AD – My tickets to Latitude Festival were gifted in return for blog and social media coverage.

40,000 people flocked onto Suffolk's vast Henham Park for the 14th year of Latitude Festival this July. Known for being one of the UK's most varied and immersive festival experiences, as well as the UK Festival Award winner for Best Family Festival. Between 16-19 July the buzzing atmosphere echoes from the moment you arrive at the festival gates and you can enjoy everything Latitude has to offer from it's line up of music and performing arts. 

Latitude is popular with families and has a laid back vibe to it. Year after year the line up spans music, comedy, poetry, theatre, politics, film and workshops across the weekend. 2019's line up was just as thrilling as previous years with headline sets from George Ezra, Stereophonics and Lana Del Rey. Whilst over in the comedy arena the likes of Russell Kane, Katherine Ryan and Jason Manford and theatre productions take place on the Waterfront Stage from such incredible companies such as Sadler's Wells. 

Over the weekend you can take a wander around the site, stumbling across woodland film screenings, live art and the sanctuary of wellbeing, where you can relax amongst ambient soundscapes or get involved with a yoga class. 

We arrived on the Friday afternoon and quickly set up our tent in the Guest Area. Our campsite was spacious and came equipped with toilet & shower facilities as well as a small stand for coffee and breakfast too! We managed to position ourselves in a better location than we had on our last trip and got decent sleep over the weekend too. 

FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS

We began our Latitude experience by heading over to the BBC Sounds Stage. The tent which has become iconic for its red and blue stripey tent high on top of the hill overlooking the beautiful grounds of Henham Park. This stage enables you to enjoy the very best in up and coming artists, DJs and astounding solo singer songwriters, indie icons and even legendary big name acts. 

Photo Credit: Matt Eachus

First on our visit was to list to Freya Ridings. It was a special day for Freya as it was the day that her debut album was released (and I haven't stopped listening to it since seeing her live!) She launched into a fantastic set of well-known and brand new tracks, her voice is astounding and I loved her performance so much. Her forceful voice is given the maximum opportunity to capture the audience only backed up by a cello and a drumbox - highly effective.

Photo Credit: Teodora Andrisan

Photo Credit: Kyle

One of our definite highlights on Friday, if not the entire festival weekend was Amusical. Jayde Adams and Kiri Pritchard-McClean love their musicals and can definitely belt out a show tune too! This duo invite comedians onto the stage - and who are lovers of musicals too to have their moment to become a star! With the help of a live band, headed by Dave Cribb the thunderous vocals make for a cracking night for musical lovers like myself.

We were in for an absolute treat with Maisie Adam singing Grease's 'You're the One that I Want' as both Sandy and Danny whilst Sindu Vhee sings another Grease classic 'Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee'. The evening doesn't lose it's element of comedy and was honestly one of the funniest nights of the year for me.

They've also recently released a podcast! Go and listen to it here.

AD – My tickets to Timber Festival were gifted in return for blog and social media coverage.

Back again this summer for the second time was Timber Festival; an extraordinary 3-day camping festival that explores the transformative impact of forests on our everyday lives with the help of music, art and performance. I attended the music last summer (read here) and thought it was fantastic - so of course I had to attend this year, especially as it won an award at the UK Festival Awards 2018 for Best New Festival. This time round we were able to pitch up for the night and enjoy everything Timber had to offer after the sun had set too! 

We arrived at the location for Timber Festival, a place called Feanedock which is a 70 acre woodland site on the Leicestershire/Derbyshire border. It's part of the forest in the making at the heart of the National Forest,near Ashby de la Zouch. If you're local to the Midlands then this festival is in perfect location for you to get to. Getting parked up and finding our pitch for the evening on the campsite was really easy to access and the area itself came with fantastic wash facilities and lots of space. 

Timber Festival has been created by the National Forest and award-winning producers of Just So Festival, Wild Rumpus. What makes this festival stand apart from others within the festival circuit is that it offers more than just live music, but a purpose all of us can get involved with. 

From the get go the site was laid back and friendly but incredibly professional. We loved being able to mooch around the site at our own pace and enjoy the width of variety it has in entertainment for you to enjoy. This year we certainly got time to enjoy so much more because we invested in the programme and ensured we had more of a "itinerary" for our time at the festival. Although it was great to stumble upon on some other great stuff too! 

Timber offers the tranquility and peace from your surroundings as well as 9 different areas for you to explore at your own pace. The array of activities available offer something for everyone to enjoy and to try something new with your family too. The atmosphere surrounding the festival was fantastic, the rain didn't dampen any spirits and it was great to see so many children get involved in all of the activities too. After all, Timber isn't just for adults. 

