Important Information for Electrical Hook-up Users at Retro Festival
The electrical supply available is restricted as our hook-ups are rated at 10amps so you need to be careful what you use to avoid ‘tripping out’ the system. The temporary power on site is designed on the basis of diversity so the site power supply is geared up to an average electrical usage assuming not all hook-ups take 10amps at any one time. Occasionally, if a cold spell occurs and all users switch on electrical heaters, kettles etc. at the same time, you may suffer reduced power or even a power cut, so it is important to use electricity responsibly. Tripping the electrical supply can make you unpopular on site. The least you will need to do is contact the organisers who will reset the system and in some cases you may also have cut off the electricity supply to your neighbour’s pitches – on a cold, dark night this will not go down well.
Make no mistake about it, electricity can be dangerous, especially in the open air so safety is paramount.
1. SAFETY FIRST. We are responsible for the safety of our electrical supply equipment up to the socket outlet on the hook-up box and it is tested on installation but you are responsible for the safety of your hook-up cable and your unit’s electrical installation. However, we have overall responsibility for the safety of our guests while on site so if we feel that any electrical equipment does not conform to safety standards or is connected to the supply in an unsafe manner, we will disconnect the camping unit.
2. You must use a purpose-built lead designed for bringing electricity to your unit. These leads will have special weather-proof plugs made to connect to the sites hook-up. We recommend you use a cable length of 25m as the layout of some of our pitches means that you can sometimes be pitched a little distance from the hook-up box. If you’re closer to the box you should still uncoil the full length of your cable to avoid it overheating during use.
3. You will need to think about the equipment you want to use on site. At home you’ll probably have plenty of sockets and it’s rare to overload them but a campsite socket can be easily overloaded. If you are on a site with a 10amp supply like ours, you will have around 2.3 kw available. That means you could run a low watt camping or travel kettle (around 750 Watts) plus a low watt toaster (900 Watts). But if someone then plugs in a low 600W hair dryer you are dangerously close to tripping the electrics. Of course, not all appliances are the same so the best thing to do is add up all the Watts of the appliances you want to use at the same time, and make sure it stays below the amount of Watts (2.3kW) available from our electric hook-up supply. Don’t forget that 1000 Kw equals 1 Kilowatt.
