Europe’s biggest street festival in west London is an occasion that requires some planning – here is our guide to being the life and soul of the Caribbean party.

Notting Hill Carnival – a yearly street party masterminded by London’s Caribbean communities – tends to divide the capital. For many who live where it is held, in W10, the last weekend of August is an automatic trigger to board-up windows, barricade front gates, and book a holiday to, well, anywhere but west London. Other Londoners hate it because they went once without knowing what to expect, lost all of their friends (and their wallet), and vowed never to return, using overblown headlines about violence to justify their feelings ever since. For others – it’s the most exciting event in the calendar. A huge, free (a rare thing nowadays), joyful party which shows off all the best, most vibrant, multicultural aspects of London. Whichever camp you’re in – here are some tips we’ve learned which might help you enjoy Europe’s biggest street festival.

Jamaica’s favourite beer – brewed under license in Bedford – isn’t actually your best choice of alcohol-infused beverage. Bathroom facilities at the carnival are few and far between, and queues for them are enormous. Rather than spend all day waiting to give a local resident £2 for the privilege of using their downstairs toilet, save time by reducing the volume of liquid you drink and upping the ABV considerably. Hennessey or rum drunk straight from a hip flask is the go-to beverage of many a hardened Carnival-goer.

It might seem fun – especially if you’ve decided to hit the punch before leaving the house – to dress like the human embodiment of a Caribbean carnival: wearing a brightly coloured vest, a horn tied round your neck, and paint and glitter covering every exposed bit of skin. This is highly appropriate if you’re banging a steel drum on a float to Soca beats, but less so (and certainly less comfortable) when wading through crowds trying to get to the jerk chicken. And because it’s Britain, it will also probably rain – either water or aforementioned Red Stripe. So dress in something you can stand up in all day, and maybe take a waterproof. This also means you can seamlessly carry on the party after the carnival ends (at 7.00pm) wherever that may be.

Trying to see and do everything with all of your friends is an error. There are almost 40 official sound systems and a parade which starts on Great Western Road, finishing on Ladbroke Grove. Only try and see a limited section of it. Stick to two or three sound systems – see more info here. Go with a small group of people who have vaguely similar music interests/toilet cycles as you, and meet up before you join the crowd. And be ruthless about meeting people once you’re in. Ie – avoid it, unless you know they’re just an upstretched hand wave away. This, incidentally, will be an infinitely easier mode of communication than your mobile phone – which will dip in and out of signal throughout the day, if it didn’t already slip out your pocket the moment you joined the throng.

If you’re going to Carnival, go to Carnival. Don’t drink in a pub nearby playing vaguely Carnival-esque music thinking you’re at Carnival. Don’t miss the whole thing because you want to “save yourself” for the afterparties. And don’t go to your friend’s house in W10 to sit on a balcony drinking gin and tonics. That is not Carnival. That is going to your friend’s house to literally, and probably metaphorically, look down on a carnival.

The loudest, most notorious sound system in town returns for 2016 after an unexpected fallow year. While the organisers of Rampage Sound were quick to stress that 2015’s last-minute cancellation was the result of “unforeseen circumstances” and that their hands had not been forced by the police, the council or the Notting Hill Carnival committee, the fact that they felt the need to clarify this at all speaks volumes. Tucked away on Colville Square and hemmed in by towering Georgian terraces, Rampage is an intense, claustrophobic, bewildering experience. It’s also great fun, though, and home to some of the best music that Carnival has to offer. If you want to say that you’ve been to Carnival – and really been – then you simply have to go. Just get there early, though, before the police shut it down.