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Before the Festival – Chapter One
A new beginning! This year Boomtown Fair returned after the world’s forced 3 year hiatus over the COVID pandemic period. After everything that had happened, the festival took this as an opportunity for reinvention, to start the story again back at Chapter One, and with this rebirth, to really take it back to their core roots and values. They kept the line up secret until one week beforehand, completely redesigned the layout of the festival to minimise camping on steep hills, and brought the focus back to Respect for both ourselves and our environment. Sustainability was at the forefront of this new beginning, which was fantastic to see.
The new site layout – all in the bowl
The biggest physical change to Boomtown Fair as most veterans will know it, is that they moved all of the stages into the Matterley Bowl itself, which was previously the Downtown area. This did not mean the festival was half the size. They used every square inch of the bowl in a masterful way, squeezing the backstage areas to the minimum size required, creating complex streets to connect the 8 different Districts, and by some sound engineering wizardry, there was minimal to no sound bleed between the stages, even the large outdoor ones. When you were at a stage the sound was loud, crisp, and full bodied.
When I first arrived on site after seeing the map, I couldn’t visualise how they would make this work, but walking through, it really is amazing just how big that bowl is, and how much they can pack into it. At previous Boomtowns, you almost had to decide ‘Uptown or Downtown today?” because going up the hill or stairs took so long and was knackering, it was almost impossible to swap repeatedly throughout the day to see various artists unless you happened to be an athlete. But not any more! I absolutely loved this change – it felt even more immersive because it was less spread out. When you were IN Boomtown you were actually IN a living breathing city.
Camp Skylark & Camp Orchid
This year Boomtown offered two premium camping areas – these were:
Camp Orchid – bring your own tent, but in a more secure campsite, that had upgraded flushing toilets, hot showers, a ‘pamper parlour’ area with hairdryers and straighteners, along with it’s own bar, cafe, food traders and fire pit. This option in 2022 cost £65 per person in advance for an Orchid wristband that allowed you into the campsite. For Chapter One this was situated up the hill overlooking the Bowl (for those who have been before, in the old ‘Whistlers Green’ area), so had gorgeous views, but this did mean to access the festival you needed to go down, and more importantly, back UP the stairs to reach your tent. Something to bear in mind. The festival did offer free shuttle buses for those arriving by Public transport to West Gate, so you didn’t have to walk through the site and up the stairs carrying all your camping gear.
Camp Skylark – this was the campsite for pre-booked accommodation, and had a range of options from unfurnished/furnished bell tents, to tipis, to yurts, all the way up to Airstreams! The location of Skylark was closer than Orchid, it was on the west side of the site, the entrance next to the Downtown campsite hub. You needed to purchase both an accommodation type (starting at around £450 for 2 people) plus a Skylark wristband per person (£65 in 2022).
We were lucky enough to stay in Camp Skylark in a VIP Lotus Belle tent, with Portobello Tents. I’ll be writing a second blog on this posted asap to go into the details because it was LUXURIOUS! Our canvas tent was huge and fully furnished with a bed (memory foam mattress, and real duvet/pillows!), clothing rack, chairs and table, lamps etc. Honestly, was the most amazing experience. If you really want to do Boomtown in style and treat yourself, Skylark and the VIP Lotus Belles are the way to go.
The Camp Skylark area itself was fantastic, we were right near the entrance to the festival, so we could easily nip back to our tent in 20minutes or so from the bowl. There were a large bank of gorgeously clean compost loos near our tent area, but also in the main Skylark campsite village (<5mins walk) they had lots of proper flushing toilets, and then a whole host of Posh Wash showers. In the boiling heat we experienced at Chapter One, I can’t tell you how wonderful it was to be able to have a shower every morning. They even kept two of the shower blocks as ‘cold showers’ with the gas turned right down low, which was just divine if you woke up late in a hot tent and needed to cool down. We only queued for around 10 minutes each morning.
There was a campsite cafe, coffee van, and bar, for sustenance. This was the only part of Skylark that needed improving in my eyes – there was only one food place, so most mornings we ventured out to Downtown village to get breakfast rather than stay in Skylark.
The Campsite Village Hubs
Also new for Chapter One: The Gathering – each of the campsites had their own Village Hub. There have always been food trucks out in the campsites, but these were more like a central space with a bandstand-style stage, a bar, lots of food options, lots of seating, more shops, some crafts and healing/wellbeing… and each hub had it’s own vibe and identity. We only managed to see the Downtown campsite hub, but it was an excellent place to hang out, with a huge shaded area with benches – a godsend in the heat! These definitely brought the community vibe into the campsites.
My Music Highlights
I was going to write about each of these but I feel they are all household names, or I’ve mentioned them before in previous blogs! The ones that aren’t, I’ve popped a brief description. Each of these artists absolutely blew me away – Boomtown really does bring the magic. Incredible sets, incredible scenes. Overall I really do feel like Boomtown did have the best line up of 2022.
