Wychwood
Wychwood 2014 Review
A Lovely 10th Birthday Party
Looking back through past line ups, Wychwood appears very impressive for one of the smaller festivals, and for their tenth birthday celebrations, they pulled out all the stops!
This is definitely an extremely family orientated festival, almost exclusively attended by young families. A massive focal point of the festival was The Parade, which everything stopped for on the Sunday afternoon. The huge kids’ field boasted countless opportunities among the impressive array of various craft activity stalls for making treasures to exhibit in the Sunday Parade, which was a beautiful procession of activity organisers and children – so proud of their achievements.
Read more…
Best Family Festivals 2014
Here are our top picks for 2014!
Now is a great time to start thinking about buying your festival tickets – most of the festivals offer ‘early bird’ prices, which means they are reduced if you book them early.
Whether a festival is good for you depends on what music you’re into and what other things you like doing at festivals, as well as the age of your kids. If you are new to festivals with kids, you may want to read our guide to Choosing the right Family-Friendly Festival. Read more…
Wychwood 2013 Review
After a weekend at Wychwood Festival, my son ran through the school door telling his teacher and friends all about dragons, staying up late, making friends, eating crumpets, dancing to music, seeing Mr Bloom, bubbles and bouncy castles. So if you asked him if he enjoyed it, I would say it was a big YES. But from a parent’s perspective, it wasn’t all plain sailing.
Festival Kidz Team: Our Picks 2013
Every year we face the same dilemmas – Do we go to our favourites, the ones we know and love, where the kids feel at home?
Or do we try out some new ones, potentially discover something amazing, and widen our knowledge of great festivals to recommend to all you lovely families out there?
We’re very lucky in that we get invited to far more than we can manage to attend… but the reality is that with kids (or even without kids) it’s just too tiring (and expensive!) so we’ve had to learn to pick and choose.
Here are the festivals we’ve picked this year and why Read more…
Best Festivals for Toddlers – 2013
TweetThe toddler stage is possibly the most difficult age to do festivals, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done!
For really young kids we recommend small festivals, particularly if you are not an experienced festival-goer or camper. For a successful festival experience with toddlers you need space to run around or relax, less crowds, smaller distances between campsite, arena and carpark, a good selection of child-friendly food and a willingness to take things at your toddler’s pace (see also Naomi’s Top Tips for doing Festivals with Toddlers).
After much debate, we reckon this year’s best festivals for Under 5’s are:
Wychwood 2012 Review
Wychwood: 8th to 10th June 2012
WychwoodReviewer: Romany (from Festival Kidz)
I hadn’t planned on writing a review for Wychwood, and this isn’t really going to be a full-on review as such because we went to Wychwood last weekend as traders so it’s hard to get a balanced perspective. But I was so pleasantly surprised by the festival that it I had to say something!
We traded at Wychwood in 2011 as well, and if I’m honest I wasn’t terribly impressed back then. I had spent 3 days barely leaving the confines of my dusty stall and the little piece of the festival I saw hadn’t seemed that appealing. After that experience I found it confusing that it has such a loyal fanbase and that so many parents came into the stall raving about what a great time they were having!?… So this year I decided to find out exactly why it’s so popular with families…
Top 15 Music Festivals for Under-5’s – 2012
Top Festivals for Babies and Toddlers 2012 (for 2013 – click HERE!)
For really young kids we tend to recommend smaller festivals, particularly if you are not an experienced festival-goer. Smaller festivals have the dual advantage of not being so vast that a trip back to the tent for a forgotten dummy takes half the morning, and the stage areas are usually less crowded meaning you can get closer to the bands without fearing your little one getting accidentally trampled on or lost. That said, smaller festivals often don’t have as much budget for children’s activities, so your choice will also depend a little on the level of laid-on entertainment that your family need.
It really is very hard to choose from all the festivals that take place in the UK each year. But if we have to narrow it down, our short-list of the best festivals to take your really little ones to goes a little like this:
Our pick of the Festivals 2012
Choosing from the hundreds of excellent family-friendly festivals out there is really really tough.
Many families will place a different importance to different aspects. Personally I don’t like my festivals too crowded, I like quality music but I’m not so bothered by big names, and most importantly I like a good range of workshops and street theatre to keep everyone entertained. But people always ask me which are the best festivals for kids so here is my shortlist – the ones which I think have something extra-special about them: Read more…
Kids Festival T-shirts
The coolest clothes for festival kids!
You want clothes that are unique, stand out, look cool, make a statement, and make you smile. But you also want clothes that are ethically sourced, really well made, and wash well… it’s a tall order…
but one company that we think ticks all these boxes is
Rockabye Baby
Three Special Things…
My little girl is a HUGE Mr Tumble fan. So much so that she reenacts the “spotty bag” routine and the mighty Tumble is one of the many reasons why we have chosen to attend Camp Bestival.
