Christiane Falk (1LIVE presenter): So far, my open air festival planning [this year] is as follows. Rock am Ring without question, along with Southside. I'd like to be at Haldern Pop and probably also Rock am See at Lake Constance, as it's such a lovely holiday destination. But the question is this. Is there actually a perfect festival? Jarvis Hammond, a British citizen living in Germany, undertook such a search two years ago and visited almost every famous festival in the process, worldwide. And he figured it out. Now he's published his experiences in a book, a sort of travel account called 'A Year of Festivals' and 1Live's reporter Daniel Bäldle has read it.

Christiane: How many festivals did he go to?

Daniel Bäldle (1LIVE reporter): In total thirteen, at times every week, one after another. And as you said, they were spread across the whole world; Coachella in California, Glastonbury in England, and also Fuji Rock in Japan. And what he experienced during his world-wide journey will surely be familiar to many festival goers. For example, when he talks about Roskilde in Denmark.

Jarvis Hammond (during interview at Eurosonic festival): It rained for something like twenty seven hours in one hit and the complete festival site was under water. In the evening we waded through lakes, which at midday simply hadn't been there. I stood and ate peas from a plastic bag, a Danish speciality, and watched tents float past me. A surreal experience.

Daniel: Yep, it's the small things which make a festival unforgettable.

Christiane: Absolutely.

Daniel: In Japan, for example, he was able to choose whether he'd rather camp on a ski piste or on a golf course. After the return flight to Germany his rucksack had gone missing, including tent.

Christiane: Is his writing as funny as the experiences he recounted personally [during the interview]?

Daniel: Yeah, absolutely, and that's actually what makes the book. Jarvis is no expert, not a music journalist, and doesn't present to be. He's just a completely normal bloke with a boring job, who outside of work loves going to festivals. And because of that he doesn't analyse the music in detail or compare bands. He simply writes about the complete festival experience like, for example, how you keep it together when standing in a traffic jam on the way to a festival, or aggravation with security. The complete book reads like a personal diary and therefore you get a feeling of what festivals are really like. Apart from all that, it's really funny to read, due to the voice he's used during writing.

Christiane: At the moment the book is only available in English. Is it difficult to read?

Daniel: No, absolutely not. It's relatively simply written and you can get through it fairly easily with a little English knowledge.

Christiane: And? Did he find the perfect festival or not?

Daniel: Well, there Jarvis ultimately doesn't want to say, but if you ask him you can pull out a few favourites.

Jarvis (during interview at Eurosonic festival): Actually it was a mixture of the small and large I found best. Roskilde was fantastic even though the weather was dreadful; a really amazing festival. And End of the Road in Britain. A small festival, about five thousand people, which was really cool as well; really individual, similar to Haldern Pop.

Daniel: Yeah and Haldern comes away from the book quite well, mainly due to the family feel of the festival which Jarvis enjoyed. Apart from that it was there where it all started. It was Haldern where he originally came upon the idea to write a book about festivals.

Christiane: Then I guess he'll probably be at Haldern again in August. The book is called 'A Year of Festivals' by Jarvis Hammond and if you phone our 1LIVE hotline we'll happily let you know the book website address where you can order the book. Our hotline number is 0221-56789 111. More information relating to the book, simply phone 0221-56789 111.