If you ever wondered what an adult adventure camp looked like...

If you haven’t been to Camp Wildfire before it’s a festival with a theme of an American summer camp, inspired by Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. During the day, you take part in a vast array of weird and wonderful activities and by night, you party! The setting is a perfect escape, situated at the beautiful Heritage Pine Forest in Kent, you’re surrounded by tall trees and forestry for the weekend. It’s set up ideally for adults to play and rekindle some of their child like ways, which is made even better by the ‘adults only’ policy, so no children at the festival ...yeah, I said it!

This year was even more varied than the last with the activities on offer, the list included the likes of hovercraft racing, free falling and quad biking. Don’t fret though, it’s not all areneline fuelled, there are also activites that suit if you aren’t training for the next mission impossible movie - like bee keeping, astronomy, butchery and a vegetable orchesatra (yeah, you heard right) in the woods, not as high octane but equally memorable. In fact, with all the activites on offer over the course of the weekend, the average person would be hard pressed to try their hand at that many in a year – making it extremely good value for money.

 If you have energy to spare, in between the booked activities there are walk in options to get involved too such as the climbing wall, dancing and a number of arts and craft activities. Considering that there’s so much happening, the organisation of the festival seemed to run like clockwork, a sentiment I heard echoed from other happy campers. Hint: space is limited for each activity, so book yours as soon as possible!

There was one main music stage which played a wide variety of music to cater for all needs, so everyone was happy! Campers always in high spirits and with bundles of energy despite an action packed daytime. Strangers were meeting, people were chatting – a lovely environment to be in. Over the course of the weekend the main stage hosted a selection of DJs and live acts to rouse the crowd – each night the stage was a very nice kind of busy, none of this cramming as many people into one space as possible – space to dance, space to chill, but at the same time, if you wanted to get involved at the front of the stage you could dance your little socks off. Over the course of the weekend the likes of Norman Jay and Horse Meat Disco headlined the stages, but our favourites were The Brass Funkeys, always bringing the happy party vibe and DJ Luck & MC Neat taking everyone back to their teenage years with a high energy performance.

In contrast, there was also a campfire stage for small acoustic gigs. The musicians they picked went down well and it served as a welcome addition, and an alternative to the dance tent just a stones throw away (perfect for those who went a little too hard the night before...). There were even marshmellows.

There really is something to be said for the type of person Camp wildfire  attracts, I kept encountering people all weekend and thinking to myself how nice they were and due to the intimacy of the festival, I would likely bump into them  again. The demographic is mixed in age and background but the thing they all have in common is openness and friendliness. The only time things got slightly heated was in the mass dodgeball game, but when you’re competing for your patrol anything goes... All in all this was one of my favourite weekends of the year and I can’t wait to see how this absolute gem of a festival develops.

Get your early bird tickets here!