With the summer music festival season in full swing, music-lover and serial festival-goer Ella Reeves presents her list of must haves - to make your festival experiences as fun, shiny and mud-free as possible

The festival season is under way, so here is a handy list of essentials to help you have a jolly good time (and survive the experience).

I can’t do without a few comforts, but it’s important to get the right balance between packing light and bringing the kitchen sink.

* Sparkly make up and a mirror. Harness your inner festival party goddess. After a night on the sauce you will need to make yourself presentable.

* A torch and a lantern. Torch especially useful for surviving an after dark loo manoeuvre. Lanterns also essential for late night chats in your tent.

* Phone charger. There are usually places to charge your phone up so bring a charger, for two reasons. One: You’d be surprised how easy it is to lose your mates within a one metre radius. And two: how will you instagram your craft lager if your smart phone is out of juice? (especially if at The Big Feastival).

* A Venetian mask. Especially if you’re going to Wilderness Festival, make sure you are appropriately kitted out for the Saturday night masked ball.

* Sandals and wedges. Look up the weather before you go, but one of the great things about local festivals is that you are far less likely to be knee-deep in mud (I’m really fine about not going to Glastonbury. Really). Wedges are a perfect in-between step between heels and flats without getting stuck in the ground.

* Warm clothing (including thick socks and leggings). I’m always shocked by how sub-Saharan weather (by my English standards) can turn Siberian over night (I do feel the chill, though).

* Funny dressing up clothes. Take fewer of your normal clothes – you won’t wear as much as you think you will – and bring a few spare dressing up items for your good-sport male friends. Men in dresses. Game changer.

* Baby wipes. No explanation needed.

* Towel and toiletries. Because baby wipes won’t do for the whole festival and you will smell quite fruity if you go three days without washing.

* A duvet, pillows and air bed. Ignore the nay-sayers, you may look like a princess but you will sleep like one too.

* Mosquito repellent vaporiser. If, like me, these little pests flock from miles around for a taste of your delicious blood, these are essential. Don’t there seem to be more of them around these days? Someone once told me it’s because in Thatcher’s time, you got a free stamp if you took a dead mozzie to the post office. Or maybe that was miners?

* A big water bottle. But make sure your companions are fully tent trained before taking a big swig in the morning (don’t learn the hard way).

Oxford Mail:

* Bathing suit. Fun for water fights and sunbathing at any festival, but you definitely wouldn’t want to miss out on the Wilderness lake and lakeside spa.

* Plastic cutlery. Most festivals confiscate metal cutlery. You know, because there’s a risk you could cause injury to someone with your butter knife.

* An ‘emergency kit’ in a small purse. Nail clippers or scissors, travel toothbrush, plasters, painkillers, indigestion tablets and sun cream (sit all day in the sun without it, and you will go lobster). And whatever else floats your boat – I find anti-bacterial gel a bit pointless (if you’ve got muck on your hands, and gel up, then you’ve just got ‘clean’ muck).

* Cheap but stylish sunglasses. The average rate of loss or breakage at festivals can be calculated by the formula: persons x days x clumsiness factor of surrounding individuals x how much you desperately want to keep favourite pair intact.

* A nice strong man (or woman) to help you carry it and double up as a human hot water bottle at night.

Oxford Mail:

AND THE MUST NOTS!

* Litter! At the risk of sounding like a knit-your-own-muesli tree-hugger… most festivals (especially Truck) have convenient recycling and rubbish facilities and it’s really not that difficult to use them.

* Valuables you can’t afford to lose. I am much more relaxed about my valuables at local festivals and have never had any bother. But it’s just not worth the risk.

* Jelly shoes – unless you’re feeling nostalgic for beach days as a youth (and all the blisters that come with them)

* Onesies – unless you’re going for the giant baby look, in which case you may as well wear a nappy (handy – no need for loos).

Best of the festivals...

Towersey – Towersey, near Thame, August 21-25

  • Headliners: Richard Thompson, Seth Lakeman, Bootleg Beatles
  • Starting life as a low-key fundraiser for the local village hall, Towersey has grown into one of the country’s best loved festivals, with a glittering line-up of international talent which leans heavily to the folk scene. This year Towersey celebrates its 50th anniversary.
  • See towerseyfestival.com

Truck – Hill Farm, Steventon, near Didcot, July 18-19

  • Headliners: Roots Manuva, White Lies, Cribbs, Los Camposinos!, Stornoway
  • Truck festival has changed beyond all recognition from its humble beginning as a gig in a field – with the stage on the back of a truck (hence its name). Set up by brothers Robin and Joe Bennett as a vehicle for their mates’ bands and their own musical ventures, it is now run by the team from Y-Not festival.
  • Tickets: Standard Camping £74.
  • See truckfestival.com/

Wilderness – Cornbury Park, Charlbury, August 7-10

  • Headliners: London Grammar, Burt Bacharach, Metronomy
  • Lord and Lady Rotherwick’s beautiful deer park on the edge of Wychwood Forest is home to the country’s finest boutique gathering; one where music takes a back seat to thousands of other self-improving activities.
  • Tickets: Adult weekend £143.50
  • See wildernessfestival.com

The Big Feastival – Kingham, August 29-31

  • Headliners: Fatboy Slim, Jamie Cullum, De La Soul, Laura Mvula,
  • Presented and hosted by Blur star Alex James and his foodie mate Jamie Oliver, The Big Feastival is the ultimate crossover celebration of music and top-notch nosh.
  • Tickets: Adult weekend: £115
  • See jamieoliver.com/thebigfeastival

Riverside – Charlbury, July 26-27

  • Headliners: The Epstein, The Brickwork Lizards, The Standard, Mighty Redox
  • Riverside is an anomaly: a survivor of the golden age of free festivals, with no tickets, no fence and no rip-offs – just great artists playing for the love of it, and volunteers selling reasonably-priced food and drink.
  • Tickets: Free.
  • See riversidefestival.charlbury.com

Fairport’s Cropredy Convention – Cropredy, near Banbury, August 7-9

  • Headliners: Fairport Convention, The Australian Pink Floyd Show, Waterboys, Chas & Dave
  • Book-ended by sets by hosts Fairport Convention, this festival offers a high standard of largely- though not exclusively folk and acoustic acts.
  • Tickets: Adult weekend £110.
  • See fairportconvention.com

Reading – Little John Farm. Reading, August 22-24

  • Headliners: Arctic Monkeys, Queens of the Stone Age, Paramore, blink-182
  • It’s not pretty, but it’s certainly big - and, if you like wall-to-wall bands with little in the way of distraction, it is very clever!
  • Tickets: Weekend pass £205
  • See readingfestival.com