Board game lovers will find literally any excuse to bring their collection to a social gathering. It doesn't matter what you had planned or how long we're hanging out for; we can and will find a tabletop title that fits the bill. Case in point: I invited my board games to a music festival. I wanted to prove to my friends that a card game or two was a worthy addition to our camping gear.
In the end, I was right, but my actions had consequences.
This story actually begins at Download Festival 2024, one of the wettest UK music events of the last few years. The rain fell so violently that several acts were forced to cancel, and festivalgoers were squeezed into their tents to seek shelter. With our plans canceled and the weather torrential, we were forced to do something truly torturous to entertain ourselves - play Connect 4.
A campmate brought the tiny Connect 4 set as a joke, but it became a sad staple of our festival experience. I vowed never to let this happen again. If we were going to game at a festival, we would play only the best board games, not some dollar store chaff.
So, when packing for Download Festival 2025, I played tabletop Tetris with my bag, cramming in as many of the best card games as I could. The party game Don't Get Got was my savior here. With all its cardboard packaging removed, I could carry a large number of small staples, from the hot new Flip 7 to the classic social deduction game, One Night Ultimate Werewolf.
After a year of rain in 2024, mud was on my mind. I planned to keep my precious cargo inside the tent, elevated on a table where the elements could not reach. A soggy playing card is a friend to no one, so I felt prepared.
Then, the sun came out. Sweltering in our tents for hours on end was out of the question. The ground was dryer than an eight-hour game of Risk, and when dirt ground is worn down by thousands of feet, it gets ultra dusty.
I could have sleeved my Scout cards to save them. But the rounded cards of Dobble (Spot It to you Americans) were at the mercy of the elements - as was the table we played on, no matter how often we wiped it down. The first lesson of the week had been learned: if you're precious about keeping your card games clean, a festival is not the place to play.
Despite the dust, the board games were an enormous success with my campmates. On quiet mornings before the day's music began, or in gaps where there were no live acts we wished to see, they were a quick and easy way to stay entertained. The occasional drunk person would stumble by and interrupt a session of Werewolf, but otherwise, games went off without a hitch.
Once again, Don't Get Got was the standout star. This is the perfect 'background board game', with no need for a table and no limit on where and how long you play.
If you're not familiar, everyone is given a list of secret challenges, silly or mundane tasks that they must trick other players into performing. If an opponent asks 'is this part of the game?', you've been caught and failed your attempt at espionage. Otherwise, you can gleefully shout 'you got got!' every time someone falls for your antics.
The winner is the first to complete three tasks, but we continued playing long after these goalposts, stretching the game across the five-day festival. We also removed many of the challenges from play, as they simply weren't possible in a field with limited internet and supplies. (However, it turns out that there is a Great Outdoors Edition designed for camping trips, which sounds like something I should invest in.)
The air of suspicion and repetition of the phrase 'is this part of the game?' was near constant. However, the thrill of pulling off an elaborate ruse was thrilling.
My own fiance betrayed me by feigning drunkenness and getting me to tell him my age. I fooled a friend when, at 1 am, I faked falling over and forced him to help me up. In the first five minutes of the game, one camper tricked her boyfriend into saying he loved her, and I'd like to officially apologize for the mistrust I brought into their relationship for the rest of the week.
Gaming almost constantly made the festival vibe a fraction less relaxed, but it was novel and exciting - and something I'd probably do next year.
Except that my copy of Don't Get Got will never be the same again. At some point, whether it was dancing, stage diving over the barriers, or leaping into a mosh pit, my cards fell out of my pocket. Those five Don't Get Got challenges belong to the festival fields now, and I'll never see them again. This story ends with the most important tip of all: if you're bringing card games to a festival, don't take them dancing.
What's the strangest place you've ever played a board game? We'd love to hear your stories in the Wargamer Discord. Or, for more of my tabletop antics, here's the time I played Gloomhaven on a train.