I was invited to this “small” festival of “only” 10,000 capacity, and it was to be my first proper camping festival since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I think all that time off meant my mental estimates had been knocked off base, because before we arrived I had envisioned Valley Fest to be barely bigger than a village fete, set in the heart of Somerset Cider Land. However, Valley Fest 2021 absolutely knocked my socks off! This gorgeous lakeside festival had a fantastic layout with views over Chew Magna, some excellent bands and DJs, exquisite food, great vibes and a big fun factor. It reminded me why I love these mid-capacity festivals… they’re big enough that a headliner crowd still feels like some living breathing beast you’re a part of, but small enough that nipping back to your tent for an extra layer is easy enough to do between bands.
The Valley Fest Campsite and camping facilities
I brought Betsy the camper van to Valley Fest, so Ben and I were camped in her in the Crew camping to the side of the main stage. However all our friends were camped in the public Lake View Campsite which was behind the Yard stage. On arrival at Valley Fest, you are invited to jump on a tractor ride to the campsites from the car park so it’s not as far to carry your stuff which is excellent – for Lake View, the tractor dropped you at the bottom of the campsite which was on quite a slope, but there was lots of space and great compost toilets. Unfortunately for most people the lake view is not visible from your tent doorway/camp bed because someone will inevitably pitch up in the way, but the view once you’re stood up out of your tents is beautiful. This campsite did also have showers in, and the queues even in the morning were manageable, but friends did tell me that they were somewhat cold at peak times.
As you can see from the map above, Lake View is the ‘standard’ camping area, then you have Glamping next door, and then further back behind the arena are the Family Camping area and Campervans.
Music & Stages
The main festival stage at Valley Fest was The Lake Stage, which as its name suggests had a backdrop of the gorgeous Chew Valley Lake. It led to some spectacular views at sunset when watching the bands! Headlining the Lake Stage was due to be Texas, Deacon Blue, and Sophie Ellis Bextor, however SEB had to pull out last minute due to her children catching COVID-19. She was replaced by the fabulous Björn Again (the world’s best ABBA tribute band), who, when combined with the earlier Queen tribute band (called Flash) on the Sunday, ensured I lost my voice quite quickly. Sunday was definitely a highlight because of these two tribute bands!
Other favourites on the main stage were of course, Beans on Toast with his signature raspy gorgeous voice and festival songs, Oh My God! It’s The Church who were so excited as this was to be their first festival performance since the start of the pandemic – they had a host of new original songs to play too, The Cuban Brothers being their typical riotous selves causing a ruckus, and then finally we saw Toploader because who doesn’t wanna jump around to Dancing In The Moonlight?
The next stage that we frequented regularly was the The Yard, which combined with the Arcadia Bug at night (during the day the Bug drove to the top of the hill for daytime DJs). This little stage was absolutely mega. Firstly I need to talk about Doreen Doreen. My friends and I had been to see Eva Lazarus, who performed her set from the Arcadia Bug – and was amazing. Feeling elated, we started to walk back up the hill towards the main stage arena, but as we did, a loud eruption across the field, a guitar strummed three notes, and I immediately halted our group and screamed “OH MY GOD THEY’RE PLAYING HIGHWAY TO HELL”. If you don’t know, AC/DC are my favourite band ever. We turned back around and on the Yard stage next to the Bug, were a 10-piece band dressed in Lycra and feathers, with 5 female singers up front belting out Highway To Hell. We dove right back into the midst of the crowd and were treated to an hour of incredible live mashups including Abba mixed with Queen, Eurythmics into Erasure… this set had everything. Honestly, it was all of our highlight of the weekend. I am DESPERATE to see Doreen Doreen again!
Also on the Yard stage were the Allergies doing a DJ set – Ben recommended these to me as he knows that I love A Skillz and he said I would enjoy this set – boy was he right. Serious turntable skills. We also saw Mr Tea and the Minions here, another WMT favourite, and also Mr Bruce – who is a solo artist formerly one half of the Correspondents, of whom Tim Cole the other half of which sadly passed away in 2020. Having loved seeing the Correspondents live (particularly at festivals) I was part excited part sad for his performance, but he was absolutely brilliant.
The Lake Stage and the Yard were the two places we spent most of our weekend, except for one afternoon at The Kitchen Disco for a set from Kickback which was super bouncy and fun.
All in all I was super impressed with the billing for Valley Fest, the stages themselves, and particularly the layout/sound. Both stages were super loud and rich sounding, but because of location there was no sound bleed. It also was still amazingly quite quiet in the Lake View campsite despite it being directly behind the Yard which went on til late.
