[press invite]
After I had such a brilliant time at Noisily Festival 2018, I couldn’t wait to return this year. I was travelling down with my friend Laurie on the Thursday, and then Dulcie (ThatFestivalLife.com) was meeting us there Friday morning. These two had never been to Noisily before but I knew the vibe would be right up their streets! I was so excited to show them this gem of a festival in the Noseley Woods in Leicestershire.
Thursday – arriving at Noisily Festival
Laurie and I arrived on site around 9pm on Thursday having driven up after work. We were swiftly wristbanded and headed towards boutique camping. Earlier that week I’d received an amazing message from Portobello Tents, offering one of their Lotus Belles for us to stay in and review! Read all about that amazing tent and facilities here.
When we arrived there was a little bit of rain, so we spent some time unpacking our things and admiring our tent, before heading out for a little explore.
On the Thursday at Noisily, only the Mind, Body, Soul area is open, you don’t have the full run of the woods until the Friday. Last year the entire MBS area was within the campsite, and there were only one or two bars under the trees that we could access. This year, when Laurie and I walked over, at first I was confused as there were only some food vans and not much else in the campsite bit. But I was delighted to discover the reason was, the Mind, Body, Soul area had been moved into the trees and expanded! The place was huge and there were loads of new artworks and installations to discover. This new layout really worked well!
We did a lap around the area, and already Laurie’s mouth was hanging open at how pretty it all looked. The trees up-lit in different colours, the LED fountain, and the huge butterfly artworks were just the beginning. We grabbed ourselves a couple of cans of Hooch Lemon from the bar and went for a dance in the Soak (hot tubs) stretch tent for Aidan Doherty B2B Jorge Martins. After a couple of hours, we were actually excited to try out our amazing beds, and thought it best to save our energy for Friday when Dulcie was joining us, so called it a night and walked the short walk back to boutique camping.
Friday – catsuits, fire shows and girl power
Laurie and I woke up around 9.30am feeling amazingly fresh from a fantastic sleep on real beds, put on our robes and slippers, and went for a shower in the Posh Wash showers that were provided in boutique camping. As much as I say festivals are festivals and nobody minds if you don’t shower, it really does make a difference to how you feel when you can wake up and refresh yourself each day! It’s also worth noting that Noisily have compost toilets all over the site, which were always clean and had toilet roll!
The lovely Dulcie arrived shortly after we’d showered and dressed. She was equally as impressed with our accommodation, and got herself unpacked and settled in. Then of course we had to take lots of photos once we were all ready!
We ventured in to the main festival just after midday, stopping at the entrance to the woods to pick up some frozen cider from Mr Scrumpy. These guys were back again which I was so happy about having loved them last year! They sell proper scrumpy slushies which were perfect in the gorgeous weather. I love the Blackberry one best personally!
When you head to the main festival ‘arena’, you actually walk into a valley within the woods. This means the volume can be louder as the trees absorb the sound, and it’s a natural amphitheatre! The downside is that there are some steep-ish stairs on your way in and out, but I’m sure they weren’t as bad this year as they were previously! Our first port of call was the Cocktail Bar for another cheeky drink, and the Indian Kitchen for a chicken tikka wrap and their to-die-for samosas. We sat and watched some eye-watering aerial performances on the grass while we ate.
After much needed food, I took the two girls on a tour of the arena area. I’m still so impressed with the layout, with the two biggest stages (the Noisily stage and the Liquid stage) at either end of the valley, and the Treehouse stage sits in the middle up a slight hill.
New and improved for 2019 was The Nook stage, which you reached by adventuring further up amongst the trees, and in Noisily’s own words: “The Nook embodies a new dimension of sacred sounds and ritual beats to satisfy the native, barefoot dancer within us all.” It was a great place to go to for some slightly more chilled ‘Medicinal House’. They even had little dens you could go in that had pillows! The stage itself was made from reclaimed wood and clearly been designed to aesthetically blend right in to it surroundings.
