I cannot tell you how much I’ve missed festivals over the last 18 months.
Camping with friends and dancing outside to my favourite artists at various festivals is always one of the biggest highlights of my year, and the pandemic took that away from us for so long! Boardmasters – based in Newquay, Cornwall – is the festival I’ve grown up with since age 16/17, and sadly the year before last it was cancelled as well due to bad weather. So this year definitely felt like a long time coming…
I was kindly invited to come along as a VIP to the festival with Animal, who were sponsoring some of the surf competitions down at Fistral beach this year. As you may or may not know, Boardmasters (now a huge mainstream festival attracting visitors from all over the UK) started out as a surf competition / local festival and has since grown as they started introducing bigger music acts at the Watergate Bay site, so it still very much focuses on the surf vibe and lifestyle (especially down at Fistral) that Newquay is so famous for.
And I can’t think of a better brand to be sponsoring some of these surf competitions this year than Animal either! Born in the South West, Animal has always been one of the leading surf brands here in Cornwall – I was always obsessed with their hoodies and backpacks when I was a teen, as they were always the pinnacle of the ‘chilled surfy look’ I was dying to achieve 😂. During Boardmasters they ran giveaways in the Mountain Warehouse store in Newquay, and had pop-up shops both at Fistral and the Watergate Bay festival site too.
They’ve been working with a group of young surf ambassadors too, including the amazing Alys Barton, who we went to watch in the AnimalOPEN women’s semi-final and final on Saturday during the daytime. Alys not only won the U18s final a couple of days before, but also ended up winning the Animal competition too! It was awesome to watch.
My other highlights of the festival include:
- Dipping our toes in the sea at Fistral beach
- Dancing to Becky Hill on the main stage in the sunshine on Saturday afternoon without a care in the world
- Bopping away to amazing house tunes at The Point, with its epic view over Watergate Bay
- Singing along to our fave Kooks songs at The Land of Saints stage
- Watching Easy Life crowd surf from the main stage on Sunday afternoon
- Eating a giant slice of pizza sat on the grass
- Drum & Bass bangers at Unleashed, the D&B stage, and for Netsky’s late Sunday night performance (who brought out Becky Hill as a surprise!)
Overall it was amazing to be back with the festival atmosphere I’ve missed so much, and I’ve definitely got the festival blues now writing this 😢
What’s your favourite festival?
*Thanks again to Animal who offered me Boardmasters tickets in exchange for social media content throughout the event! All opinions are my own.
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