On Sunday we rounded off an extremely busy week with a day at Chilled in a Field Festival at the Hop Farm in Paddock Wood, Kent.
This small award-winning independent family festival ran over the weekend of July 29-31, it would have been lovely to have camped there for the weekend if we could have.
A Sunday adult day ticket was £35, with children £10 each and under 3's just £1. But you could camp for the whole weekend (Ticket price included) at £99 per adult and £25 per child. Which is bloody brilliant for three nights camping!
It was a 30 minute journey for us, we arrived at 11am and parked behind the Hop Farm, the Hop Farm creates a great backdrop with all its Oast houses.
The kids each got a wrist band with a number linking them to our mobile numbers, just in case one of them got lost.
This is one of the smallest festivals we have been to, small enough to let the children wander around and still be able to see where they were - but enough to do to keep them all entertained.
There were lots of free activities for children and adults all day, bouncy castles, arts and crafts tent, a sand pit, museum tent, hula hoops, stilt walkers and a really cool wooden marble run.
There was a DJ playing dance music in the beer tent and a separate area in the woods with another bar, a stage and some woodland crafts. The woodland was decorated beautifully with hot air balloons in the trees.
The Wonderland Golden Shower was intriguing! This was a cubicle with a shower inside, the shower was full of gold glitter, we literally were in the queue when the glitter ran out but we saw lots of sparkly people wandering about.
There was also glitter wrestling! A paddling pool full of glitter and two opponents who had to try and wrestle a sock off each others foot - genius!
This not-for-profit social enterprise is run completely by volunteers, tickets are capped - to keep the festival feeling small.
There were plenty of food stalls to choose from selling frozen yogurt, churros, pulled pork, cooked breakfasts, coffee and Mexican food. Food ranged from around £3 upwards.
There was a non-profit festival shop - cans of drink were just 50p and candy floss only £1, they also sold glow sticks, spinning plates, t-shirts and camping gear.
Activities that needed to be paid for included face painting, hair wraps, and glitter tattoos.
There were stalls selling amazing masks, festival clothing, fancy dress, jewellery, balloons, costumes, dreadlocks and so much more.
The kids were able to hold a medieval sword and an elephants tooth in the museum tent.
The main stage had some folk singers and the whole day really did have a brilliant chilled out vibe.
We left before 5pm so we missed out on the giant water fight. There was so much more going on over the weekend that we missed out on including a silent disco in the woodland.
This really is a wonderful, small family festival, where kids can roam bare foot and free and adults can dance the night away. It would be a great experience to camp there for the weekend - perfect for families with young children who want to experience their first festival.
