Boomtown’s tenth chapter is shaping up to be an almighty celebration of the festival’s journey over the past decade.  When you think where Boomtown started to how it’s evolved into the internationally renowned festival it is today, you can tell – the machine cannot be stopped.

Boomtown Fair

Boomtown Fair is a four-day music festival on the second weekend of August. It started in 2009 has been held at the Matterley Estate in Hampshire since 2011, which is part of the South Downs National Park.

Being invited to the festival has been an amazing eye-opener, as most of us are from far “up north” so Boomtown hadn’t really been on our festival radar with the 5+ hour drive down to Winchester. However, after watching all the Boomtown “after” films I can say we are shocked we haven’t been to Boomtown before.  As you can tell we are extremely excited to be joining them for the 10th anniversary.

With Boomtown being the only UK festival where you are going to see the amazing Gorillaz, and American punk rap Limp Bizkit over to reggae legend Jimmy Cliff and another 500 artists, we can safely say that the 8th to the 12th of August 2018 is going to be a time to remember.

Over the years Boomtown theatrics and sets seem to have grown and grown, and this year looks to have exceeded any before, we will be staying in Boomtown springs described as a utopia in suburbia. Boomtown Springs is an immersive theatrical camping experience in the heart of the fair, the likes of which have never been attempted before! The Mansion pool parties is what really sold me on this area but I do love the idea of staying in and becoming a part of the theatrics of Boomtown. If you haven’t got your Boomtown springs upgrade yet or even a Boomtown ticket yet there are a few remaining resale tickets – I would hurry though!

Keeping the Festival Green

Boomtown is also I believe the only UK festival based in a national park!  Keeping the festival green is a huge deal to the organiser’s with them participating in the A greener festival awards this year!

They do this in many ways from protecting the landscape to donating £1 for every carpark ticket sold to Energy Revolution turning miles driven into renewable energy projects.

THE BIG BRISTOL TO BOOMTOWN BIKE RIDE!

How can we help, you and I the mere people visiting Boomtown? Well if you are feeling fit and healthy Boomtown has partnered with Red Fox Cycling tours to offer the chance to be a part of a 2-day guided and supported bicycle ride tour to Boomtown! The beautiful and adventurous route includes a wild night out by the campfire and under the stars, with a pub dinner and the option to arrive a day early to set up camp before everyone else and they even congratulate cyclists with a free programme with drink vouchers on arrival!

If you are not so energetic and are traveling by train or coaches, Boomtown are providing free shuttles buses to and from the train station.

If you are coming by car and have spare seats please join up at go car share and help the environment and split your fuel costs a win-win.

If you don’t have a ride yet again check out go car share out there are plenty of people offering a ride to the festival from all over the country for very little cost!

Recycle!

What else can you do I hear you ask, well how about bringing your own reusable water bottle to refill for free throughout the site and if you drink any cans onsite make sure you put them in the recycle bins at points provided.  Also if you can’t be bothered to take a tent down to bring home,  instead of just dumping it, why not just rent a tent before you arrive – Camp light offers tents for you to hire, that have been salvaged at UK events and put back into good use.  Or you can rent one of Boomtowns pre-pitched options.

We are also impressed with Boomtowns take on drugs, with a zero tolerance policy with all drugs that are illegal in the UK.   They are not burying their heads in the sand knowing that “where there’s a will there’s a way” and drug taking will happen and promoting the practice safe sesh policy.

They are providing testing facilities and trained drug workers in each of the campsite areas, which really shows how much they have thought about this! They really do want to help and educate people. Have a read of Boomtowns drugs & safety page it’s full of help and information.

So now we just have to wait a few more days to be able to join everyone at Boomtown, once there we will be sharing lots of images/videos through our social feeds, and will be updating here with our news and reviews of Boomtown Fair 2018.