compared to some people's outfits.

I should mention at this point that I have reached the stage that I carry a camping chair with me. This is a controversial move and isn't something I would have considered when we watched the Charlatans and Robert Plant at Seaclose Park in 2002. At this point, I didn't use it but it was on standby for when the legs started to go.

Next up was Crowded House, who seemed to go down very well with the crowd. They last played the festival in 2010, which is one of the few years that I didn't make it. I still regret this, as it had a remarkable headline trio of Jay - Z, The Strokes and Paul McCartney.

I had/have two main ambitions for the Isle of Wight Festival this year.

One is to see Green Day, who I've never seen play before. 

The second was to see Wunderhorse, who were playing in the Big Top at 9.10pm on Friday night.

On three occasions I had come close to seeing Wunderhorse, but had just missed them due to some incident or other getting in the way.

As we tucked into fish and chips at about 8.30pm I began taking extra care to avoid disasters that might stop it happening. I stayed away from people who were already looking worse for wear (pacing yourself is vital at a festival) and steered well clear of any food that I would consider too adventurous. 

The moment arrived and Wunderhorse walked onto the Big Top stage, with the front man - Jacob Slater - wearing sunglasses indoors. Presumably he had spent the day in Shanklin and had forgotten to take them off.

They opened with their most famous song - Leader of the Pack, and also played a few of my other favourites - Teal, Purple and Butterflies. There were also two new songs that have been released called Midas and July (both great if you like that kind of thing) and a few new ones, presumably from the album that is due to come out in a couple of months.

My fellow festival goer enjoyed it, but succumbed to the camping chair half way through the set and moved to the edge of the Big Top. I stayed near the front, whilst also enjoying a nearby drama of a group finding a mobile phone and doing their best to reunite it with its owner. When they finally figured out who it belonged to, the owner hugged the person who had found it as if they were a soldier hugging their spouse after being held captive in Basra for six years. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look quite so relieved and pleased.

And so, we reached the headliner of Friday night at the Isle of Wight Festival. It was the Prodigy's fourth appearance at the Festival (2006, 2009 and 2015 for anyone holding a notepad) and was an excellent choice in my opinion. The legs were flagging by this point, so it was finally time to make the most of the camping chairs that we had been carrying all evening. We found a good place to watch the Prodigy from a distance and made a great big "aaaahhhhh" noise as we sat down in unison. I should point out that I'm still relatively young, I had just cycled a very long way on Friday...

The Isle of Wight Festival has had dance acts on the Friday night on a few occasions (Faithless in 2005 and 2016, Calvin Harris in 2014 etc).

I personally think this works well, as it matches the mood of the crowd on Friday night. Everyone is full of beans and bursting with excitement. It would work less well on Sunday night when everyone is putting on a brave face. With the light fading, the laser show lit up the sky. It also meant that the big wheel had to close, presumably as they didn't want people to get lasered whilst onboard.

The Prodigy is also a good choice as they have a large enough back catalogue that they can full a 90 minute set without padding out songs or filling it up with B-Sides. We didn't quite make it to the end (due to the aforementioned bike ride incident taking its toll) but the section of the set that we saw was jammed with hits. Firestarter even got a play, with some creative stage work paying a tribute to Keith Flint, who died in 2019.

We got to our beds just after midnight after a terrific first full night at the festival (there is also a warm-up night on Thursday to encourage people to spread their arrival over a few days). 

Remember kids, pace yourselves - you want to have a bit of energy left for the time of your life on Sunday.

Good news!

Our exclusive Red Funnel discount has been bumped up to 25%.

We've had a 10% off deal via our booking widget for donkey's years now but Red Funnel has increased it until 30th June.

The good news is that you can use it for journeys after that date. The bad news is that it is only valid for car journeys, not for foot passengers.

Just fill in your dates on the form below to get the discount. The widget will revert back to 10% off from July 1st 2024.

If you've found this blog post after the offer has ended, check out these other ferry advice pages:

• discount ferry travel (promo codes, loopholes and other ways to save)
• beginner's guide to Isle of Wight ferry travel
• how to save money as a foot passenger with Red Funnel
• how to save money as a foot passenger with Wightlink
• the cheapest way to get to the Isle of Wight from London 

We have reached the third chapter in our series on traffic free bike rides. Previous episodes in the saga have so far included #1 Freshwater to Yarmouth and #2 Seaclose Park to Island Harbour.

This third chapter is a two mile section of the Red Squirrel Trail from Wroxall to Shanklin.

We've written before about the Red Squirrel Trail, which is a 32 mile cycle track on the Isle of Wight.

It is a noble attempt to link up various sections of former railway lines and other cycle tracks into one big route that covers a large chunk of the Island.

