Beautiful Days is a 17, 000 capacity family-friendly festival near Exeter in Devon, run by the members of The Levellers band. Following swiftly on from our stay at Camp Bestival 2019 (read our Camp Bestival review here), we were delighted to attend Beautiful Days with our two children, aged five and six. Having already baptised ourselves with family festival-going at Bestival we were really excited to see what Beautiful Days had to offer.
Often described as being like Glastonbury in the 90s, due partly to the fact it hosts quite a few bands from that era, myself and Mrs H were looking forward to it being that the 90s was our teenage/young twenties decade. Seeing that the likes of Skunk Anansie , Ziggy Marley, Seth Lakeman, Hothouse Flowers, The Stranglers and Craig Charles Funk and Soul Club were playing, the festival promised to be an eclectic mix of music.
Tickets
We paid £142.50 each for an adult ticket and £40 for each of the kids tickets bringing the total to £365. If I had been more organised I also would have pre-booked the parking which would have cost a further £16, but ended up costing £30 on the gate. Doh!
Arrival
Arriving on the Friday, the weather wasn’t great. The situation was made worse when I realised I had not booked the parking. After paying in cash we parked our car in what turned out to be the furthest of the car parks from the Redwood camping area. Although this was a pain for unloading, it was to our benefit when we left as we drove straight onto the main road avoiding the huge queues from the other car parks. You win some, you lose some!
We spent what seemed like an eternity trying to find a spot for our inflatable 6 person tent, and ended up on the flattest bit we could find next to the toilets in the Redwood camping area.
After quite a few trips back-and-forth to the car park with what turned out to be an inadequate trolley, we finally had everything set up and ventured into the main event to catch Skunk Anansie’s set. The walk in for the first time was exciting as we walked past crowds of people, colours, lights and sounds.
It reminded me of first entering the fairground for the first time as a child. It felt almost magical. Having been to Bestival, this felt quite different, almost a rawer experience. There were a lot of alternative stalls selling all manner of wares, it definitely felt, dare I say, more hippy-ish rather than the middle-classness of Bestival. And we loved it!
The Skunk Anansie set was amazing and after a reasonably fraught but hugely entertaining night, we went back to the tent for a good night’s sleep.
Kids
The children had a whale of a time with plenty of activities and events for them to partake in.
They had a great time learning circus skills and were thrilled on noisy and colourful fairground rides! We enjoyed family sessions in the Circus Tent and they spent a good portion of their time in Lego tent whilst we had a drink and enjoyed whatever was on the main stage!
The Levellers have done a great job in making this festival family-friendly. I thought it was brilliant that band members played a game of football against the kids, something they do each year that draws a big crowd! To me, it shows they are not ‘above’ the rest of us and that they are properly connected to the experience.
The dreaded toilets…
The toilet situation was very good, we were never far from a clean toilet (and especially as we had pitched next to a block of them!). As with Bestival, we were able to gauge the best times to use them by observing behaviour on the first day. The showers were provided by the excellent Posh Wash Showers who were also present at Bestival. Next time, I would like to see more toilets and showers in the Redwood area even though they had provided more than the previous year. There was quite a bit of queuing that could have been alleviated with an extra block or two.
Food
The food was excellent and marginally cheaper than what we had at Bestival. Curry, donuts, falafel, hog roast, Indian street food, African food, Cajun food and organic veggie burgers were all consumed by us over the course of the weekend. Festivals are great for trying new food, possibly not so great on the waistline! One of our favourite stop-offs from a hard day’s ‘festivaling’ was the pizza place at the entrance to the camping area, offering a variety of lovely wood fired pizzas.
Another neat touch was the presence of the ‘Village Shop’ that sold pretty much everything you needed for camping and, shock horror, at reasonable prices!
Music
Beautiful Days is renowned for its old-school line-ups with a leaning towards the folk and punk acts but in truth there really was something for everyone. As stated previously, there were loads of acts from ‘our’ era and it is great to see these acts still performing and headlining such events as these.
The finale
The finale was exceptional with a superb and lengthy set from The Levellers which recreated their iconic 1994 Glastonbury gig. To end the festival, there was an amazing fireworks display that, sadly, our kids missed as they had fallen asleep! That’ll teach us to selfishly indulge in one of our favourite bands assuming we could keep them awake with the reward of a firework display!
Beautiful Days
Address: Escot Park, Nr Fairmile, Devon EX14 3AZ
http://www.beautifuldays.org/