This isn't a festival of big names in the music industry but quite frankly we know this festival is about more than that! The festival also takes in consideration accessibility and have enabled their programme to provide specific access needs; these include a place to be calm, sensory based, participation and family focused. Timber has really thought about every detail in the people that will attend their festival and their team are a fantastic part of your experience too - always on hand to ensure you have the best time possible! 

If you do enjoy coming to festivals for the music - the Eyrie Stage is a brilliant wood structure in the heart of the forest space.  

We explored the Field Notes where we could enjoy music, stories, lessons and lectures from the heart of the forest. We particularly enjoyed Simon Watts Frogs and Friends, a comedic lecture that explored why frogs are better than most people Simon knows and how studying them has changed the world! It was a really laugh out loud lecture that I really enjoyed listening too! The picture references were excellently timed as well!

We saw that loads of families flocked to the Beginner's Luck area where you could try your hand at some of your favorites games, human sized. Brought to life by the Wild Rumpus artistic team, there were games like Ludo, Guess Who and Scrabble to enjoy! I thought that these were a great addition to the more open area of the festival, Halcyon Days. 

Within Halcyon Days there was every reason to dance, play and compete. You could enjoy performances from Handmade Theatre with Are We Nearly There Yet? and learn all the skills you need to be in the circus thanks to Circus Hub Nottingham. There was also an opportunity to get involved in a Dance Workshop and Maypole Dancing too! I also enjoyed having my hair dressed with flowers thanks to the girls at the Hair in a Handcart. I definitely felt more involved with the festival\s vibe after that. 

We took advantage of the delicious selection of street food Timber had to offer too. They had a lot of variety on offer including vegetarian, vegan and gluten free options as well as something for those who enjoy meat. I loved trying Tibetan food and enjoying it! I obviously treated myself to an ice cream afterwards too! 

The Timber Festival continues to flourish in the evening and this year was no different. We began our evening in The Canopy for the performance of The Baron in the Trees. Performed by Lost in Translation Circus, they tell a playful, romantic fable through high flying aerial stunts and amazing acrobatics. There's also some knockabout slapstick and juggling too. The area was heaving with people who wanted to see this company soar through the trees and it was undoubtedly one of my favourite acts of the musical overall. 

 

I absolutely loved our time at the festival and enjoying everything that Timber had to offer. There was more than enough on offer for everyone to enjoy and I will be definitely making the visit again for the third year in a row next summer!

The festival has loads of live music, dance events and workshops for you to get stuck into. One moment we were in the calm of morning Tai Chi and then suddenly we were in a tent where everyone was collectively drumming together. It really is a festival experience like no other. There weren't specific "big acts" that I knew of but I was open to the idea of seeing something new. There were huge crowds surrounding the 5/6 different stages that WOMAD managed to have within their festival arena. We particularly loved listening to Austin, Texas band, Whiskey Sours (pictured above) who really got the audience dancing along to their music. It was really the kind of music you wanted to listen to whilst sitting and sipping on some British cider. 

We also loved listening to Funke & The Two Tone Baby over at Molly's Bar. We have since downloaded his albums for the car since hearing him at WOMAD (he was fantastic!) and didn't distract us from the pouring rain that intruded our festival experience. 

WOMAD doesn't forget it's younger audiences and definitely has plenty on offer in the World of Children area. We discovered it whilst walking around the entire arena and couldn't believe the vast variety of workshops and activities they had for children throughout the festival. 

The atmosphere at the festival felt incredibly calm and relaxed, you could tell people really enjoyed being able to have some great food and soak up such a wonderful festival. It was vibrant too! I loved checking out this wonderful installation (pictured above) at WOMAD. Ride Social was brought to the festival from Brazilian art collective, OPAVIVARA! and it proved a hit with it not being unoccupied whenever I walked past them. Ride Social is a space for contemplation, experimentation and coexistence. It's a multi-part hammock, a tangible 'social network' that invites cooperation and negotiation of its participants as people are thrown together as part of a temporary collective. It looked like great fun to get stuck into! 

The only thing which let down our experience was that the heavens opened on Saturday evening and we didn't pack enough waterproofs in order to be able to enjoy the festival and the weather too. However, it didn't dampen the experience we did have and we thoroughly enjoyed being invited to experience something new. I'd definitely recommend that you check WOMAD out for 2019!

If you'd like to find out more information you can head over to the WOMAD Festival website to find out more. 

If you enjoyed reading this post then you may also enjoy reading about my experience Glamping with Podpads at WOMAD Festival or heading to Timber Festival earlier in 2018.