In preparation she has watched, many a time now, the episode where Justin goes to Wychwood festival and meets a family for some festival fun. Read more…
Wychwood 2014 Review
A Lovely 10th Birthday Party
Looking back through past line ups, Wychwood appears very impressive for one of the smaller festivals, and for their tenth birthday celebrations, they pulled out all the stops!
This is definitely an extremely family orientated festival, almost exclusively attended by young families. A massive focal point of the festival was The Parade, which everything stopped for on the Sunday afternoon. The huge kids’ field boasted countless opportunities among the impressive array of various craft activity stalls for making treasures to exhibit in the Sunday Parade, which was a beautiful procession of activity organisers and children – so proud of their achievements.
Read more…
Wychwood 2013 Review
After a weekend at Wychwood Festival, my son ran through the school door telling his teacher and friends all about dragons, staying up late, making friends, eating crumpets, dancing to music, seeing Mr Bloom, bubbles and bouncy castles. So if you asked him if he enjoyed it, I would say it was a big YES. But from a parent’s perspective, it wasn’t all plain sailing.
Best Festivals for Toddlers – 2013
The toddler stage is possibly the most difficult age to do festivals, but it doesn’t mean it can’t be done!
For really young kids we recommend small festivals, particularly if you are not an experienced festival-goer or camper. For a successful festival experience with toddlers you need space to run around or relax, less crowds, smaller distances between campsite, arena and carpark, a good selection of child-friendly food and a willingness to take things at your toddler’s pace (see also Naomi’s Top Tips for doing Festivals with Toddlers).
After much debate, we reckon this year’s best festivals for Under 5’s are:
Top 15 Music Festivals for Under-5’s – 2012
Top Festivals for Babies and Toddlers 2012 (for 2013 – click HERE!)
For really young kids we tend to recommend smaller festivals, particularly if you are not an experienced festival-goer. Smaller festivals have the dual advantage of not being so vast that a trip back to the tent for a forgotten dummy takes half the morning, and the stage areas are usually less crowded meaning you can get closer to the bands without fearing your little one getting accidentally trampled on or lost. That said, smaller festivals often don’t have as much budget for children’s activities, so your choice will also depend a little on the level of laid-on entertainment that your family need.
It really is very hard to choose from all the festivals that take place in the UK each year. But if we have to narrow it down, our short-list of the best festivals to take your really little ones to goes a little like this:
Kids Festival T-shirts
The coolest clothes for festival kids!
You want clothes that are unique, stand out, look cool, make a statement, and make you smile. But you also want clothes that are ethically sourced, really well made, and wash well… it’s a tall order…
but one company that we think ticks all these boxes is
Rockabye Baby
Best Family Festivals 2014
Here are our top picks for 2014!
Now is a great time to start thinking about buying your festival tickets – most of the festivals offer ‘early bird’ prices, which means they are reduced if you book them early.
Whether a festival is good for you depends on what music you’re into and what other things you like doing at festivals, as well as the age of your kids. If you are new to festivals with kids, you may want to read our guide to Choosing the right Family-Friendly Festival. Read more…
Festival Kidz Team: Our Picks 2013
Every year we face the same dilemmas – Do we go to our favourites, the ones we know and love, where the kids feel at home?
Or do we try out some new ones, potentially discover something amazing, and widen our knowledge of great festivals to recommend to all you lovely families out there?
We’re very lucky in that we get invited to far more than we can manage to attend… but the reality is that with kids (or even without kids) it’s just too tiring (and expensive!) so we’ve had to learn to pick and choose.
Here are the festivals we’ve picked this year and why Read more…
Wychwood 2012 Review
Wychwood: 8th to 10th June 2012
Reviewer: Romany (from Festival Kidz)
I hadn’t planned on writing a review for Wychwood, and this isn’t really going to be a full-on review as such because we went to Wychwood last weekend as traders so it’s hard to get a balanced perspective. But I was so pleasantly surprised by the festival that it I had to say something!
We traded at Wychwood in 2011 as well, and if I’m honest I wasn’t terribly impressed back then. I had spent 3 days barely leaving the confines of my dusty stall and the little piece of the festival I saw hadn’t seemed that appealing. After that experience I found it confusing that it has such a loyal fanbase and that so many parents came into the stall raving about what a great time they were having!?… So this year I decided to find out exactly why it’s so popular with families…
Our pick of the Festivals 2012
Choosing from the hundreds of excellent family-friendly festivals out there is really really tough.
Many families will place a different importance to different aspects. Personally I don’t like my festivals too crowded, I like quality music but I’m not so bothered by big names, and most importantly I like a good range of workshops and street theatre to keep everyone entertained. But people always ask me which are the best festivals for kids so here is my shortlist – the ones which I think have something extra-special about them: Read more…
Three Special Things…
My little girl is a HUGE Mr Tumble fan. So much so that she reenacts the “spotty bag” routine and the mighty Tumble is one of the many reasons why we have chosen to attend Camp Bestival.
In preparation she has watched, many a time now, the episode where Justin goes to Wychwood festival and meets a family for some festival fun. Read more…