With so many great music festivals taking place in the summertime, many people find it difficult to make a choice between all of them, and once they’ve decided where to go, they will spend days, and sometimes weeks, preparing for their weekend of fun. But while people are more than happy to spend a lot of time considering what clothes, accessories, food and drink to bring, and even how they will get from their home to festival, few people consider how they will keep cool when it gets too hot.
Outdoor events have come to define the classic British summer, and whether there’s rain or shine, a festival will always go ahead. While this is usually all part of the festival experience for many people, and the mess and the mud that is uncovered at festivals like Glastonbury and T in the Park usually gets as much coverage as the bands that are performing, the effects of the rain are obvious, but few consider the pact of the heat on revellers.
We all know that exposure to the sun can result in sun burn, dehydration and sun stroke, and we all know to cover up and wear high factor sun protection when we’re abroad, but few people remember this at festivals, and some of the worst casualties are often people suffering from severe sunburn or sunstroke due to the heat and dehydration. So before you go to a festival, make sure you pack plenty of sunscreen, and have a wide-brimmed hat if possible, to keep the rays off your head and the back of your neck, burns on these parts of your body are not only painful, but can lead to sunstroke, so be careful whenever you are out in the sun for long periods of time.
One of the most important things you can do when you;re out in the sun, is to keep hydrated, this doesn’t mean that you should rink alcohol, or fizzy drinks, because these drinks will only dehydrate you further. It means that you absolutely drink water, because it is very hydrating, and will also help keep you cool. Think of your body as a machine, a machine that’s always moving, and working, so how do you keep it cool? By adding water, it’s possible to cool overworked machinery down, and this is the same idea which is very frequently used in many factories and other machinery, when cooling towers are used to remove excess and waste heat from a certain factory, building or other device and into the atmosphere.
In fact, outdoor events such as festivals, have been known to use cooling towers to keep all the vital machinery and other devices cool during the festival, which may sound strange because festivals are more famous for using generators to generate power. So when you consider how much heat the generator will be, well, generating will they create power, as will you, then the use of a piece of machinery like emergency cooling towers is understandable. So take note of this technology and apply it yo yourself, keep cool, and enjoy the rest of your summer.