Reviews
The good bits, the bad bits; all the fun and frolics of a festival brought to you by Festival Kidz reviews… and don’t forget the mud!
Camp Bestival 2012 Review
Camp Bestival 2012 weather: Hot and dry the entire weekend.
Review by Michelle Rock-Davis (with a 2yr old and a 4yr old)
CB is in a beautiful location, held in Lulworth Castle grounds in Dorset. A big drive for us from West Yorks, but we over-nighted in The New Forest and so arrived fresh and early.
Set Up – The car parks were well organised and we were prepared with our own truck for carting the tent etc. However, we had underestimated the size of the event and over packed as usual. The trek from our car to a camping spot near some loos and showers was a long walk for little toddler legs and involved a few too many hills. Read more…
WOMAD 2012 Review
After several festivals in awful weather this year… mud, gales, rain, more mud… I wasn’t sure I could face another one. But at the last minute I had been offered a ticket to WOMAD and as it’s been on my wishlist for a few years, and I wasn’t committed to anything else, it felt too good an opportunity to miss.
My husband couldn’t get time off work, so I took the girls on my own – they’re a bit older now at 9 and 7 and very comfortable in a festival environment so I figured we’d be OK. I wouldn’t baulk at taking them to a smaller festival on my own, but I did think twice about WOMAD because 20,000 people is a sizeable crowd. But I needn’t have worried – turns out the WOMAD crowd are the most chilled, friendly and relaxed bunch of people I have ever shared a festival with! Even the security staff had time for a friendly chat and smile as you went through. Read more…
The Big Tent 2012 Review
Big Tent Festival, Falkland Estate – July 2012
Reviewed by Lorraine from Kidding Around Fife
Having never been to a festival before with our kids, I really didn’t know what to expect as we headed off toward Falkland Estate to what our kids have been so excited in attending.
Summer Breeze 2012 Review
Summer Breeze Festival 2012:
Review by Naomi Jones
Having won a family ticket we were very excited about the prospect of our toddlers’ first festival. After a week of heavy rain however, we spent much time debating how we would cope with the camping, so eventually settled on going there just for the day. The Sunday forecast was dry with sunny intervals – so that seemed perfect. Sadly it did mean missing KT Tunstall as she had been headlining on Saturday, the previous night, but the risk of camping in poor weather conditions with 3 little ones seemed too daunting.
The first great thing about Summer Breeze was its location. It was only an hour’s drive from London on the M4 in beautiful green rolling hills. This also meant that setting off on a Sunday morning the traffic wasn’t too bad and we were there for lunch.
Driving through the incredibly pretty English countryside we started to get worried – how could there be a festival here? Where are the crowds? Where’s the traffic? We started to realise that this was a small festival… No – this was in fact a *tiny* festival!… Read more…
Larmer Tree 2012 Review
Hello, my name is Emma, and I lost my festival virginity at Larmer Tree 2012!
Yes – it is a little bit like the first person I slept with – but I don’t think I am EVER going to forget LT 2012… mainly because there was just an unbelievable amount of mud! It shows how middle class things have become in my house when my daughter Scarlet jumped out the car and said “Mummy it’s just like your Parsnip Soup!” She was dead right – a blended pulp of brownness.
Camper Jam 2012 Review
Camper Jam 2012 weather: More sun than rain, some even got sunburn!
Review by Cerid (with 3 kids, aged 15mths, 8 and 11)
Getting there and arriving:
The ground was very soft from too much rain previously, but they worked well with what they had. They only had 1 tractor though, and it was kept extremely busy I might add, towing people out that had got stuck in the mud.
We did have to queue on quite a dangerous road until the park owners eventually let us queue on the grounds of the beautiful 1000 acre woodland park- Weston Park. We were sent round the houses, in terms of where to park and in the end we just parked where we could, and where the tractor towed us to, after being the millionth person to get stuck in the mud!!
