My experience of festivals previously, has been large fields, well known bands, expensive tickets, dirty toilets and drunken silly people (not as much fun as up for a laugh tipsy people). It took me a while to 'get' Playgroup Festival. I was used to having very structured days to make sure I saw every band I had wanted to see but I only had heard of a couple of bands and almost nothing was on at the time the programme stated. Turns out this is what makes Playgroup Festival rather fantastic and once I relaxed and understood that I didn't need to plan I enjoyed it. It was very chilled out and small (about 2000 people). It would be very difficult to lose your friends and as its a very local festival it is likely you would bump into someone else you knew from Brighton.
I loved the fancy dress! The theme was woodland animals which fit into the surroundings so well. A card came with each ticket showing which animal you were, although you could just come as whichever animal you wanted and a friend came as a penguin. I was a hare and made movable Hare ears from fake fur and thread pulleys. Brighton shops were full of animal masks and tails in the week before the festival adding to our excitement before we arrived. It was fun that so many people put the effort in to dress up. Each day of the festival, most people looked like they had just stepped out of a vintage or charity shop. There were some beautiful burlesque ladies who looked impeccable each day and a few dashing chaps.
We were lucky enough to squeeze into the burlesque show tent which ended up having to be one in one out as it was so popular. It was in the Forest of Thoughts tent were we spent a lot of time. Other events in the tent that we enjoyed involved some macabre life drawing (poor Bambi) and cancan dancing.
Another favourite tent where I had my palm read by a half man-half dog psychic.
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| The sign made us smile :) |
I was a bit disappointed that there was no labelled vegan food considering how many vegan cafe's and restaurants there are in Brighton. When I arrived I felt a little panicked that I would not be able to buy any food. Luckily every food place that I asked (the traditional pizza place, Smokey Joe's Carribean food and the little music tent outside the arena) were all very confident in adapting their food for me. Smokey Joe's was the only one I can remember the name of and maybe its because I never managed to try the vegan option there. With only a few caterers at the festival, food options sold out quickly. I queued a few times for their chickpea curry and they would sell out of it as soon as I got close. The pizza I had was yummy if a bit sparse on the toppings. I could have had two easily for one meal. I never had the food from the music tent but my friends enjoyed the pasta and salad there and they would have given me extra pasta instead of the cheese if I had got round to actually eating there. I also saw on their sign that they were doing baked potatoes on one of the other days. I brought with me little packets of cous cous mixed with herbs and spices so I could just add hot water and veg.
and if all else fails, ask to eat the carrot decorations? Well some of us were hares.
One friend described the festival well "It is like a camping holiday with added entertainment" and for about £65 for a weekend and £9.50 for Lemon Bus travel I would say it was definitely worth it. Let's go again next year!
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