We nipped back to the tent to get ready for the evening activities. Dulcie and I decided that of course we had to twin in our matching Burnt Soul Clothing Rebel catsuits, and Dulcie had her Electric Ladyland catsuit with her too so Laurie borrowed that one. Cue another photoshoot!
On our return to the valley, we headed straight to the Noisily Stage for Jossie Telch. The sun was just going down and we witnessed the transformation of the woodland arena from day to night, which was yet another thing I’d told the girls was incredibly magical. They couldn’t quite believe their eyes! The Noisily Stage itself had had an upgrade this year and was now an impressive 3D triangle structure, but when the sun went down, its full beauty came alive! LEDs, lasers, smoke & bubble machines, and fire too!
We stayed for the whole of Jossie’s set, then went to the outdoor theatre stage to watch the fire show. This area is so perfect as it’s its own mini amphitheatre, so everyone can sit on the grass bank and watch the performances. The fire show reminded me of my recent trip to SE Asia, and the performers were all so talented. I can’t even juggle 3 balls let alone spin huge fire poi!
Hopping up the hill, we ventured to Parliament of Funk, who were hosting a Womb 2 Takeover. Noisily have been so open about their mission for equality on their line up, and Womb 2 (Women Of Music Business) is all about promoting the booking of more female, female-identifying and non-binary artists within the nightlife and arts industries. The takeover covered genres from House, Techno and Disco, all the way to funk and R’n’B. We three girls loved having a dance up there, and even better we made some new pals, forming an epic lady squad for the evening!
With our new squad we decided we were ready to dip our toes into the previously unexplored world of psytrance at the Liquid Stage. Featuring hexagons, lights and bone-shaking basslines, this is the place to come for a good stomp. There are also guaranteed to be some amazing hoop and poi performances from people in the crowd here to watch. We were there for most of Earthling‘s set, before moving on to the Treehouse for High Rankin.
Our night carried on at the Treehouse for a couple of hours, then we moved to the Noisily Stage to catch Mark Reeve until close (4am). It turned into rather a big night for us, I think it was the fun of meeting our new girl gang and exploring with new friends. We walked the stairs up to bed in high spirits and already couldn’t wait for Saturday’s adventures.
Saturday – hot tubs, gong baths and sparkly rain
On Saturday I was rudely awakened ( 😉 ) by Dulcie telling me we only had half an hour before our pre-booked hot tub session. I’d slept amazingly and felt brilliant, but I couldn’t believe she was telling the truth. That would mean I’d slept right through til 12.30pm which is unheard of at a festival. I opened one eye to look at my phone screen, and immediately realised Dulcie wasn’t lying, so I sprung out of bed to pull on my swimming costume and get dressed.
Dulcie and I were only a tiny bit late to our hot tub booking (15 minutes), however the lovely people of Soak were so nice and said we could stay past our booked time to make up for it, which we weren’t expecting. We had booked two spots in a social tub, but were given the option to have a tub to ourselves to start with if we wanted to. As we both hadn’t quite woken up yet, we chose the currently empty tub, and hopped in after we gave ourselves a rinse.
The wooden Finnish-style hot tubs are all heated by woodburners and kept at the perfect temperature. The water is changed twice a day and cleaned in between sessions too. They provide cold drinking water for you to stay hydrated, but you can also bring your own drinks to have. The tubs are surrounded by the gorgeous trees and have their own DJ. After about 20 minutes we were joined by two more ladies, one of which it turned out was a friend of a friend of Dulcie’s (this was quite a theme for the weekend, turns out a lot of people from Bristol go to Noisily!). By this point we’d woken up a bit so it was nice to have a chat and get to know them both! The Soak hot tubs were £22 per person, per hour inc. booking fee.
Dulcie had a massage booked for after the tubs so she went off to the therapists area, while I returned back to the tent to get changed. Laurie was up and almost ready to go, but she waited for me to sort myself out, bless her. It only took me about an hour (oops) and by this point we were both starving, so made our way down to the valley as we were both craving the Prairie Girl chicken burger from Burger Theory, which consists of buttermilk chicken, salad, Frank’s hot sauce, and blue cheese sauce. I’d had it the previous year and was excited to see them again!