Blissfields 2012 Parent Review
2012 Blissfields Weather: Beautiful, sunny, warm. We were VERY lucky.
Review by Sarah Ffelan (Twitter, Facebook, iTunes)
I was performing my lullabies in Angel Gardens but it was also our first festival as a family with our 3 young children, 6, nearly 4 & 21mths
Getting to the festival:
As we were part of the Angel Gardens Crew, we camped in their designated area but the family camping area for visitors was cleverly and thoughtfully positioned to the back of the main stage and much quieter (don’t get me wrong there is still music!) and near the main entrance so I expect not too far to transport stuff. Plus you could hire some rather marvellous canvas wheel barrows to move your gear about – genius idea!
Nibley 2012 Review
North Nibley Music Festival 2012
As with most festivals that have taken place so far in 2012, the weather has been a major pain in the neck (that’s putting it politely!)
Our usual journey to North Nibley takes 4-5 hours… but not this time! We left home at 12.30 Friday and from the time we set off it did not stop raining. I can’t recall being able to turn off the wipers for the whole journey which due to the weather and traffic conditions took 6 and a 1/2 hours 🙁
Dinefwr Literature Festival 2012 Review
Dinefwr Literature Festival 2012
Gwyl Lenyddiaeth Dinefwr 2012
The brand new Literature Festival for Wales kicked off over the last weekend in June in the historic National Trust Dinefwr Park. This impressive site boasts a castle, rolling landscapes akin to Capability Brown’s work and the impressive Newton House. The jointly run venture boasts Literature Wales, The Coracle Project, The National Trust and many other partners as its organising team and they all did a wonderful job for a first time event.
Cornbury 2012 Review
Cornbury Festival 2012
by Karon and her 2 boys, aged 5 and 10
Friday – Day One
Our much anticipated fun weekend at the fabulous Cornbury Festival began on Friday afternoon as we headed towards the beautiful countryside of Great Tew, Oxfordshire. The sky was full of grey rain clouds but our mood was light as our destination was reached without any traffic problems at all, parking was well organised and lucky us, the sun broke through as we excitedly took the short haul from car to box office to collect our media passes and camping tickets courtesy of Festival Kidz!!
Camp Bestival 2012 Review
Camp Bestival 2012 weather: Hot and dry the entire weekend.
Review by Michelle Rock-Davis (with a 2yr old and a 4yr old)
CB is in a beautiful location, held in Lulworth Castle grounds in Dorset. A big drive for us from West Yorks, but we over-nighted in The New Forest and so arrived fresh and early.
Set Up – The car parks were well organised and we were prepared with our own truck for carting the tent etc. However, we had underestimated the size of the event and over packed as usual. The trek from our car to a camping spot near some loos and showers was a long walk for little toddler legs and involved a few too many hills. Read more…
The Big Tent 2012 Review
Big Tent Festival, Falkland Estate – July 2012
Reviewed by Lorraine from Kidding Around Fife
Having never been to a festival before with our kids, I really didn’t know what to expect as we headed off toward Falkland Estate to what our kids have been so excited in attending.
Larmer Tree 2012 Review
Hello, my name is Emma, and I lost my festival virginity at Larmer Tree 2012!
Yes – it is a little bit like the first person I slept with – but I don’t think I am EVER going to forget LT 2012… mainly because there was just an unbelievable amount of mud! It shows how middle class things have become in my house when my daughter Scarlet jumped out the car and said “Mummy it’s just like your Parsnip Soup!” She was dead right – a blended pulp of brownness.
Blissfields 2012 Parent Review
2012 Blissfields Weather: Beautiful, sunny, warm. We were VERY lucky.
Review by Sarah Ffelan (Twitter, Facebook, iTunes)
I was performing my lullabies in Angel Gardens but it was also our first festival as a family with our 3 young children, 6, nearly 4 & 21mths
Getting to the festival:
As we were part of the Angel Gardens Crew, we camped in their designated area but the family camping area for visitors was cleverly and thoughtfully positioned to the back of the main stage and much quieter (don’t get me wrong there is still music!) and near the main entrance so I expect not too far to transport stuff. Plus you could hire some rather marvellous canvas wheel barrows to move your gear about – genius idea!
