Following the success of last year's Summer Sound System, Gatecrasher boldly returned to Turweston Aerodrome for their second outdoor spectacular.
Last year Gatecrasher not only picked the day of England's victorious World Cup match against Germany, they also landed on the hottest day of the year.
But the choice of location, a field in the middle of a public transport no go area, was always difficult even when the sun was baking the shirt from your back.
This year the weather wasn't shining on the Summer Sound System and the nearest train station to Turweston is Branbury, eleven miles from the festival site.
While specially laid-on trains whisked Bon Jovi fans across the fields of Bedfordshire to Milton Keynes, Gatecrasher's global fan base were left struggling through the rain via planes, trains, coaches and ox carts.
The rain is falling in thick blankets as we turn up at the site.
The Crasher kids, who arrive in fluffy boots, fluorescent party pants and dyed spiked hair cuts, are here in force, but the crowd is more diverse than a year ago, showing that Gatecrasher's mixed music policy has paid off.
Once inside the rain becomes more intermittent, punctuating bursts of sunshine and a semi constant backdrop of cloud. The main drag is already a mud flat.
Most people are carefully dodging the pools and preserving their club clobber, but a group of five lads have abandoned style in favour of mud wrestling. Having suitably covered themselves in the rich brown clay-sludge, they parade around the festival grounds occasionally tripping unsuspecting mates into the quagmire or stopping to hug anyone who will let them near.
Musically the Sound System has pulled in one of the most adventurous line-ups of the year. Alongside the more obvious contributions from the likes of Guy Ornadale, there's also appearances by people as diverse as Gilles Peterson and Mos Def.
In a way the frequent showers help the adventure, as people dash into the nearest tent and find themselves dancing to hard step.
One person to benefit from a sudden downpour is Spoony from the Dreem Teem, whose set kicks into life as the crowd dashes in from the cold. Suddenly the tent is stuffed with hard house and trance fans giving their best to the crunchy hi hats and surging bass of UK garage. Simultaneously Suv reaps the benefits in the drum 'n' bass tent, while Masters At Work's Lil' Louis Vegas transforms the Red not Bed arena into Carnival.
But the live stage, situated by itself on the far side of the festival grounds, is suffering from the wet weather, meaning Morcheeba, Craig David and Faithless have an uphill struggle in pulling a crowd, even after the rain clears-up in the evening.
David proves to be an adept performer, alternating between soulful ballads and rapid MC delivery, but a majority of the people here are died-in-the-wool club kids explaining why the festival suddenly gets busier somewhere around 10pm. They haven't come to see live bands play in a field, their here to dance to DJs under throbbing speaker stacks, staccato strobes and swooping searchlights.
Perhaps with this in mind, Slam have taken the wise option and play their debut live gig under canvas, as do the Chemical Brothers who appear as DJs rather than in their live show incarnation.
But the biggest crowd pullers of the night are inevitably Oakenfold and Paul Van Dyk, who totally ram the breath-snatchingly massive Main Arena..
Standing in the centre you're hit by the sheer scale of the event, the vast canopy, the columns stretching above, surrounded by a sea of clubbers pounding relentlessly to the groove and united by a single rotating twelve inch record.
It's hard not to be impressed.
