If you are into music festivals, then you have probably heard of Bestival. It takes place every September on the Isle of Wight. As it is at the end of the summer people think it’s their last chance to go to a festival and have fun before starting a new year and going back to boring old work. It is the most incredible and most fairy-tale like world you will ever see. You really get to see the positive essence of human beings; man’s creativity!
The dream begins as soon as you start travelling to the island. It is a mission within itself but is very worthwhile: most people take the train and then have to take the ferry from Portsmouth to Rye to the campsite. The ferry is full of happy festival goers ready to take on four hard days of partying. You know that as soon as you get to the campsite and find yourself and your crew a close knit area amongst other jolly campers that it is time to put your tent up! The atmosphere of rolling excitement and adrenaline fills you right up and makes you want to discover this magical land of music and fun! You get itchy feet and for once, people talk to each other and are really open; not awkward like in the everyday life.
This year the theme was wildlife and everyone always makes an effort to capture their creativity and produce something that truly represents themselves. One of the most original I saw was of a jellyfish, then the hunters from Jumanji. One of the most adapted artists to this theme was Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs with his flower/plant like costume. Amongst the fantastic fancy dress, the décor of the site was beautiful; really high swan shaped lights all around, little houses that you could climb into for a chill, the enchanted forest, the tree stage, hearts, stars, flags and of course the Bestival finale with fireworks and floating papers.
The core ingredient that bring all of this together are the living musical legends, representing and headlining this year was the almighty “Steeeeeeeeeevie” (Wonder of course) and New Order and Sister Sledge with their “We are family” and literally in their words, for that weekend, we were all “lost in music, caught in a trap”. Another one of my favourites was Justice; their set was simply epic and they drew the attention of the audience with their massive glowing cross.
The dream world becomes your reality for 4 days and it is really hard to come back to “reality” after that. For those 4 days you forget all the miseries of the world, your worries and problems but I guess the dream has to end at some point. For me this point arrived on the Monday morning, seeing the campsite littered so badly.
It seems that it is these kinds of events, arts and music events that bring people together; where there is a real sense of community and unity. In the real world, people tend to forget about their creativity when that is what best represents man’s identity and makes people happy.
Rob Da Bank, you're deee best!
Would you like to go to a music festival like Bestival? Do you agree with Charlotte, that in the real world people tend to forget about their creativity?
