A Bonkers Weekend at Boomtown Festival!

It's always a pleasure to finally attend a festival that you have been dying to go to for ages. For years I have been begging my friends to join me in attending the crazy world of Boomtown...and this year it finally happened!

Boomtown is an immersive fictional town, full of character, interactivity and imagination. Find yourself having a chin-wag with the pirates of the rum-stained Old Town, saddle your way to the Wild West or even bump into Dstrkt5, where you will be interrogated by their seedy residents. You can easily spend the whole weekend exploring all the mini towns, each as diverse and amusing as the next.

With a gritty reputation, I was pretty anxious to enter this innovative world and submerge myself as one of their mad citizens. But as soon as I stepped in, I immediately fell in love. The festival's care into production, clever sceneries and overall vibrancy is second to none. From the moment you grab your wristband, the energy begins with performers each giving us new revellers passports for the revolutionised city that we were about to be a part of.

After pitching up our tents we decided to explore the mysterious town and let the insanity of Boomtown sink in. Entering the city was like a massive version of Glastonbury's Shangri-La city, but on steroids, with its dystopian, hedonistic and risqué atmosphere. Burlesque dancers with a suspicious five o'clock shadow try to seduce passers-by, whilst robots dance on poles, fake police arrest citizens and the all-powerful Fitz-Loan family chuck Boomtown bank notes at 'worthy' residents. Amidst all of this, I was thrilled for the weekend ahead.

Boomtown cash

Friday's line up brought a vast array of acts from Stephen Marley at the Reggae temple Lion's Den, to Horse Meat Disco in the middle of a forest and a special back to back session with legendary A Guy Called Gerald and LTJ Bukem at the Bang Hai Palace.

For the Funk and Soul lovers, Saturday brought a mass 10 hour set from Mr Scruff back to back with Norman Jay at the mighty cyber Boombox stage. Over at Circo Bassline Kurupt FM rampaged through a lively set performing their hilarious songs such as A Dis One. Noisia shut down Saturday night with an explosive set at the Bang Hai Palace. Unfortunately, the sound system at The Palace was way too low which meant that it was hard to get lost in the music. This was a bit of a let down, especially with The Palace being the most extravagant stage of Boomtown.

Sunday consisted of exploring more of the city and catching Pangea in the forest (who played the best set of the weekend IMO). The finale performance of the weekend was Goldie back to back with Dillinja at the Palace relentlessly pumping out raw, heavy bass, ending the final set of the festival with a bang.

These were great moments of the festival, but it was the overall production and installations of Boomtown that came out on top for me. Throughout the weekend we found ourselves in the most random but fantastic situations - raving to jump up Drum and Bass in a laundry shop, sending letters to our loved ones at the post office and jumping on beds at a hotel with lifts taking us to karaoke rooms. We were even lured into a dingy 4D cinema room in Chinatown, with The Ring playing on a big screen (you can only guess who jumped out towards us horrified audience members). These incredible parts of Boomtown were what made this festival so unique and memorable to me.

The festival organisers state that their main priority of the festival is to give revellers a good time. Perhaps this is a reason for their ever-growing community and supportive attendees. I cannot wait to see what creative productions they have in store for next year - where the revolution of Boomtown finally begins!

Tania x