- Shy FX
- Fabio & Grooverider with the Outlook Orchestra
- Kool & The Gang
- FourTet
- Dan Shake – Ben introduced me to Dan Shake – we danced so hard! Groovy, bass-y, high energy House
- Dance System – described by many as 2022’s answer to Fat Boy Slim
- Dutty Moonshine Big Band
- Oh My God! It’s The Church
- A.M.C & Phantom
- AAA Badboy (Kaptin Barrett) – Kaptin used to be Head of Music at Boomtown for years, but this year he played an awesome DNB set in the Hidden Woods
- The Big Band of Boom – newly formed this year, these guys played a mix of original tracks and epic covers – a real crowd pleaser
Exploring the Districts of Boomtown Fair 2022
Lets Be Avenue – Entering the Boomtown world from the campsites, you most likely came through Lets Be Avenue. This was the entry point to immersion, with the Boomtown Bobbies, the Inconvenience Store, Hotel Paradiso, and lots more of the storyline staples along the road. It also was a great meeting point to find friends, with the large town square monument at one end.
Copper County – a classic and one of Boomtown’s most well loved, this Western-inspired District had grown in Chapter One, with the huge outdoor stage The Engine Room dominating the space. We spent a lot of time here because it had one hell of a line up, and in the afternoon the sun went behind the stage so we got some shade! Great stage and area: be prepared to stomp your feet til they make a hole in the ground.
Botanica – this area had Lion’s Den vibes from the decor to the line up. This new area was undoubtably gorgeous, with lots of greenery, flora and fauna. The main stage was The Vault, which looked like it was carved into rock. It was a fantastic sound trap, huge sound with really rich bass.
Metropolis – the home of House, love, and freedom! This District was so cool to walk through with some amazing visuals – it was a work of contemporary art! We saw lots of DJs here on the Zenith stage. It also was (secretly) home to Dubtendo if you found the right door.
Old Town – Another Boomtown favourite, this pirate town was as intricate and vibrant as always. So many hidden doors here, and it was one of the main places to get involved with the storyline.
Area 404 – futuristic toxic wasteland of the revolution featuring Hangar 161, The Scrapyard, and The Grid. Three big stages, covering punk, metal, techno, gabba, and jungle. The perfect area to get fully mind blown.
The Two Big New Stages – Origin and Grand Central
The two big new stages this year were not direct replacements, but as a general guide: Origin replaced Sector 6/Bang Hai, and Grand Central was the new version of the Lions Den. Boy oh boy were they bigger and better though!
Origin was an absolute MONSTER of a stage, taking up what felt like half the valley when you were stood in the crowd. It was immense yet still immersive, with some impressive stage performers and pyrotechnics. The sound was epic: loud, full, and encompassing. And for almost every set we went to here at Origin, because of the size and sound quality, people did spread out a bit more so it was easy to move through the crowd to get drinks or go to the toilet. This was only difficult for Shy FX who opened the stage on the Friday, but wow that crowd was alive and electric, despite the 35 degree heat! One of our many highlights.
Grand Central was magnificent to behold. An orange, teal, and gold delight hugging a mini-bowl-within-the-bowl, the design on this stage was just gorgeous. It had hidden platforms for dancers, and awesome lights built into it. There was also laser mapping on the stage for the biggest artists which looked unreal. Mega sound, awesome space, huge stage… incredible all round. We watched the Closing Ceremony here, with Kool and the Gang followed by Fourtet. Those few hours were the absolute highlight of my weekend – and a large part of that was down to the visuals of/on the stage itself.
General Vibe update
I just wanted to add at the end here… that this was my favourite Boomtown Fair to date, despite the heat making it damn near impossible to do much in the day time. And the reason I think for this was the crowd itself. EVERYONE was on a vibe the whole time, so much loveliness and smiles, which Boomtown has previously struggled with being known for too much of the opposite from a portion of its attendees. I think the main reason for this was the ‘secret’ line up: there wasn’t anyone there who’d paid just to see one big headliner. It really did feel like Boomtown achieved the goal of going ‘back to their roots’ and resetting the narrative. Even the campsites looked and felt cleaner. I think the message of “Respect” is getting through!
Read my 2019 Boomtown Fair review here
Will you be joining me in 2023 at Boomtown Fair, Chapter Two: The Twin Trails? Let me know in a comment below!
Get your tickets for the next Chapter of Boomtown Fair here
I’ll finish this as I usually do, with a mini photo dump of my favourite pics from this year’s festival! I can’t wait to go back!
all images either credited (chosen from the provided press album) or taken by me, Jessi of Where’s My Tent? for use on this website only
Take me back to Boomtown! Really enjoyed the new layout – much less walking between districts, meaning more time to party!
Can’t wait for this year, let’s follow that trail!
Nice! as my first boomtown it was a great one 🙂
Love Boomtown but there were some things this year that made it hard to navigate. In previous years they have sold programs but this year you had to download app which didn’t have all the stages marked. The map they had in the info tent was nearly impossible to read and a total lack of any signs to tell you where you were going was also unhelpful. That being said, I did managed to have one of the best nights of my life on Saturday and also made it to the closing ceremony which I’d never managed before.