Blog
Competitions, product reviews, opinions, and awards; welcome to the Festival Kidz blog!
Discarded Tents
Last year, in the pouring rain and gale force winds, I spent several hours at a festival packing discarded tents. All the camping gear (tents, chairs, sleeping bags, roll mats, and water carriers) was destined for local scout groups. It had all been abandoned. Left just as the festival punters had used it, tents up, beds made, chairs in little circles. We packed it all up and loaded up our trailers. Read more…
Post Festival Blues
Post Festival Blues… Is it just me?
It was February 2010 and we were finally fulfilling our dream of owning a VW camper. As regular festival goers, my husband and I had decided that we wanted to share our festival experiences with our children. So after spending many months researching VW’s we were finally on our way to view one. That was the day I fell in love with Dolly, we HAD to have her!
Destination Festivals – ever thought about festivaling further afield?
Since the arrival of my beautiful boy Noah in 2010, my husband and I have been keen to take him to a festival, partly because we are still festival kids at heart, but mainly because I want to introduce him to the wonderful experiences that festivaling can bring.
I have had some of the best times of my life in a muddy field with 60,000 other people (admittedly there may have been a few cheeky pints involved) and festivals have always struck me as one big playground – what kid wouldn’t enjoy being able to run around in the great outdoors with sensory, creative and musical opportunities at every turn?
Read more…Teenage Kicks
For the last 13 years or so I have been going to festivals with my family. When the boys were babies it was relatively easy to get around, see what I fancied, and have some fun.
When they were busy and approaching school age it got harder. I started to offer to help organise kid’s fields. Mainly so there was something for them to do that I knew would keep their attention for the 3 & 1/2 minutes that I wasn’t holding onto them.
The last 10 years I have persevered and stuck at it, now they are approaching teenage-hood and are well experienced travellers and festival goers! Read more…
Mummy Festival Fashion
Last year I wrote of my quest to find suitable festival fashion for pregnancy and thanks to New Look I managed to achieve this.
This year my quest is to find my Ultimate Mummy Festival Uniform.
Read more…
Rain Rain Rain
Well I was full of good intentions at the end of last year’s festival season. I would write lovely reviews, fix the tent, buy some amazing retro equipment to go with my shiny new camper van and I would have a easy to read calendar on the fridge of all our away days as a family (colour coded of course). But, alas, here I am, sitting indoors with only weeks to go before the end of term, listening to the rain and wondering what to do next. Without a camper van in sight!
Read more…
Best camping guide for families…
Cool Camping Kids
Cool Camping KidsYou may have worked out by now that I have a bit of a soft spot for CoolCamping books… and this one is no exception. I loved the first edition. I read it from cover to cover like a novel. And guess what?… when this one arrived I did exactly the same thing!!
The photography is gorgeous – it just makes me want to pack the marshmallows and head for the nearest campfire with the kids…
Read more…
Tiny Campsites
Here at Festival Kidz HQ we just lurve camping…
The freedom, the green space, the stars, the campfire…
When we go camping as a family we choose somewhere that the kids can run around, somewhere away from the crowds, and definitely somewhere as far away from places with laid-on ‘kid’s entertainers’ as we can possibly get!!! For us, camping is about embracing the great outdoors and back to basics living. It’s not about being a cheap holiday replacement so we don’t look for resort-type activities or facilities.
So when the guys and gals at Punk Publishing sent me a review copy of their latest book, the second edition of Tiny Campsites, I was delighted!
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…
Discarded Tents
Last year, in the pouring rain and gale force winds, I spent several hours at a festival packing discarded tents. All the camping gear (tents, chairs, sleeping bags, roll mats, and water carriers) was destined for local scout groups. It had all been abandoned. Left just as the festival punters had used it, tents up, beds made, chairs in little circles. We packed it all up and loaded up our trailers. Read more…
Destination Festivals – ever thought about festivaling further afield?
Since the arrival of my beautiful boy Noah in 2010, my husband and I have been keen to take him to a festival, partly because we are still festival kids at heart, but mainly because I want to introduce him to the wonderful experiences that festivaling can bring.
I have had some of the best times of my life in a muddy field with 60,000 other people (admittedly there may have been a few cheeky pints involved) and festivals have always struck me as one big playground – what kid wouldn’t enjoy being able to run around in the great outdoors with sensory, creative and musical opportunities at every turn?
Read more…Mummy Festival Fashion
Last year I wrote of my quest to find suitable festival fashion for pregnancy and thanks to New Look I managed to achieve this.
This year my quest is to find my Ultimate Mummy Festival Uniform.
Read more…
Best camping guide for families…
Cool Camping Kids
You may have worked out by now that I have a bit of a soft spot for CoolCamping books… and this one is no exception. I loved the first edition. I read it from cover to cover like a novel. And guess what?… when this one arrived I did exactly the same thing!!
The photography is gorgeous – it just makes me want to pack the marshmallows and head for the nearest campfire with the kids…
Read more…
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:
Post Festival Blues
Post Festival Blues… Is it just me?
It was February 2010 and we were finally fulfilling our dream of owning a VW camper. As regular festival goers, my husband and I had decided that we wanted to share our festival experiences with our children. So after spending many months researching VW’s we were finally on our way to view one. That was the day I fell in love with Dolly, we HAD to have her!
Teenage Kicks
For the last 13 years or so I have been going to festivals with my family. When the boys were babies it was relatively easy to get around, see what I fancied, and have some fun.
When they were busy and approaching school age it got harder. I started to offer to help organise kid’s fields. Mainly so there was something for them to do that I knew would keep their attention for the 3 & 1/2 minutes that I wasn’t holding onto them.
The last 10 years I have persevered and stuck at it, now they are approaching teenage-hood and are well experienced travellers and festival goers! Read more…
Rain Rain Rain
Well I was full of good intentions at the end of last year’s festival season. I would write lovely reviews, fix the tent, buy some amazing retro equipment to go with my shiny new camper van and I would have a easy to read calendar on the fridge of all our away days as a family (colour coded of course). But, alas, here I am, sitting indoors with only weeks to go before the end of term, listening to the rain and wondering what to do next. Without a camper van in sight!
Read more…
Tiny Campsites
Here at Festival Kidz HQ we just lurve camping…
The freedom, the green space, the stars, the campfire…
When we go camping as a family we choose somewhere that the kids can run around, somewhere away from the crowds, and definitely somewhere as far away from places with laid-on ‘kid’s entertainers’ as we can possibly get!!! For us, camping is about embracing the great outdoors and back to basics living. It’s not about being a cheap holiday replacement so we don’t look for resort-type activities or facilities.
So when the guys and gals at Punk Publishing sent me a review copy of their latest book, the second edition of Tiny Campsites, I was delighted!
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…