How Our Guides Are Made

A weekend guide is only useful if you can trust it on a Saturday morning, with the car half packed and the children asking when you are leaving. This page explains how our articles go from a loose idea to something we are happy to put our pen names to.

Where ideas come from

Most articles begin with a question. Some arrive by email, some come from searches people make again and again, and some from a weekend of our own that did not go to plan. We keep a shared list and choose from it with the seasons in mind: festival and travel pieces before summer, home projects for the darker months, family ideas around school holidays.

Checking before writing

Before a draft begins, the writer gathers the basics from sources that know the subject best:

• organisers' own pages for events, including bag policies, age rules and site maps;
• operators' conditions for travel, such as ticket rules and luggage guidance;
• manufacturers' instructions and trade bodies for home and equipment topics;
• official public guidance where safety, money or the law come into it.

We do not invent statistics, quotes or studies. If a claim cannot be checked, it is either left out or written in general terms.

Writing for real weekends

Drafts are written in everyday language and laid out to be used, not admired. The practical steps sit near the top, lists are kept short, and tables appear only when a comparison is genuinely easier to read that way. Our piece on taking kids to a festival is a fair example of the shape we aim for.

A second pair of eyes

Every draft is read by another member of the team who did not write it. The reader looks for vague instructions, steps in the wrong order, claims that go further than the sources allow and anything that sounds like professional advice we are not in a position to give. Questions go back to the writer until both are satisfied.

Pieces prepared with businesses

Some articles are prepared together with businesses whose services suit the topic, such as event hire, home trades or travel. These pieces go through the same checks as every other article. Links to those businesses sit where they help the reader, and the surrounding advice stays practical and balanced.

Dates and updates

Each article shows the date it was first published, and older articles keep their original date. When we make a meaningful update, the article shows that too. Seasonal details such as opening times change every year, so please confirm them with the organiser before you travel.

Corrections

If something is wrong, we want to know. Tell us through Send Us Your Plans, mentioning the page and the detail. We check it against the original source and fix it as soon as we can. More about the people doing this work is on The Festival Desk.