A Time Travelling Weekend At Camp Bestival Shropshire

THE ULTIMATE FAMILY FESTIVAL RETURNED TO WESTON PARK WITH SURPRISE GUESTS, TIME TRAVELLING THEME, ICONIC HEADLINERS AND OVER 350 ACTS AND PERFORMERS ACROSS THE WEEKEND.

We are family! Returning to Weston Park for its third outing, the UK’s favourite family festival, Camp Bestival Shropshire delivered four days of incredible acts, entertainment, activities and standout moments as festival goers came together and embraced a time travelling fancy dress theme with their families under the beautiful backdrop of Weston Park.

The festival featured unforgettable headline performances from pop queen Paloma Faith, the legendary Rick Astley who treated the crowd to an incredible drum solo of AC/DC’s Highway to Hell during his set and dance music heroes Faithless who performed an amazing set jam packed with hits to the backdrop of a dazzling laser show whilst paying homage to the late Maxi Jazz. 

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The party didn’t stop at the headliners as festival goers enjoyed performances from pop royalty McFly, Scissor Sisters co-lead vocalist Jake Shears, legendary rock band The Darkness, the incredible electronic music duo Orbital and Gok Wan. The smallest weekend ravers in the crowd enjoyed hours of entertainment from family favourites, Dick & Dom, Mister Maker and Utah Saints, Hacker T Dog & Katie Thistleton, Brainiac Live and Mr Tumble who also made an impromptu appearance in the CBeebies Bedtime Story Tent for a surprise secret storytime reading along with Orbital, Sister Bliss, Hak Baker and Sara Cox.

In another memorable moment, infectiously fun TV presenter Josie Gibson made her DJ debut as she joined Gok Wan on stage to mix a couple of tracks! Earlier on in the day Josie led a Camp Kids TV workshop for aspiring young presenters to learn tips and tricks from the This Morning presenter whilst festival co-founder Rob da Bank, Utah Saints, and Jamie Winstone all treated fans to inspiring talks in The Library tent and celebrities including TV presenter Kate Garraway were also in attendance over the weekend.

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 “From wild swimming in the lake to whittling wood into magic wands, dancing to headliners Rick Astley, McFly, Faithless and Paloma Faith to surprise hit of the festival Dogshow and eating the finest BBQ outside of Texas, it’s been a vintage year at Camp Bestival Shropshire. What a weekend! Thanks to each and every one of you who came to join us for this epic event. From your wonderful fancy-dress efforts to talks, workshops, sports, activities and so much creativity and inspiration across the weekend. Hope you all, like us, made memories to cherish forever.”

This year, Weston Park was transformed into multiple different eras as families embraced the Time Travel theme for 2024 and hopped aboard their own time travel machine for a fancy-dress festival experience like no other. On Saturday afternoon, BBC Radio 2 DJ and presenter, Sara Cox led Saturday’s Fancy Dress Parade under the eyes of Love-Bot, with hundreds of families taking part in the time travel spectacle. From Vikings to The Beatles, families came out in full force to celebrate 2024’s Time Travel theme.

An exclusive new addition for this year were the Camp Bestival Navigators, ready to guide all the younger explorers who attended the festival. The Navigators, based at the brand-new Navigation Town, directed children to all the wonderful things the festival has to offer, including circus skills, woodland activities and fashion design. Every child who attended the festival received their very own free Explorer’s Passport, another new addition for this year. Designed by festival co-founder Josie da Bank, the magical Explorer’s Passport was packed with beautiful illustrations, maps and information, with lots of space for kids to add their memories, stamps and stickers as they explore the festival. Guests were also able to take their passports to Josie’s Post Office – also situated in Navigation Town – to take part in extra special doodling workshops, stamping, stickering and more.

Also new for this year was the Camp Kids Extra Pass ticket add-on, designed to make kids’ mealtimes as easy as possible, while also helping families to budget and spread the cost of their festival weekend a little further with an incredible value for money package. Valid for the festival weekend, the pass came with its own welcome pack with drawstring backpack, water bottle and your all-important meal tokens that gave children an incredible six kids meals, three sweet treats, and unlimited fruit and filtered water.

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Those looking for some family downtime enjoyed much needed time out in the Slow Motion wellness area on the banks of Park Pool within the immaculate grounds of Weston Park. From ice baths and meditation to yoga sessions and sleep retreats, plus much more guaranteed a weekend of wellness and recuperation in amongst the festival excitement. The peaceful lake took centre stage as families enjoyed wild swimming, paddleboarding, kayaking and raft racing.

Festivalgoers spent the days exploring the fields enjoying enchanting discovery play and an abundance of amazing free activities. With soft play, circus skills, African drum workshops, lantern making, dance classes, skateboarding, bushcraft, parkour, wall-climbing and art classes there was tons of screen-free, creative activities to fire up the imagination and keep families entertained.