Living and working in the fields
Our team has tonnes of festival experience – In both food trading and in festival site operation, so we know our way around busy festival fields and serving long queues! Our director Kate used to work for the Eavis’ Glastonbury Festival site office and live on site in the fields, so we know the ‘behind the scenes’ of site life and the vast amount of infrastructure build and hard graft that goes into running a festival. Kate has also worked in gates and box office management at Boomtown Festival, ticket holder transport for Shambala Festival, and used to co-run a small, one-day family festival in Brighton for several years. Since starting Old Skool Bus Events we have traded with our food truck at many festivals over the past three years, including Shindig, Glastonbury Festival three times, and Into the Wild. We’ve also provided the festival crew catering at several events too.
Food Trading
Being a food trader at a festival isn’t a walk in the park, catering for high numbers in a (sometimes) muddy field is hard work and it takes a whole lot of dedication and commitment. Our chefs and front of house serving staff thrive in the bustling environment, plus the hard work pays off when they get to see their favourite DJ’s and bands at the main stage!
Our festival menus are varied, but we prefer to sell our American style menus, such as gourmet burgers and fries – these are always the most popular with our American food truck of course. We use all locally sourced produce, with our burger buns being made fresh by local bakers, and the burger patties made daily by our butcher. Both our baker and butcher can cater our order gluten free on request and we have a great variety of allergy free produce we regularly use too.
Most popular festival food menus are:
- Gourmet burger & fries
- Gourmet loaded hotdogs
- Grilled American cheese toasties
- Loaded fries
- Tex Mex & Mexican feast bowls
- Gourmet Tacos – with a twist (our south coast crab is a dream!)
- Big brunches – we can add this on for the morning to the above
Hire our American buses!
We are open to hiring our trucks for festivals and American themed events, and they can be used for a number of things including:
- Theming
- Info point cabin – why not use an eye catching bus to make an ‘Info Point’ easy to find?
- Truck with marquee – we have a custom built big yellow awning which fits to our food truck. This awning makes a great seating area for about 40 people, so it could be used for crew, welfare, or an activity workshop area
- Bar – we can also hire the buses as a bar set up. We have several different set up options we can discuss, depending on the needs of the event
Crew Catering
Festival crew food is vital to the success of a happy team, good nutrition, plenty of energy, and a productive event build, whether it’s for five days in the run up to an event, or 4 weeks on site building huge festival infrastructure. Not to mention keeping the crew fed and motivated for the de-rig after the festival when everyone is tired!
We provided festival crew catering at several events as The Old Skool Bus & Kitchen, before our Director bought out the original two business partners and re-branded as Old Skool Bus Events. We also delivered TV & Film location catering for both the BBC and ITV for short and longer filming shoots. However, since Old Skool Bus Events launched in November 2024 with a new website, menus, policies and objectives, the standard set is now of another level. Our very first crew catering job was quite possibly the biggest and best we could have tackled, and the longest contract on site at Glastonbury Festival. Take a look at the statistics and achievements below:
- Breakfast, lunch and dinner served daily for 57 consecutive days, with 9 full weeks spent on site!
- We managed a team of 31 staff in total over this period, with complex rotas, staff days off, managing high numbers for catering for most of the weeks
- Starting with 250 crew to feed in week one, and rising to almost 800 crew eating three times per day just before the festival opened, these numbers were a challenge for the kitchen and serving staff, but we smashed it!
Our director, Kate, is a qualified Nutrition & Health coach in her spare time, so you can be reassured that the meals and menus have been planned to not only be delicious and varied, but also to consider the balance of protein, healthy carbohydrates for energy release, a great range of vegetables for fibre, and some good healthy essential fats. We are aware that many crew love the traditional cooked breakfasts with fried hash browns and bacon, which of course we can provide, however, what we pride ourselves on is to give plenty of alternative, healthy, nutritious options for everyone. Please feel free to enquire about menus and prices Contact – Old Skool Bus Events
Why do we LOVE working at festivals so much?
The vibe and atmosphere at festivals is electric, and the team really love the perks of being able to see their favourite bands and DJ’s
We own two super eye-catching vintage, American food trucks, so it gives us the opportunity to show them off in all their glory, and they create a colourful and fun impression for festival goers
Working with festival organisers is fantastic, and we love to try and work alongside the objectives of the festival and deliver exceptional service and food menus
Our event catering company, although originally a food truck business, is not just catering in festivals, we deliver corporate events, weddings and charity events, so we just LOVE to break up the calendar with some energetic and exciting festivals in the summer!
What does 2026 and beyond have in store for us at festivals? Well, we are already in talks with several events for next year, and are very excited for our potential summer season, and we fully intend to have a well balanced future of both crew catering and food truck trading for the years to come!
If you want to enquire about our services you can contact us through our website www.oldskoolbusevents.com or email us at enquiries@oldskoolbusevents.com
