Hotel Camp Bestival ..
On Friday the 27th July we headed down to Dorset for Camp Bestival. Bestival has been on our long list of “MUST DO” festivals. We figured that Camp Bestival would be a good starting point, being the UK’s most well known family festival. Although its been in our diary for a while we only booked tickets 2 weeks before. We decided that we would head down on the Friday and stay in a nearby hotel rather than camp. The Springfield Country Hotel was booked for 2 nights, which seemed to be a hit with other Camp Bestival goers. We even mingled with some roadies and bands over the corn flakes at breakfast.
The plan? head down Friday after work. Saturday – Camp Bestival. Sunday explore the Jurassic Coast and get a glimpse of the famous Durdle Door. Unfortunately the British weather had other plans for us.
Here’s what went down in 12 hours at Camp Bestival. With a very headstrong, nap fighting, I want to walk everywhere 1 year old.
Emerson leading the way
11:00am:
Not a bad effort as far as arrival times go. But this was proceeded by 2 hours of poorly co-ordinated nappy changes, costume dramas and covering the floor of our room in glitter. We packed the essentials, and made sure to include plenty of “food bribes” for Em. It took 25 minutes to get to the site, which isn’t very long but always long enough for Emerson to have a danger nap.
With nothing more than a slow-moving line of traffic we rolled from the entrance to our parking space in 5 minutes. A win for us, but not so great for Emerson. He wasnt best pleased that we woke him up from his nap, to traipse across a field. I can’t speak for the people who turned up on Friday but again the bag check was quick. Within minutes we were exchanging our tickets for day wristbands. Both gate staff, and security were welcoming and helpful. Which is what you want!
Extremely proud parents moment number 1: Emerson getting his first proper festival wrist band put on by a steward.
12:00pm:
We’re Camp Bestival virgins, so, instead of going in dry we had a quick feel around the down scaled version of the Bestival site. As we worked our way around the main stages in a giant loop we saw swarms of parents chasing their kids to make it over to the Castle Stage in time for the infamous “Mr Tumble”. The Castle Stage is the festivals main stage. The iconic 17th century Lulworth Castle towered over the eager crowd, and made a great backdrop. Of course this was a perfect excuse for Keeley to take a billion “artistically” aimed photos. All of which would be deleted the very next day.
1:00pm:
Skimming past the spoken word and comedy stages we ended up in the aptly named Lower Kids Garden. Effectively a field that is a giant kids playground. There was a helter skelter, an insect circus and mini compost toilets that were actually kind of cute. I never thought that I would ever describe compost toilets as cute, but here we are!
Emerson, being his usual itinerary defiant self decided a game of peek-a-boo behind candy cain coloured poles was enough to satisfy his entertainment needs. The midday sun was hot, but chasing him back and forth between two poles was proud parents moment number 2. In a heartbeat peak-a-boo was over and it was on to the two giant pirate ship themed sand pits for more fun.
Pirate Ship Sand pit Fun
In between digging and building castles Em managed to eat his own body weight in sand. We also managed to get sand in places we didn’t even know existed thanks to some unsupervised kids on a rampage, with a spade.
Setting off back towards the castle stage to catch another kids favourite Dick and Dom, we came across Lulworth courtyard. We entered through one of the arches to find two groups of Morris dancers in full swing, whilst parents gathered around the cocktail trolleys. To say there was a look of confusion on Emerson’s face would be an understatement, and who can blame him. Seeing a bunch of people dancing round in ribboned costumes while banging sticks must be a total mind f***k when your only 14 months old.
To add to this mind boggling experience, in one of the rooms adjacent to the courtyard there was a wedding party. You can actually get married at Camp Bestival?!?! Now why did no one tell us that, 8 years ago.
In Coffee we Trust
Coffee is the only thing keeping us alive these days so imagine our joy when we found the Jimmy’s iced coffee truck. Where in addition to the amazing iced coffee that we are addicted to, they were dishing out white russians. This was to be our first of 3 iced coffees throughout the day. If it wasn’t for all of those coffee’s it would have been game over for us very quickly!