Once the food fuel tank was refilled, we both felt ready for a drink, and we both fancied a frosé! The light pink Drink Nice van that I’d first seen at Jam On Rye was on hand to provide us with delicious frozen rosé, and also really tasty cans of wine. Laurie is half French therefore is very particular about wine, but she loved this stuff! We met the co-founder, Lucy, in her very fetching pink denim jumpsuit (which I wanted to steal) and she was super lovely! We definitely drank a large amount of their supplies over the course of the weekend!
Popping back up the stairs to the Mind, Body, Soul area, we were both quite excited for a Gong Bath, which was happening in the Body tent. Basically, lots of us laid down on our backs, filling the floor of the tent. In the centre was an array of different size gongs, and other instruments. We closed our eyes, and laid there whilst the sounds washed over us. It was an incredible experience, it felt almost otherworldly, and during the session I had no concept of how much time had passed. It’s amazing how the gong sound fills your mind. I have always found it very difficult to switch off my thoughts, but this was the most peaceful I had felt in a long time, which is hard to imagine when you think of loud gongs in a festival field!
We met Dulcie back at the tent and got ready for the evening; she told us all about her massage and we tried to describe the gong bath. Laurie and I decided to book a massage for Sunday after hearing how Dulcie’s went! We all donned more lycra and headed in to the festival, taking layers for warmth but none for rain protection…
Starting off at the Treehouse, we met some more of Dulcie’s friends and had a good old dance. After around an hour, the heavens began to open, and we quickly ran to the Leisure Centre, one of the only covered stages, and host to the more eclectic, urban DJs. Luckily we were one of the first in there so got a good spot, only a minute before everyone else had had the same idea and piled in too. It was here that I had the awesome surprise of seeing my wonderful friend Rob, who runs My Cause UK! We had a great laugh dancing under canvas before deciding to brave the Treehouse again as a big group.
We managed about 30mins of Opiuo‘s bouncy set before the rain came again and us 3 girls had to retreat. For the only time this weekend, we half-ran up the stairs and through the campsite our gorgeous tent. I resembled a member of the band Kiss, with eyeliner rivers running down my cheeks, and we were all pretty soaking. Laurie and I decided that we weren’t ready to call it a night yet, so quickly got changed, grabbed our waterproofs, and headed back down.
Sadly unable to reunite with Rob & co, we instead spent the next few hours floating between stages and dancing in the mud. One of the many amazing things about Noisily’s woodland valley location is that it allows for maximum drainage meaning the ‘mud’ was the slick surface type, not the ankle-deep welly-breaking type. So although getting back down from the Treehouse Stage was briefly more of a slip and slide, in general the rain barely affected the site. In fact, in the light of the lasers on the Noisily stage, the rain sparkled like glitter!
It was so worth coming back out in the rain (once we had our raincoats!) because the music was even better than the night before! As you can see from the GIFs, the Noisily Stage kept us entranced, but we finished the night off back at the Treehouse for MMF (mary miss fairy) & Mini Da Minx who played my favourite set of the weekend! I got so much mud up the back of my legs from stomping my feet but I didn’t care one bit. Those couple of hours flew by and the ladies finished their set by dropping this banger:
Sunday – massages, personality tests, drum & bass finale
After another incredible sleep, we woke up feeling spritely once again. It’s crazy how much a good bed solves the festival problem of late nights and not much sleep. Laurie and I had our massages booked, so got dressed and headed to the healing fields. A massage is something that I don’t usually do at festivals, and Laurie had never had one at all ever! But we both felt like treating ourselves, so chose a 30 minute deep tissue massage.
It was short but sweet, my shoulders felt amazing afterwards, and I definitely think I’ve created a massage-addict in Laurie! Next up we visited the Anti-Diet Riot Club – Boob Printing workshop in the Soul tent – a space of body positivity and femme love! I’ve been a huge follower of ADRC on Instagram for years and had always wanted to meet their amazing founder Becky, so was so happy to get the chance! We all got to make a print of our boobs using paint. I felt awkward at first but all the ladies were so lovely. Soon we were all laughing together, it was pretty empowering. After the prints there was a sharing workshop. We stayed for a little while but then headed back to meet Dulcie.
