Thursday, September 11, 2025
Now that the dust has (quite literally!) settled, and you've hopefully caught up on some sleep, we would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who joined us at Reading and Leeds Festival 2025!
We loved spending the August bank holiday weekend with you all, watching you make friends, discover new bands and help thousands of Reading and Leeds customers in the process! A particular shout out to all of our returning volunteers who came back to join us - we're so appreciative of you coming back to share your incredible knowledge and experience of all things #RandL with the wider team!
We know for some it was your first ever festival, so we hope we set you off on the right foot for a lifetime of live music events! We spoke to lots of volunteers at the beginning of the week who were feeling quite daunted by the size and scale of each festival, so you should be super proud of yourselves for sticking at it, getting stuck in and making some incredible memories!
So much amazing feedback about your work has been coming back to us, so a big round of applause to you all for your hard work helping to make Reading and Leeds a safe and enjoyable event for everyone!
We're working as fast as we can to get your deposits returned to you ASAP!
Deposits are posted out as a cheque to the address in your PAAM Profile within 30 days of the last day of the last festival you're joining us at each year, so please login to PAAM now to check your address is up to date! This is particularly important for students who have changed accommodation over the summer!
The deposit return process is lengthy as we're required to individually check every volunteer completed their shifts at each festival, so please bear with us if responses to emails and messages are slightly delayed in this period!
A huge thank you to everyone who popped into the office at the end of each festival with words of thanks and appreciation, and to everyone who has sent us messages since getting home excited about your festival experiences and missing your time with us. It means the world to all of us at Hotbox that we can help so many people to have such fantastic experiences, be it the reward that comes from helping those attending the festivals, making life-long friends, seeing a bit of how the events run behind the scenes, and of course seeing incredible bands 😉 We love hearing when you've had a good time!
We always do everything in our power to make the festival experience as good for you as we can, and improve it whenever and wherever possible. So if you particularly loved something about joining us, or if you've got some ideas about how we can make things better, we'd love to hear from you!
We also love hearing about all of the fun things you got up to on shift with your zone supervisors, so if you had an amazing supervisor and want to give them a shout out, please let us know!
At the end of the year, we collect up all of the awesome feedback you've given us about each member of the staff team and send it out to them in personalised Christmas cards. We know it makes their day to receive them, and it's nice to be nice, so if you have any praise for any of our staff members, we would love to hear it so we can pass it on!
We're always on the lookout for more zone supervisors, office managers, control room staff, and minibus drivers to join our paid staff team at the events! As you've now worked with us at least once, so know how we and the festivals work, you have the perfect foundation to take on a staff role next year if you would like to! If you're interested in joining our festival staff team for one or more events through the 2026 festival season, please pop us an email in the new year. As some events and roles can be oversubscribed, we always recommend also applying to volunteer when applications open, so you have a back up and can still join us if you don’t get a paid role.
We have a very limited quantity of Reading and Leeds Festival X Hotbox Events Merch left! If you missed out on grabbing yours, we're offering free UK delivery with the discount code RANDL25MERCH until midnight Tuesday 30th September!
Head to the Hotbox Festival Merch Shop to order yours now!
If you accidentally took home one of our tabards, radios, earpieces, radio clips, or any other piece of kit, please could we have it back? We get charged for any equipment losses and the Hotbox tabards are super expensive. If you forgot to hand something in before the end of the festival, please could you post it back to us ASAP🙏
You can find our address here
Keep an eye on our socials and newsletters for updates over the winter!
We hope to see you again next year!
If there is anything you would like to ask or you would just like to chat with us about, the easiest way is to...
You can connect with us @hotboxevents on Instagram, X, Facebook, LinkedIn, TikTok and YouTube
If you would like to chat with others who have joined us before, head to our Facebook Group
Here you will find new and returning staff and volunteers chatting about what it is like to join us at festivals, arranging to share lifts, asking and answering questions about working at festivals and making new friends!
If you have not joined us at a festival before and are wondering what it is like, check out some of our staff and volunteer interviews!
In these interviews, you will get to hear from those who have joined us talking about how they found their shifts, how they felt they were looked after by the Hotbox team, what it was like working solo for the first time, taking on more responsibility year on year, and even how the experience and confidence gained has helped with career progression away from festivals.
Another way to see what joining us is like is to check out some of our festival photos!
In our festival photo galleries, you will find thousands of photos covering our festival history over the past twenty years!
It's totally normal to be anxious before coming to a festival, particularly if you're coming solo! We get hundreds of messages every year from people who are keen to join us but nervous about coming alone, so we promise you're not...alone! We're a very friendly bunch and if there's anything we can do to reduce your anxiety, please get in touch! You can also join our Facebook Group to make friends with others before the festival. Within this group you will also find links to some volunteer-led WhatsApp groups that have been set up!
If you have specific questions about joining us at festivals, try our festival FAQs!
Our festival FAQs are regularly updated and packed full of answers to the questions we are usually asked, as well as handy festival hits and tips.
We usually send out an email newsletter every month or so. If you would like to keep up to date with our news and festival happenings, please subscribe!
If you would like to drop us an email, it's info@hotboxevents.com
You can reach our office by phone on the numbers below...
Tel: 01252849600 (UK) select option 2 for Hotbox Events
Tel: +441252849600 (International) select option 2 for Hotbox Events
