OnBlackheath — A relaxing alternative

A relaxing alternative

Sponsored by John Lewis, On Blackheath festival, now in its second year was a friendly festival situated on the gorgeous grassy heath of Blackheath Village, just south of Greenwich. It’s an expensive area and the demographic felt as though it was mainly from South Londoners there to enjoy the family-friendly event, which prides itself with its focus on good food, drink and music.

The line-up isn’t radically different to last year with the Manic Street Preachers and Elbow performing rocky feel-good sets to the crowd on a Saturday night, and a very enthusiastic welcome for Madness on the Sunday evening. Throughout the day, the three musical stages featured a range of up and coming smaller bands from dub step to folk to west-end stage show (courtesy of the cast of Sunny Afternoon who belted out The Kinks catalogue on Sunday afternoon, before a surprise appearance from original Kink Ray Davies).

Music aside, there’s a chef stage with cookery demonstrations across the Saturday and Sunday, from chefs including the Hemsley sisters, DJ BBQ and randomly Kelis (who also has a lively set on the main stage on Sunday afternoon!) There are plenty of food and beverage stands, with burgers, BBQ and some of the best mac ’n’ cheese we’ve tasted courtesy of the Annie Mac ‘n’ Cheese stall.

There’s also a huge family area, with magicians, face-painting, dancing competitions and a big Waterstones tent which is packed across the weekend.

The weather held across both days and the atmosphere was chilled out – this is a small festival and attendance was relatively low (we overheard 23,000 tickets were sold for the Saturday and just 15,000 for the Sunday). As such it’s a great one if you want to avoid crowds and get up close to some great performances from musicians and chefs alike.