How to survive festivals, faires and Sabbats

 How to survive festivals, faires and Sabbats


   Where to start? First off, apologies for being so quiet for so long! This pandemic had gotten me down to the point where I just couldn’t get inspired to write. Being an extrovert, it’s been a VERY hard year for me.

        When deciding to go to festivals or faires, or even a sabbat with a Pagan group, it’s hard to plan spur-of-the-moment when you’re allergic to the sun or heat. However, given a week or so, it is possible to enjoy all of these events and gatherings by taking a few precautions.

1. Make sure to ask about the layout. How much shade will there be? Are there any trees? Are there pagodas or some kind of covered bench area, and if not, if there is an indoor area you can go?

2. Bring your sun cover-up. Sunblock is great to wear under your clothing, but it doesn’t always work if you have porphyria. The best thing to wear is UV sunblock clothing. This also includes UV blocker face coverings. I know, masks are a big thing right now, but if it’s not made of a UV blocking material, it won’t protect you from the sun.

3. Bring a black umbrella, as black will block the sunlight out better, and it’s a plus if it’s made to be UV blocking.

4. Wear polarized UV blocker sunglasses. Without sunglasses, I feel blind as a bat outside in the bright sunlight, literally. Mine are brown tinted because the black tinted are too dark for me.

5. Bring water. At least three 20 oz water bottles, and find out where you can get refills. This is generally just common sense, but us with porphyria can dehydrate much faster than other people if it’s warm outside. We also don’t sweat, so if we overheat, it’s game over and we have to go inside where it’s nice and cold for at least an hour or so, or our bodies can go into sunstroke mode.

6. Have an extra cell phone power pack or 3. All charged so your phone doesn’t die. You’ll need that in case of emergency. Especially if you have a reaction and need to go to the hospital.

7. A cooling towel. Amazon sells them cheap, as well as most sports stores. You just stick them in ice cold water, squeegee them, and put them around your neck or on your back (attached inside your shirt) to keep you from overheating. These will need to be dunked in cold water every hour.

8. Try to go early in the morning. It’ll be cooler outside, there’ll be more shade and you can stay longer. I have never been able to stay more than 4 hours at a festival or event, but the reason I could even stay that long was because I went early.


   What if it’s not summer? Same rules apply. The sun can heat things up pretty quickly, even if it’s the dead of winter. And if there is snow on the ground, the sun can reflect off of it, remember that.

And now for Sabbats.

        Again, the same rules apply. However, the summer months may keep you from joining Pagan Circles during the summer sabbats because well, they stand in the sun. It’s just how it’s done. Sometimes they’ll be in a clearing under the cover of trees, but most of the time, it’s super sunny, hot, and not a lot of cover in those circles. Sorry to say, but it may be best to sit these out. A lot of Pagan sabbats have events going on way into the night, so you can still go! You just have to sit out the circles in the middle of the day.


Hope that helps! If you have any questions or need any advice for sun-related problems or sun sensitivity in general, feel free to message me here, or join our group on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/groups/ThePorcelainVampireSpeaks