Attempting to get a picture in front of the “I heart Camp Bestival” sign is somewhat of a challenge. There are kids (Emerson included) crawling all over it and the typically British “queue for a photo” system doesn’t exist. Disappointed with our earlier failed attempt we had another go at trying to grab one of those iconic festival images. In the end we had to settle for a photo that looks ok at first glance but if you look a little closer you may spot a few uninvited faces (and/or limbs).
2:00pm:
Sometimes it’s the surreal moments that make your day and we were just about to encounter one of those moments. From behind the sign the 20 strong Oxford based marching band Horns of Plenty appeared and surrounded the three of us. Happily playing their brass instruments, our only option was to stand in the middle smiling at them, whilst I got as many pictures as possible. The look on Emerson’s face was a bit like someone had just handed him dog poo. But that’s nothing personal he looks like that even when he’s really enjoying something. I think eventually he cracked a little smile. What can I say that kid can be a real tuff cookie at times but when he’s in a good mood he will grin harder than the Cheshire Cat.
Walking a little further to the right we came across the HMS Camp Bestival stage where hordes of costume wearing family’s were starting to gather. All of them inevitably keen to scoop first prize (a 2019 family ticket) in the sea themed fancy dress competition, and pimp my trolley competition judged by the …… of radio Sarah cox. I took this opportunity to take Em over to the Actual Reality Arcade, where the most famous arcade games of all time had been converted in to real life activities. I’ve never been ashamed of my inner geek, so actually being inside a life size donkey Kong was mind blowing.
3:00pm:
We barley had time to glance at the other games before Mother Nature decided it was time to unleash
some apocalyptic style wind and rain on everyone. We made a Usain bolt style sprint back to the Big Top in search of refuge. Now Press Play were entertaining the kids with their immersive audio experience that took the children to a trip to the moon.
By now Emerson had decided it was time for his first power nap. At last!! As much as we love Emerson, when he hasn’t slept properly for 8 hours he can start to act like a real jerk. I should add here that we came highly unprepared for such adverse weather conditions. Completely blinded by the 16 weeks of sunshine we had just experienced we failed to check our weather app. With no coats and our jumpers being used as Em’s makeshift duvet all we could do was huddle for warmth.
Fish and Chips Always Goes Down a Treat
The rain slowed just enough for me to run and grab some fish and chips. We barely had time to get a few chips down our necks before Em had smelt the food and was back on his feet. His awaking suspiciously coincided with the start of Max and Harvey’s set which consisted of rnb infused pop numbers. Our boys continuous head bopping throughout confirmed he’s a fan of the duo so we stuck around until they were done. At this point the sun had put his hat on and was back out to play so we hot footed it back to the Bollywood stage for Basement Jaxx.
6.00pm.
Now on our second loop of the festival we decided this time round to check out the spoken word tent. We couldn’t have possibly timed it any better because the legend that is Mark Grist was starting his poetry king act. His teacher vs student rap battle is one of our all time favourites so we we’re a little bit hyped to see him. Marks sharp as a razor and his punchline heavy poetry had us in stitches at some points. That is the perfect example of act who has been booked for his appeal to adults as much as kids .
7.00pm:
We felt brave enough to let Emerson play in the soft play. A decision we’d come to regret. It was a scene of absolute carnage and somehow Emerson harnessed the energy of the dark lord himself. As he tore through the soft play like a commando on speed there was no time to rest. Parenting fail number one goes to me here for taking my eye off our son for about 10 seconds. In that short time he managed to flatten some poor kid in the ball pond. Even though this was clearly a failed “hugging” attempt by Emerson it all got a little bit awkward quite quickly. There was a small sense of edgy-ness amongst the other parents in the room so we kept smiling.