Dinefwr Literature Festival 2012 Review
Dinefwr Literature Festival 2012
Gwyl Lenyddiaeth Dinefwr 2012
The brand new Literature Festival for Wales kicked off over the last weekend in June in the historic National Trust Dinefwr Park. This impressive site boasts a castle, rolling landscapes akin to Capability Brown’s work and the impressive Newton House. The jointly run venture boasts Literature Wales, The Coracle Project, The National Trust and many other partners as its organising team and they all did a wonderful job for a first time event.
WOMAD 2012 Review
After several festivals in awful weather this year… mud, gales, rain, more mud… I wasn’t sure I could face another one. But at the last minute I had been offered a ticket to WOMAD and as it’s been on my wishlist for a few years, and I wasn’t committed to anything else, it felt too good an opportunity to miss.
My husband couldn’t get time off work, so I took the girls on my own – they’re a bit older now at 9 and 7 and very comfortable in a festival environment so I figured we’d be OK. I wouldn’t baulk at taking them to a smaller festival on my own, but I did think twice about WOMAD because 20,000 people is a sizeable crowd. But I needn’t have worried – turns out the WOMAD crowd are the most chilled, friendly and relaxed bunch of people I have ever shared a festival with! Even the security staff had time for a friendly chat and smile as you went through. Read more…
Summer Breeze 2012 Review
Summer Breeze Festival 2012:
Review by Naomi Jones
Having won a family ticket we were very excited about the prospect of our toddlers’ first festival. After a week of heavy rain however, we spent much time debating how we would cope with the camping, so eventually settled on going there just for the day. The Sunday forecast was dry with sunny intervals – so that seemed perfect. Sadly it did mean missing KT Tunstall as she had been headlining on Saturday, the previous night, but the risk of camping in poor weather conditions with 3 little ones seemed too daunting.
The first great thing about Summer Breeze was its location. It was only an hour’s drive from London on the M4 in beautiful green rolling hills. This also meant that setting off on a Sunday morning the traffic wasn’t too bad and we were there for lunch.
Driving through the incredibly pretty English countryside we started to get worried – how could there be a festival here? Where are the crowds? Where’s the traffic? We started to realise that this was a small festival… No – this was in fact a *tiny* festival!… Read more…
Camper Jam 2012 Review
Camper Jam 2012 weather: More sun than rain, some even got sunburn!
Review by Cerid (with 3 kids, aged 15mths, 8 and 11)
Getting there and arriving:
The ground was very soft from too much rain previously, but they worked well with what they had. They only had 1 tractor though, and it was kept extremely busy I might add, towing people out that had got stuck in the mud.
We did have to queue on quite a dangerous road until the park owners eventually let us queue on the grounds of the beautiful 1000 acre woodland park- Weston Park. We were sent round the houses, in terms of where to park and in the end we just parked where we could, and where the tractor towed us to, after being the millionth person to get stuck in the mud!!
Nibley 2012 Review
North Nibley Music Festival 2012
As with most festivals that have taken place so far in 2012, the weather has been a major pain in the neck (that’s putting it politely!)
Our usual journey to North Nibley takes 4-5 hours… but not this time! We left home at 12.30 Friday and from the time we set off it did not stop raining. I can’t recall being able to turn off the wipers for the whole journey which due to the weather and traffic conditions took 6 and a 1/2 hours 🙁
Cornbury 2012 Review
Cornbury Festival 2012
by Karon and her 2 boys, aged 5 and 10
Friday – Day One
Our much anticipated fun weekend at the fabulous Cornbury Festival began on Friday afternoon as we headed towards the beautiful countryside of Great Tew, Oxfordshire. The sky was full of grey rain clouds but our mood was light as our destination was reached without any traffic problems at all, parking was well organised and lucky us, the sun broke through as we excitedly took the short haul from car to box office to collect our media passes and camping tickets courtesy of Festival Kidz!!