Just thought i'd share my story with you all!! having had a great weekend at V, my car decided not to start in the car park!! (i never have car trouble!) anyway, i phoned the breakdown service at 11.30pm and they said they'd be out within the hour. i rang back every hour to get the same message. they finally turned up at 5.30am and the bloke told me that none of the breakdown services were allowed in until all the cars had left the car park, which was around 3am. my main problems with this are why couldn't someone have told me this in the first place so at least i could have got some sleep and why is there no provision for breakdown services to get in as i'm sure this happens to quite a few people. ok, they're not as important as the emergency services, but if they can gain access, it shouldn't be a problem for the breakdown services. to make matters worse, i stopped at a service station an hour from home to get some sleep and it wouldn't start again! at least this time they came out within the hour!!! so a journey that started at 11.30pm finally finished at 8.45am. not bad for a journey that should have took an hour and a half!!

Which "breakdown service" was it?

The AA give me text message updates with estimated times of arrival.

This happened to us at V2001 in Chelmsford on the Sunday night! Again, we didn't get "rescued" by the RAC until the wee small hours of morning, as they had to wait for all the cars to get out! Grrrr.

Looking back, it was an amusing end to a weekend full of mishaps... a dome tent propped up with just one pole as no-one checked it before we left; my tent flooding with water after a downpour- just on my side of the tent; people falling out; etc etc...

Difference is, we probably should have expected car trouble, having driven there in an ancient Morris Minor (but bloody good fun!) :P

it was green flag. just got my post and they've sent me a questionnaire to fill in about their service!! going to enjoy this!! in fairness its not really their fault. more annoyed at V for not letting them in!

I do wonder why V wouldn't let them in? Maybe it's easier for them to access your car if there's not 1000s of other cars milling around trying to get out? We had to walk about 2 miles in the mud to the main entrance, in order to direct the RAC van to our car, when they finally came. I presume also there's A LOT of traffic around the festival sites on the Sunday night; this probably delayed their arrival considerably.

true. i think a good idea would be for v to have a breakdown truck of some sort at each site, so that if something simple needs doing like changing a tyre or jump starting a car then they could help. obviously none of the stewards were bothered about helping as most of them were there to earn a bit of spare cash and didn't really have any knowledge or advice to give. someone else got a flat tyre behind us and weren't too sure how to change it and the stewards said they would get told off from their boss if they helped out as they had to direct traffic, (despite it being gridlocked for three and a half hours and the fact that there were three of them stood there!) Naturally we helped them out and i must say that alot of people tried to help us out. i was very impressed with the kind nature of everyone.

well i had a knightmear getting to V , all in all it took us 5 and half hours......due to M6 crash/fire! Q'ed for 1&half hours from junction 8 - 9 ,got off at 9 thinking id navagate round the B roads to v , everybody had the same idea ,crawling for another 2 half hours.Oh well......good weekend

I suppose they had to assess the safety of having one (breakdown vehicle) going against the main flow of traffic, which was out of the festival?

Still, it's a shame no-one could have told you about it so you could get your head down for an hour or so?!

Festivals where they have a huge number of vehicles like this ought to have something/someone on site to help people in the same situation as yourself. Maybe you could suggest it for next years festival?

Years ago I had a car that could be quite un-reliable at times. I became used to calling out my breakdown service but one night, at the services on the M62 I waited for ages, not daring to leave the car and go to the loo or get a hot drink in case the breakdown service turned up - as they told me it would be 'straight away'. When, eventually they arrived about 2 hrs later I was not a happy bunny (having had legs crossed for over an hour)! Glad you got home ok in the end.

None of our cars broke down at Shambala :P