It's Not The End Of The World Horsedrawn Festival 28-30 August 2015
The August bank holiday weekend is one of my favourite times as it means my favourite festival is here again. I feel so lucky that my very favourite festival is held twice a year. The first May bank holiday is always the Beltane Bash and the August bank holiday event is now called 'It's not the end of the World'.
As is usual these days it had been hyped up on Facebook with all sorts of people saying they were going but in the end I think it may have had less people than earlier in the year or last years event. Whether the already dodgy weather and the even dodgier forcast put the faint hearted off I do not know but there certainly wasn't the numbers I was expecting to see.
We arrived on the Thursday and found a nice space against the hedge for our home for the weekend. A few people slowly trickled in during the evening but it was Friday that saw most people arrive. By the evening the festival was in full swing and we had met up with old friends and made some new ones.
We caught the last two bands on, Johnny Kowolaski and the Sexy Weirdos started just as we entered the tent. Young guys with lots of energy and some decent dancable tunes. Last on was The Cracked Actors, a festival favourite, I'm pretty sure I saw them at Endorse-it one year. They also had lots of energy and dancable tunes, they were just a little older!
Saturday turned out to be a gorgeous warm sunny day with blue skies and white fluffy clouds. I set up my Samsimillia Creativity stall and spent most of the day chatting to lovely people, some of whom I knew, some of whom I didn't. People bought some of my crafts and chilled out in our area and it was a really nice afternoon. I took a little bit of time off to go and see Fraggle from Back to the Planet do a little solo acoustic set of covers which was cool.
There wasn't really anything on in the main tent that took our fancy in the evening so we wandered around taking in the atmosphere and ended up at Sangers Stage where we saw Jelly doing her inspiring poetry. See my Creative Travellers page for some of Jellys poetry. We ended the night around the campfire with friends, perfect!
Sunday didn't look too promising weather wise but the rain did hold off for most of the day with light bursts now and then getting heavier into the night. I had my stall out again but packed away early due to the rain. It gave us another chance to check out more on Sangers Stage before the music started in the main tent.
We missed the first band but made sure we were there for Firepit Collective. We had bought their new album a few months before so it was really nice to hear some of the songs off it done live. As always they were brilliant, just one of those bands that always should be at a Horsedrawn gathering. Although talking of bands that should be at a Horsedrawn we were disappointed that Tarantism didn't play. Tarantism have played at every Horsedrawn gathering I have been to and that is going back to 2005 or 6!
Next we saw Headgames, a great punk band who also play at the Horsedrawn events quite regularly. After them came a band called Complete Dysfunction who wern't really my cup of tea I must say. We then headed back to Sangers Stage where we saw The Hedgerow Crawlers, the band includes Pete, who is one of the main organisers of the gathering and Dave Sanger who runs Sangers Stage. A proper horsedrawn band with folky songs about life on the road.
We got back to the main tent for Army of Skanks, a female fronted punk band. I had never heard of them but glad I do now as they were awesome, well worth checking out. The last band were the legendary RDF, dubby punky tunes with Chris Bowshers haunting voice. A great way to end a awesome weekend!
Monday brought rain and more rain and the field started to get slippery and muddy. Soon a 4x4 was needed to tow out vans that couldn't get out. We had an interesting day watching people leave. I ended up making pizzas for a load of us, some of us who were going to stay until the next day anyway and some who rang work and bunked off a day! Tuesday saw most other people leave and the tractor arrived to tow out the heavier vehicles that the 4x4 couldn't manage. We decided we may as well stay another day as the field was very muddy but the sun was out and it looked like it might dry out a bit. Also we had nothing to rush anywhere for so why not stay! We left on Wednesday morning and were able to drive out under our own steam as the sun had dried the field a little.
A great weekend, minimal litter and dog poo. Everyone got on, we policed ourselves like we know we can do but the powers that be don't seem to think so. Everyone was happy, everyone had a good time, well I'm sure there was the odd argument but nothing serious or if there was it was dealt with without the need of stewards, security or the police like so many other festivals.
Just one small negative comment, it would have been nice to see more wagons there. I apreciate that when you are horsdrawn it takes rather longer to get somewhere than us vehicle drivers and if you are based somewhere working how do you afford to take weeks off just to get to a festival and back? All the same there just seemed less wagons than ususal.
Below are a selection of photographs from the weekend. For more pictures you can see my Blog photos HERE or my Facebook album HERE.