Food – feasts, bbqs, and festival food
Valley Fest makes sure that its food line up is as good as its music line up! And there were so many exciting food trucks to try. It felt like they picked one of every type of cuisine, and actually searched to find the best quality, most authentic vendor for that cuisine and invite them to the festival. Everything was divine.
Each day of the weekend they had top chefs come in to cook Feasts at the The Tuck Inn on site. These looked absolutely incredible, I absolutely must go next year. Definitely one of my biggest regrets not booking one! They cost around £30-£70 per person, depending on cuisine and whether you choose to have alcohol pairings with the meal. The Mexican Feast looked particularly good, two of my friends went and said it was delicious. Next year! Now on to what I did eat…
First up is the wonderful Coombe Farm Organic, where I had this amazing pulled lamb sandwich, with chilli sauce, fresh homemade coleslaw, babyleaf salad, and tortilla chips. The meat was beautifully soft and melty, and I could have eaten a whole bowl of the coleslaw on it’s own. Friends of mine had the bacon rolls here for breakfast and said they were incredible too. Proper butchers bacon.
Then there’s festival super-heroes – The Hippy Chippy. It really is a testament to how great their triple cooked chips are that a humble chip van was invited to Valley Fest. You order your chips with a choice of seasoning – I went for Garlic and Rosemary, but they have 6 other options including Thai Sweet Chilli and Smoky BBQ. Then they have over 15 different sauces to choose from too! These chips hit the spot every time.
Next I went for a pulled chicken and chorizo burrito. They made the guacamole fresh every day, and had loads of fillings including pico de gallo, cheese, sour cream, coriander rice… the works. Not the best burrito I’ve ever had but definitely one of the best from any festival I’ve been to. Everything just tasted so fresh and it was really filling too.
This pad thai was so yummy and authentic, it took me right back to the island of Ko Phi Phi! I didn’t get the name of the vendor, but it is reassuring when all the staff in the kitchen and serving customers are all speaking to each other in Thai. I’ve had some rather crap Asian food at festivals before, but this was the real deal. The chef was cooking each dish individually to order, chucking all the ingredients in a huge wok and expertly quick-cooking them. The sping rolls were also divine with their homemade chilli oil to drizzle into.
The Sunday Family BBQ Feast at Valley Fest
My group all booked £15 adult tickets to the Sunday BBQ cook-off feast, and lets just say our hangovers were really looking forward to it! I really did appreciate that all the meat cooking at the feasts and on the chef display tents was sustainably sourced/responsibly farmed. There were lots of signs explaining the “Meat with Morals” agenda which I really appreciated. If you’ve read my blogs before, I love trying vegan food, but am still a guilty omnivore overall. It’s great to know the meat used over the festival came from the best possible sources.
Onto the BBQ feast itself! We were each served 7 different type of meat, including jerk chicken wings, spicy sausage, lamb chop, brisket, and pulled pork. Then there was homemade coleslaw and potato salad that you could have as much of as you wanted. There were also so many sauces available on the table including things like chimichurri, and hot sauce, so I was a happy girl (I love a condiment). All the meats were really very good, you could taste the quality and the different flavours / cook styles (eg smoked), however it was the pulled pork that really did blow us all away – and it’s not usually my favourite, but the taste was incredible. We definitely enjoyed the Sunday BBQ, very much worth the money!
Our favourite moments from Valley Fest near Bristol
We really did have such a blast at Valley Fest 2021! The arena was great, everyone we met was lovely, really just awesomely great vibes. I’m gonna round off this blog by just adding in a few of my favourite pics from the weekend. But first I just need to let you know that TICKETS for VALLEY FEST 2022 ARE ALREADY ON SALE!
Click here to buy your tickets for Valley Fest 2022 – 4th to 7th August!
We can’t wait to go it sounds amazing !!
Are you going this year? Hope to see you there!
We really loved Valley Fest and definitely want to go back! Reading this brought back so many good memories!
I enjoyed the Sunday at valley fest its a shame that the organisers rip toy off with hidden charges, pound to load your wrist band, pound to buy a cup, pound extra for the container your food comes in, then you have to claim back any money left on your wristband they know full well most aren’t going to claim back a few pounds spoilt it. 😡
Hi Dave, I didn’t personally go to Valley Fest this year (2022) but one of my guest writers did. I will post her review soon. Lots of festivals do the £1 reusable cups for sustainability & litter reasons, but sorry you felt it was all a bit much. I hope you manage to get your wristband all refunded! Boomtown Fair are doing a similar cashless system using wristbands, I’m off there next week, I’ll let you know how I get on. They’ve said we will be auto refunded though.