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Valley Fest

With festival season now in full swing, Sarah Mead from Yeo Valley explains how – with husband Tim – she came to throw the most spectacular organic feast the UK has to offer
Katie Hill - Editor-in-Chief, My Green Pod
Valley Fest Main Stage

This article first appeared in our summer ’18 issue of MyGreenPod Magazine, The Natural Revolution, distributed with the Guardian on 03 Aug 2018. Click here to subscribe to our digital edition and get each issue delivered straight to your inbox

Festival fever is definitely gripping the Valley as we gear up for Valley Fest 2018. At Yeo Valley and Holt Farms, we’re massive supporters of this small-but-perfectly-formed festival.

My husband Tim and I first discovered it by chance, in all honesty. Our friends Jarvis and Katie were visiting from Brighton five years ago, and we were looking for somewhere to take them. We ended up going to this tiny little festival overlooking Chew Valley Lake, the next valley along from us, here in North Somerset. It was so charming and such fun. We had a blast!

Why we ditched Glasto

At the time we were involved with the much larger Glastonbury Festival. But when we met Luke Hassel, the ball of energy who started Valley Fest (then known as Mini V), we decided to ditch Glasto in favour of helping turn this happy, off-beat gathering into the go-to festival for lovers of organic food and good music. At least that’s the plan!

Why did we want to do it? Simple, really; we believe in bringing people together for a foot-stomping good time. We love a party and we love good organic food! We’re so family orientated at Yeo Valley that putting on a festival for your family and friends, as well as ours, made perfect sense.

What’s on

This year is going to be bigger and better than last. The music lineup sees Alabama’s St Paul & The Broken Bones bring their energetic southern soul revival extravaganza to the main stage. Trust me, you won’t want to miss that.

We’ve also added the breathtaking Rae Morris to the lineup, which I’m super-excited about – she’s awesome! Also confirmed are Yola Cater, Oh My God! It’s the Church and Dirty Bourbon River Show. If you haven’t heard of these acts, I encourage you to get to know them – they’re all sensational.

Valley Fest tractors
‘A veritable wonderland for children’

Click here to find out why Valley Fest is a MyGreenPod Hero

Yeo Valley's Tim and Sarah Mead
Yeo Valley’s Sarah and Tim Mead

Valley Fest is a veritable wonderland for children. We don’t have a ‘kids’ area’ because there’s fun for them round every corner.

They can head over to Hogsnorts Farm Academy to learn more about farming life, do some veg picking with The Community Farm, horse around on the vintage tractors, meet the farm animals and enjoy the falconry displays.

There’s also an arts and crafts tent, a film tent, pop-up theatrical entertainment, Junior Jungle and bonkers activities galore in The Yard.

Good food will accompany the good times, so the Yeo Valley Canteen chefs will be on hand all weekend serving up top-notch organic fodder to keep revellers fuelled throughout the day and evening.

It’s all happening on 03-05 August, and our whole family is going to be there. There really is so much going on that it’s impossible to remember it all. All the details can be found on the website.

This year, Valley Fest is supporting the Teenage Cancer Trust and we’re really hoping to make, at the very least, a small difference to some of the young people who are suffering.

Click here for more about Valley Fest, including the lineup, tickets and Early Bird discounts for 2019

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