The only hitch is that the Red Squirrel Trail only offers 'mostly traffic-free cycling'. There are glorious long sections without any cars at all, but then you meet a road and have to do a bit of wiggling to re-join an off road section.

This isn't intended as a criticism of the route and it is very similar to cycling on the mainland. 

However, as parents with young children we prefer to stick to the sections without any traffic at all. Child one can cope with quiet roads but child two wiggles and weaves along cycle tracks like she's peddling home from the pub after six pints.

There are two ways to do this car-free bike ride. 

If you've got your own bikes, I would start in Wroxall at this point on the map. If you need to hire bikes, start at Route 57 Cycle Hire in Shanklin. 

We started at Wroxall, as we have our own bikes but it would work either way. 

The advantage of starting from Wroxall is that you can mark the half way point with a stop in Shanklin. The car-free track ends at Lower Hyde holiday park and you then need to walk 15 minutes or cycle on roads to Shanklin seafront.

Wroxall has very little entertainment (apart from a donkey sanctuary), so you will probably just turn round and come back.

We dithered rather before actually going on this bike ride.

50% of the children wanted to go to finish a treasure hunt in Shanklin whilst the other 50% wanted to go on the bike ride. We made it quite clear that it would be the parents who would decide and that we wouldn't be swayed by nagging, badgering or lobbying.

We certainly didn't have a discreet conversation about which child would make the most fuss if they didn't get their way. Anyone who tells you otherwise can expect a letter from my solicitor.

The weather also played a big part in the decision. It had been threatening to rain all day and we didn't want to end up drenched on a bike ride.

As mentioned earlier, we found a place to park right by the cycle track. I reckon there was space for four cars, as long as you didn't mind parking against stinging nettles and climbing out the wrong door.

The track from Wroxall to Shanklin is not particularly treacherous. It's a former railway line and is a fairly solid surface, if not exactly smooth tarmac. The width of the track varies. In the narrower bits you wouldn't really want to meet another cyclist, but it's mostly wide enough for a bit of wobbling. There are a few spots where there's a notable drop by the side of the cycle track.

​After about a mile we met our first obstacle - a horse which the owner told me was in 'a naughty mood'. I wasn't sure if this meant they would nibble my bike helmet or kick me in the head but we kept our distance until we reached a wide section of track for overtaking.

The horse owner also had two off-lead dogs which then decided they wanted to ride my children's bikes. Thankfully, child one and child two maintained their balance. There are contrary accounts from the children as to whether the owner was apologetic or ignored this incursion. I had raced ahead and missed the whole thing, as I was being a terrible parent and making a Tik Tok video, like an irritating teenager.

After another mile, we arrived at the entrance to Lower Hyde Holiday Park. The journey had taken us 20 minutes but adults would do it in 10-15 minutes.

The scenery on this cycle track is pleasant but not stunning. There are nice rolling hills and various animals but you can't see the sea.

My suggestion at this point was that Mrs Guru locked up the bikes and walked the children to the Co-op supermarket, which is a seven minute walk away from the end of the traffic-free section of the cycle track. 

I would pedal back to the car and dutifully load up the bikes before picking them up from the supermarket and driving on to the beach.

However, Mrs Guru felt that the journey had been a success and that whinging levels were lower than usual. She suggested that we should all pedal back to the car, making it a four mile bike ride. I pointed out that it was a gradual uphill ride all the way back (and was secretly hoping for a chance to cycle at top speed on my own) but agreed that her suggestion was a good one.

And so we cycled back to the car, which took 25 minutes. 

If you struggle with maths, let me summarise that this bike ride took 45 minutes and covered four miles.

This addendum is a discussion of bike racks which is for frugal parents facing similar conundrums. Feel free to move along to something else.

I concluded a long time ago that I didn't want to pay to hire bikes, so I have been on a journey of discovery.

This followed my usual pattern of wasting time and money on half-baked solutions before finally giving in and coughing up.

The first thing I tried was sticking bikes on the roof with bungee chords. That didn't work as I didn't have a proper roof carrier, and I just ended up scratching the roof of the car until it looked like a work of art. I didn't want a bike rack that would make the bikes stand up as it would make the car too tall for some car parks.

My second 'solution' was a bike rack that hangs off the back of the car. The one I settled on is one of the better ones on the market and is called the Saris Bones 3. It costs about £200 but I bought an older model on eBay for £50.

This was fine for carrying a couple of small bikes, but it was hard work with adult bikes and didn't work at all with Mrs Guru's bike as it has doesn't have a crossbar (you can buy a false crossbar but I was losing patience by this point). The other problem was that we have four bikes.

Finally, I paid £460 to get a towbar fitted to my aging car and a further £180 for a four bike towbar bike rack. 

This seems to be a pretty robust solution, even if it does make your car longer than a minibus.