The Best camp of them all??? 

Bestival, its mother festival, is always talked about with loads of enthusiasm in high regard. It has had some great reviews off close friends and critics as one of the festival classics. When the people involved with Bestival decided to run a spin off fancy dress orientated festival with a Hi de Hi (cheesy early 90s sitcom about holiday camp) theme, it sounded like a great really silly weekend. I like a good bout of dressing up so I was really excited about going to the event. My friend turning up with a gazebo, a fold away table and chairs and basically all camping and drinking paraphernalia known to man meant this was shaping up to be a good weekend.

Ha de fuckin Ha campers

Unfortunately, even though my friends drove past the train station as me and my favourite little Australian arrived, we managed to get our tickets, walk through the entire festival site, talk to a friendly festival goer who managed to hire a dog kennel and generally arse about for about 2 hours while my friends were spitting blood travelling at about 1mph in a 50,000 car pile up. The bus managed the trip with virtually no traffic on a different route. You have to direct a certain amount of criticism to the organisers who failed to direct cars in an even organised way.

After a night of wrestling with the gazebo in force 10 gales and making about 3 trips carrying seemingly tonnes of alcohol we were ready to go out and hit the festival. We then went out to get slightly toasted. We hit the Bollywood tent that was good fun relaxed ambient music and the come dancing tent. Everyone had a chance to spin around and dance their little hearts out. In my inebriated hazy state I did the dowsy do and had some other stupid fun. Was it worth £120? I'm not so sure, but it was bloody good fun!

Comfy crappers-not so comfortable if you have to wait for three hours!

Fantastic idea-comfortable crappers. Shit in style, a blessing in disguise for those more sofisticated festival goers, that is until you have to wait for a very long time to get anywhere near the facilities due to the inadequet numbers. It did amuse me when I saw a chap who used the world is my toilet ideology to get told off as he would have to wait. Wait for food, wait for toilet, wait for showers. I know the British are famed for enjoying queuing but this did take the mickey a little. My friend, proudly announcing she could go for a shower and they provide cups of tea while you wait, was greeted with a mass of disgruntled parents, a premium charge for cups of tea and a ticket waiting system that seemed to add another zero to the place she was waiting for!

Where is it, when is it? What's going on?

My next criticism is the lack of organisation and in accurate timing of the music acts. Bear in mind music and big acts are the main reasons why people would go and spend £120 to live in a field for a weekend. In the morning we were woke up with a friendly 'Hi de Hi campers' they even used this loud speaker to announce a line up change…….once! I even had to pay a pricey sum of £7 for my programme, not a problem as you got one of those fancy ecological bags for free. You know the ones you get from Glastonbury for free! The main trouble that the order and timing in which the bands appeared had no resemblance to the programme whatsoever! This meant that I managed to miss Beyond the Wizard's sleeve and Scoobius Pip-two djs I really wanted to see! I did manage to get to the tent for DJ Yoda but that was far too small a venue for the number that turned up! It made dancing look a bit like a strained shoulder drop coupled with spasmodic hand movements! Maybe that was an improvement? I don't know!

Just a joust or is it just soddin inappropriate

The weather was fantastic, the organisation schambolic, the music good, games childlike. The insect circus was good fun with a man dressed as a fly to great amusement of the kids (and me in my spangled state) with some spectacular movements and good engaging story lines.

With plenty of childlike themed activities such as come dancing, pretend knights jousting you'd expect the organisers to maintain this younger arts direction throughout the festival. So you can imagine my amusement when there was yet another mix up with the line up and the burlesque dancers came to the aid. This is the very same burlesque dancers who normally were quarantined inside a tent for post 9pm showings to supposedly protect the innocence of the attending kids. A spaceman comes onto the stage with a suspiciously sexy swagger for a man of space! The helmet comes off revealing a very feminine looking spaceman. She gyrates those hips using an almost hypnotic movement to then remove the spacesuit. There lo and behold revealed a saucy looking spacegirl in a thong and wearing tassels over her rude bits. This was about 4pm on the Sunday afternoon with all of the parents and their children taking in the remainder of the festival and not expecting to see half, sorry three quartered naked ladies. See the picture below with the young girl in full view of the naked lady. You can just imagine, Mummy why is that women trying to feed the entire crowd milk?

I'm not really sure where or at what age the organisers are trying to aim this festival. I think fantastic idea but too many things were money grabbing and not festival friendly. I did enjoy myself but I think it was more due to my fantastic company and a lot of beer not due to the festival. Foreign festivals are the way forward-sun, cheap beer, good tunes and friendlier people! If you're in any doubt check out my Heineken Opener blog on the other tab!