The Big Feastival is a family festival which takes place on the August Bank Holiday weekend at Alex James farm, in Kingham which is a village just past Stow on Wold. We were lucky enough to attend last year for a day and it was glorious. The sun shone, the music was pumping and Erin and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As we left we vowed we would be back and we said we would camp. So we did!
That nearly unravelled this year though because we went to Camp Bestival and pretty much got washed away! It put Erin off camping but this made me more determined to get her back in a tent. As it was just the two of us we bought a bargain two person tent that I knew I could put up by myself. So we packed up the car and headed off on the 50 minute journey.
We were quickly set up and having a small tent made it really easy to find a space. What I did like is that there are scouts around to put up your tent for you for a donation. I loved this idea and would happily use them if I had taken a bigger tent. There was also the Dorset Cereal team standing by with trollies and helping families get their kit to a suitable spot. This is a great idea and certainly makes setting up with a family easier. This demonstrates why it is such a good family festival.
Next to the breakfast tent was the When Nature Calls luxury toilets which you can buy a band to use all weekend. These are fully functioning flushable toilets that are cleaned between every use. They also have a hair station complete with hair dryers and GHDs. Now that is priceless at a festival! Especially a family festival where you want the finer things! Erin and I both had access to these toilets and it made the experience so much nicer. There were no queues (apart from first thing in the morning) and even then the queue moved very quickly as there were plenty of toilets. Each toilet has its own sink giving that much-needed privacy. I wouldn’t ever do a festival without luxury toilets and when you’ve bought tickets and everything else it is these finer details that absolutely finishes off the experience.
Once up we headed into the arena for a wander. Once again we loved the layout and were soon sampling yummy foods and finding things we wanted to do and watch over the weekend. Erin snacked on broccolii, icecreams, paleo bars and vegan nuggets which were all available for sampling. A foodie festival is great for grazing and you need never go hungry! Again perfect for little people!
Nashwhite had offered to sort out our hair for the weekend with some cool festival braids. They took just twenty minutes to transform us from dull to cool. Erin had french braids and was glittered up. The braids lasted all weekend plus some more and it meant there was no faffing with hair in the morning. I had mine put into a dutch braid which I loved. It managed to stay in all weekend and I wish I had the lovely team on hand to do my hair everyday!
Erin and I met up with Colette and Dave briefly in the evening before dancing the night away. We really enjoyed Becky Hill and Professor Green who was brilliant although very sweary! I kept covering Erin’s ears!!
Erin then wanted to go to sleep so we headed back and I listened to Basement Jaxx from the tent whilst Erin slept through the set!! We awoke about 8 in the morning and headed to the Dorset tent where they put on an amazing breakfast spread for any campers.
We then met up with our friends Karen and Rich from Stopping at Two and their gorgeous girls who Erin loved spending the day with. Together they ran, played, sampled some more, drove dodgems and climbed haybales. One of their highlights was maypole dancing and they spent a good twenty minutes dancing around the pole with others and learning some traditional dances. Then it started to rain a little and we took rufge in the BBC Music tent and heard so new bands who were incredible. I took the opportunity then to pack away the tent as the forecast for Sunday was not so good. At 8 years old two long days and night camping convinced Erin that camping is great and I didn’t want to spoil that! We stayed until late into the evening as we wanted to listen to Clean Bandit who we both adore.
Then we left the Big Feastival on a high, singing as we walked to the car and vowing that next year we will be back to the family festival that we love so much.
Disclosure: We paid a donation to attend the Big Feastival family festival as bloggers and write about our experience.
