Camp Bestival 2018 – Ashleigh Shea Photography

Happy Summer everyone! This year we decided to venture out and take the girls to their first festival. We went with Camp Bestival on recommendation from friends that have been a few times previously. Firstly take the advice from those in the Facebook group you get added to that tell you to do a test run of packing up the car because on the morning of its eventful to say the least ;) lol!

We travelled down to Dorset the day before the festival started, as many do. This meant that we were all set up and could enter the arena on Friday morning without any rushing about. The first night they put on some entertainment but as there was 16 of us in attendance we all just hung out by our tents and had a BBQ. The kids loved it because they could all just run around, in the teenager's case sit and chill.

Friday morning came with some sunshine and a bit of wind. It was a great day and we spent the majority of it familiarising ourselves with the Camp Bestival arena. On reflection we should have chosen a spot to plot up for the day. Then explored as we felt like it, as the kids got rather bored of walking around and not really doing much. Friday wasn't the best line up on the stages for the kids, the kids between us ranged from 1 -13 years. If you're going to a festival and your kids like current artists/you tubers be sure to check the line up prior to booking. As if they are like ours they will either moan a bit or want to go on all the things that cost money!

The best find on Friday was the Pirate Ship Sandpit & the Science tent. Our younger kids loved the sand pit and spent a good hour if not more in there. The older boys headed over to the science tent and made some boom cups... I think! I didn't go in with them but they liked what they made. They had an uphill bicycle challenge that they took part in too, so if you have boys aged from 6 - 12 the science tent is a must.

For Freya the best part was the LOL doll tent, to say she was in her glory is an understatement! Upon entering they showed you to a table that had colouring in pages and a list for you to find out what your LOL Doll name was. Freya's was Unicorn Bee & when playing later with the girls they were all using their names from the tent.

They had a ball pit where they had to get in and find the golden ball to win a prize. They all got the same prize which was a magazine but she was so proud of herself for winning that I don't think she really noticed others had won the same! The girls moved over to the catwalk next where they had them strut their stuff & strike a pose for the photo booth. They then printed the images and gave them each one, the guys were great as they also let the girls take a picture altogether and gave them a print each which went down so well. Freya still says the LOL Doll tent was her favourite part. You could also have your hair styled and glitter make up applied but the queue for that was big so the girls gave it a miss.

There are ample tents offering free glitter make up or face paint so there's no need to worry about taking your own. Each vendor that offered it were happy to do adults too, at some you had to queue for a while but others, like the one we stumbled across, you were seen straight away as not many knew about it.

All three girls had their glitter done at the mermaid glitter bar, run by Girl Talk Magazine. The artist was fab & done mine too ;) Can't not have a bit of glitter! They had the best deal on things to purchase too, it was a goody bag for £5 which came with two magazines, a brush, perfume, face gems, bath sponge, keyring & much more. That was the most worth while £5 we spent I think.

Saturday was a much better day for all the kids, the girls got to see the YouTube sensation, so they tell me, that is HRVY. They all loved him, it would have been nice for him to do a meet and greet too like the duo that are Max and Harvey. These boys are also YouTube sensations but they were in my opinion far better as they made that bit more effort to meet their fans. Which goes a long way in the eyes of teenage girls! Needless to say meeting them was one of the highlights of Leah's time at the festival.

As we knew our way round a bit more Saturday we spent some time playing giant Jenga, giant snakes and ladders and the kids joined in with the skipping that randomly appeared as we were walking around. We headed back to the tents for dinner and coats, wellies & other warm attire before heading back into the arena that evening for the headlining act, Clean Bandit. To say the kids came alive is a massive understatement!! As they all know their music they were all, including the boys, singing and dancing with wild abandon like there was no one else around.

My brother and one of our friends led the biggest of the kids down to the front so that they could truly experience being in the centre of a festival crowd. They came back buzzing about how close they got and how good it was 'down there', by which they meant how much more alive the atmosphere was.

We got stopped in our tracks on our walk back through towards the camp site by the Bollywood tent where they had an amazing selection of Raindance DJs. Each and everyone of us adults stopped and soaked it up, the kids were tired but weren't too fussed about stopping as they all laid out on the beds around us. Saturday night was without a doubt the best evening of the festival which is solely because the music was so great.

It would have been even better if they hadn't have put Sara Cox's 80s set on at the same time as HRVY, this meant that we as parents at a family festival would miss one of the only sets we were most looking forward to. Fortunately for us we caught the last 10 minutes but would have much preferred to have been able to enjoy her entire set.

Our weekend ended unfortunately as the weather just wasn't on our side. With winds gusting at 50mph the organisers had no option but to cancel the Sunday. We were all absolutely gutted, especially as we had endured the weather all the way until I think 2:30pm when the official announcement was made. It would have been much more prudent to cancel earlier on so that people weren't kept waiting so long with young children.

Even with Sunday being cancelled we all still had a great weekend. We won't be booking for 2019 unless the line up is significantly better than this year, we're currently leaning more towards Latitude as they seem to have much more age specific things going on that will keep each of the age ranges happy and entertained. If you have been to Latitude or another family festival and have kids between 7 - 14 let me know what you thought of it!

Check back next week for the Camp Bestival lowdown as experienced by Freya, aged 7 ;)

With Love
Ash.x