But trying to look like we have some sort of control over our very grabby very shouty child wasn’t easy. In the end I had to resort to desperate measures by becoming that ultimate “goofball” Dad that everyone hates! It worked. There was still an air of concern among the parents but at least it was because some wierd guy (me) had suddenly become court Jesta and not because Emerson was channelling the Incredible Hulk on amphetamine. Anyway we’d overstayed our welcome so it was time to extract our rampaging child from this soft play nightmare.
8.00pm.
I said we came underprepared but that was an understatement. As the the sun started to set it’s safe to say it got a bit nippy. The only option was to buy some oversized and overpriced Merch in the form of a hoodie and blanket. We were thankful for these as the night went on as that coastal wind can really muster up some strength. As we walked from the main stage we came across the punk rock scientists who specialise in science parody’s. Half life deserves a special mention for their Cleverly remixed lyrics. Maybe I’m getting old but I thought they were really good, ok I’m definitely getting old but they were still very entertaining.
The fact they gave everyone in the crowd kazoos so they could play along made them legends in my eyes. Unfortunately there was a downside to this and the sound of a dozen kazoos playing “the final countdown” was looping thru my head for weeks after.
9.00pm:
The punk rock scientists must have been good because after their set Emerson started to fall asleep again. We headed back to the big top whipped out our blanket and had a little chill as the sun began to set. Earlier in the day I saw a food vendor selling all manor of different crumbles so we headed over there.
Emerson woke up as soon as he smelt crumble so there’s was no keeping it to ourselves. Emerson was a bit hypnotised by the singers soothing tones in the Big Top Tent. It was either that or the firm blonde rockstar quiff……. or the 80’s ripped jeans. I took the opportunity to take him right up front so he could fully see a band in action on stage. It’s always hard to gauge Lil Em’s mood but even with his stone cold Slavic “not bothered” face we could tell he was feeling Alex’s tunes. More head bopping from him followed.
10.00pm:
With the coffee finally wearing off and the crumble kicking in we got our second wind. We strolled back to Bollywood where the Big Fish little fish Dj’s were still flinging down some riddems. The legendary Fat controller dropped a lot of old skool hardcore and dance classics. It was nice to just get stuck in a groove for a while.
My moves ain’t what they used to be and generally bop gently from side to side these days. As we danced with Keeley carrying em in the 360 the little dude started to fall asleep again. This time he was out for the night. Slippmatt took to the decks with Billy Bunter as his host and we kept on raving as the crowd started to thin out. For a moment it was just like the old days, when me and Kee were always the last two standing. We’ve been doing this from the moment we met and you know what they say, “the couple that raves together……..”
11.00pm:
We decided to throw in the towel. Early by anyone’s standards but this was our first big uk festi with a toddling child. We got some last nighttime shots and walked back to the car park. But not before a lip smacking hot chocolate and croissant from a little stall by the campsite. Emerson was finished! His first big UK festival had taken it out of him. But the cheeky chap did well. We’re not gonna lie it was hard work but Em didn’t kick up too much of a fuss and that made it easier on both of us All In all
It was a great experience and I can’t wait to do it again next year, albeit a little older and a little wiser. It was tuff to stay in one place for very long cause Emerson is at an age where he’s always on the go, always! But all that means is you have to be a bit more active yourself. It’s nice for a child of any age to experience and even though it’s far from grass roots I think it does a great deal to teach, freedom, equality and acceptance. (As well as just having a mutha f-ing good time) These are all things that the children of today need to be fluent in.
Pete. x
Castle Stage Selfie
This sounds so much fun!!!
This is so cute! I love festivals and would so do this with my kids!!
Thank you!! Emerson is definitely clocking the festivals up. We took him to Coachella this year ! We think it’s such a great experience for him ✌? thanks for reading !
It looked so fun!!
Aw this looks like a blast! I love how you included the insta posts! Thats so clever! Your boy is amazingly adorable <3 Im here in the US and I've gone to SO many festys here. I can't wait until my little is "old enough" but really, its me that isnt ready to get back into the scene. Much love
Thank you ! Festivals are so much fun with kids a little harder but totally dooable although my stamina has definitely wained. We did take Em to Coachella this year that was an experience- ?