Applying for a volunteer stewarding place

Festival stewarding is open to everyone, so sign-ups work on a first-come first served basis. Once places are open, you will be able to log in to your account, select the festival you’d like to volunteer at and pay your refundable deposit.

You will need to apply to each festival individually, so we recommend selecting your top festival first before adding any others.

Make sure you have a bank card ready and any authentication devices on hand.

Our payment system also supports Apple Pay and Google Pay as long as they are set up on the device you are using to sign up.

You will then get an email confirming your place and outlining the next steps for completing your profile. Profiles will be locked for a few days after launch, to ease traffic on our website so if you are unable to see your profile after applying, please check back soon.

When you sign up, you will need to pay one fully refundable deposit to cover all the festivals you’d like to volunteer at. This will be equal to the cost of a full adult ticket for the event, capped at £250 at all events except Glastonbury (which will remain at the ticket price).

Your deposit will be returned to you 4 weeks after your last festival with us or up to 6 weeks for Glastonbury festival.

If you are planning on volunteering with friends or family this summer, you will each need to apply separately.

When your profiles are open, you are then able to choose the person or people you would like to volunteer at the same time as by setting up a 'Friendship Group'.

Find out more about the process here.

If you or your friend aren’t all successful at getting a place at the festival of your choice, places do come up throughout the year as people cancel so keep checking back.

If you’ve got your eyes set on Glastonbury, please be aware that our volunteer places fill in just minutes each year! We’d love for you all to be successful at getting a place but if you do miss out, it’s worth checking back later in the day and throughout the year as places do become available.

We also have lots of other great festivals to volunteer at and by doing two this year, you could gain priority status in 2025 giving you a better chance at securing a place at Glastonbury.

It’s difficult to predict exactly how many places will fill on application day. However, this year, many of our festivals reached capacity within the first day of opening, with all spots filled within the first week. Glastonbury, our largest festival in terms of volunteer numbers, reached full capacity within minutes of opening.

If a festival reaches full capacity, it will appear greyed out on your screen, and you won't be able to select it unless spots become available again.

We recommend checking regularly throughout launch day, as spots may become available if an application isn't completed. Additionally, cancellations occur throughout the year, especially within the first two weeks of sign-ups and closer to the festival date.

If we need to fill a large number of spots, we will announce this on our social media channels. We highly recommend turning on notifications for Oxfam Festivals on Instagram, Facebook, Threads, or X to stay updated.

Priority is the opportunity to apply to steward at festivals with us before we open our applications to the public. It's a great way to increase your chance of getting a place at our most popular events.

Visit our priority information page to find out more and how you can secure priority status.

Many of our volunteers come to a festival solo but don't stay that way for very long! Our community of volunteers is incredibly welcoming so you are bound to make friends very quickly. All you need to do is say hello to your campsite neighbor or come down to the marquee. Many of our festivals even have social events the day everyone arrives and you will get to know your shift partners well too.

If you'd like to meet people before the festival, you could join our active Facebook group and find out who else will be volunteering at your festival.

If you know you'd like to volunteer with us but aren't sure which festival to sign up for, we recommend having a browse of our festival pages which should give you an idea of what each festival is like. Past volunteers in our Facebook group are also very happy to share their opinions or answer any questions you may have about a particular festival.

We think all our festivals offer a great experience and no matter which one you sign up for, you will get the same friendly Oxfam community and will be helping to give back by raising money for our poverty-fighting work.