Heat, Haze, and Hedonism.
A dispatch from Newquay UK at the height of the summer surge.
Established in 1981, the Boardmasters Festival welcomes to Newquay around 50,000 festival goers across its two locations, Fistral Beach and Watergate Bay. In 2022 I went to document it on assignment for The Sunday Times magazine UK, here’s the account of what I witnessed.
‘This year it seems half the visitors are trying to board the 11:04pm train from London Paddington. Every inch on the train is taken with youthful limbs cramming odd shaped luggage into small spaces. Toms, Dicks and Harrys from Norwich, Woking and Winchester sit on racks or on the floor outside in demand toilets. It’s so busy, passengers can’t board the train at its first stop Reading and are left stranded and bemused.
As strangers on the journey become friends they’ve never previously met, the chatter is of pending A level results, preferred universities and what the roads in Kettering might be like to take your driving test on. The air condition contrives to conk out in one carriage. Vapes trigger the train alarm causing it to halt. Three self confessed junkies board at Par, and one subsequently becomes unresponsive, resulting in a call to emergency services.
After a severe delay it’s welcome to Newquay. The Cornish town’s population explodes during peak season, and the Boardmasters Festival is one of the peakiest. If a sedentary, clotted cream tea and a paddle in the shallows hooking for crabs was your chosen plan for a vacation, you should’ve disembarked in Devon.
This is a beach break on Berocca. The abs are ripped and torsos tanned. The whole town is in motion. Miles of lines carrying surfboards snake towards the beach and through the streets. There are queues for buses, restaurants and to get into the central Wetherspoon pub.
Arriving at the Boardmasters Festival is anticlimactic. There’s a rave with a giant beach ball and free glow-sticks hosted by Bingo Lingo - The Ultimate Bingo Rave Party. Across the site, bar staff wilt, with few customers to serve. Outside of the main arena, the earth is so scorched, visitors cover their mouths with whatever they can to prevent scuffed clouds of dust from being consumed.
Overlooking the nearby Watergate Bay a cheer rumbles from the WAX bar, where the majority of festival goers have gone. The DJ whips them into an arm-waving frenzy playing tunes from Armin Van Buuren. One holiday maker chugs a can of Stella Artois lager before hurling himself into the sea at the picturesque harbour, and I photograph another with a necklace that’s been made from empty Stella cans.
At the beach a group of friends pose tucked tightly into novelty Budgie Smugglertrunks. Bare chested young men sport borderline offensive temporary tattoos. The permanent tattoos meanwhile are spectacular; porcelain smooth and leathery skin provide a devil’s canvas for inked portrayals of horned demons, dragons, naked ladies and an orange cut in half.
Recent reports suggest Newquay is one of the top ten locations in the UK where locals are being pushed out by tourists, some forced to move due to an escalation in the purchase of second or holiday homes. ‘F**k Your Second Home’ shouts one sticker on a lamppost leaning over Fistral Beach. ‘No Pasties left in Vehicle Overnight’ says another, redressing the tone. This week the findings are endorsed. Most of the people I meet live closer to central London than the coast of Cornwall. Even those that say they are local often mean St. Austell, 17 miles away.
Back at a busier Boardmasters Festival, promotional deodorant is liberally sprayed and the shade is prime real estate. Taps work intermittently and long queues at water points develop. For some the searing heat is too much and what water they do have is poured straight over the head.
Walking among the thousands of tents on designated campsites, friends huddle in what shadow they can find. A group from Wales concealed under a cluster of multicoloured umbrellas goad each other to finish off cans of warm beer in one go. They goad me and I give in and successfully down a warm can of Thatchers Cider.
Beth, a younger looking version of Julia Roberts, confronts the sun and sits in a fold-away chair. In fact many of the attendees look like sweatier versions of Hollywood A-listers. I spot a perspiring Paltrow and dripping Depp. Some you can’t see at all, since their heads are draped with towels or bound with wet-shirts. Kids try to climb the fence to get in, while the heat is so brutal I need to get out.
Newquay isn’t a tacky English seaside town. There are more crafted coffee outlets here than candy floss. The pastie is as revered as a UNESCO Heritage Site. Boardmasters Festival completely consumes and disrupts the town for its duration, which strains at the influx. The tumult tends to be tolerated, as local businesses can use it to fill their winter war chest.
Trying to get out of Newquay proves more difficult than getting in. Due to a rail strike not one train is leaving the station. My exodus is via the airport on one of a dozen flights a day, oddly including Düsseldorf. High over the parched earth and party people as rumours of an incoming thunderstorm gather, I decide that I'll pop back in the winter and hunt for that clotted cream tea.