Sunday’s Burnt Soul matchy look for Dulcie and I was bodysuit day! Dulce was in pink and I was in purple! We only had a few hours with her on the Sunday as her lift back to Bristol was leaving at 5pm. So we took some quick pics (of course!) and headed in to trees for the final time as a three.
First stop was a quick daytime dance at the Noisily Stage and a trip to the bar. I’ve said it already but I’ll say it again… I love how the stages transform from day to night, but are equally as beautiful in both. In the daytime, the wooden stages complimented their surroundings and enhanced them.
The bars are all reasonably priced, they take card payments, and you never have to queue. They operate a £1 cup charge, so you reuse the one you buy, which saves waste. Yet another amazing thing about Noisily is how clean the floors are, all the time! Attendees are incredibly respectful of their environment and each other, which is so wonderful to see.
It was time for food so we went for the Thai place and honestly, I wish I’d eaten there sooner. I had a massaman curry which wasn’t as good as the ones I’d been having in SE Asia a few months ago, but it was definitely the closest I’ve come since I’ve been back (and I’ve been desperately trying everywhere!). Laurie had a prawn & pineapple stir fry that also was divine.
Then it was time to say goodbye to Dulcie which was sad. We’d had such a good time as a 3! It reminded me that a small group works well, having just come back from Glastonbury with a squad of 30+! Dulcie made her way to catch her lift home, and Laurie and I sat on the hill and started to think about our evening plans. It was here we were approached by a lovely gent who told us he was doing free personality tests for Noisily, and would we like to be a part of it? Quite a few people joined us, and we were all given a pen and an answer paper. The quizmaster read out 50 different statements that we had to mark how strongly we agreed with, ranging from “I love pie” to “I get more enjoyment from giving than receiving” (oo-er). It was a hilarious way to spend half an hour, and at the end our answer sheets were each ‘analysed’, and we were given our personality certificates! I am a “Fairy Person” and Laurie is a “Heroic Hippy” – sounds accurate?
Next we went for some daytime psytrance back at the Liquid stage in it’s orange glory for Banel, and after we enjoyed some chill time up in the trees on the viewing platform. It’s these little hidden nooks and crannies that make the Noisily woods so fun to explore! We loved looking out over the crowd dancing away.
Our final evening at Noisily Festival consisted of Laurie and I running between the Treehouse stage, the Leisure Centre, and the Noisily stage. Icicle, S.P.Y, and LTJ Bukem & Dynamite MC were all incredible on the Treehouse, and were some of the few names Laurie and I actually knew on the line up! I guess that’s because we both like drum n bass 😉 I will say, one of the best things about Noisily is it’s size. It’s big enough, but also small enough that you can quickly get between stages. So even if you don’t know many people on the line up, you can easily follow your ears… dip into a stage, see if you like the vibe, if not then move on to the next one. Also, the crowd is never too packed. If you want to go to the toilet or to the bar, then you don’t have to worry about losing your space or getting back to your group. It’s amazing what a difference this makes! Freedom to move!
I was driving back to London for work the next day (Monday!), which meant we were leaving at 4.30am, so Sunday night had to end earlier than I would have liked, so after one last look at the Noisily Stage, we headed to bed just before midnight. Driving back to London wasn’t fun, and was made slightly worse by my car not starting, but we made it in the end!
Noisily Festival 2019 completely surpassed my expectations, which were already high after having such a great time last year.
This gem of a festival really is the electronic scene’s best kept secret. I’ve never known another festival to have an atmosphere and friendliness quite like this. Every single person wore a smile. And the stage design, sound design and artwork are second to none.
I was invited back to Noisily 2019 as press to give an honest review. Once again I can only write a gushing declaration of how brilliant it is!
Make sure you follow Noisily Festival on Instagram and if you fancy it, 2020 Early Bird tickets are on sale now! Who’s going to be joining me next year?
Images are all either taken by me, Dulcie, or provided by Noisily to me as press.