Never Grow Old

Neverworld, the festival name immediately conjures up images of Peter Pan and his Lost Boys roaming Neverland fighting Captain Hook and that is no coincidence, as the old classic tale is a clear inspiration for this festival.

Now a 5,000 capacity event set in the beautiful village of Hever in Kent, this festival has come a long way from its exceptionally humble beginnings of founder Lee Denny’s back garden!

The journey from the car to campsite was far from the arduous task we’ve had to endure at some camping festivals and the queues were worked through seamlessly – a great start! Next step, choose our camping spot. For those wondering, we ended up in the middle of a triangle surrounded by a hen party, a bacon butty stand and the showers – I’ll leave you to rate those in order of importance!

Once set up decided to crack open “a coupla cans” and check out the festival site. Only one of Neverworld’s three areas were open on the Thursday, but the moment you passed the gorgeous Neverworld sign and entered the festival grounds you could feel the sense of fairy tale like wonderment.

The fantasy, dream like feeling continued into the night as we found ourselves bouncing around to music on the wonderfully crafted Beach stage, a stage that does exactly as it says on the tin and gives us a fully sand filled beach. Here we expected to see Shy FX, however, he was unable to make it and in stepped the legendary So Solid Crew. Partying on a beach jamming to a performance by So Solid Crew, you’d think we were talking about Aiya Napa in the 90s, but no this is in fact 2018 and we were rolling back the years, fingers in the air and chanting along to the bangers we grew up on – what a first night!

On Friday the campsite started to fill up even more and before we knew it the festival was a carnival of colours with beautiful mermaids, inventive costumes and fabulous glitter that we may or may not have gotten involved in.

The weather was hellishly hot for the majority of the day, which made things difficult at times with many people choosing to hibernate in whatever shaded spots they could find, but no way were we complaining about some heat when compared to the sludge-fest UK camping festivals can often become.

The headliners for Friday were Clean Bandit, who gave us a performance much in the vein of the festival itself – fun, eclectic and entertaining. We had fire, dance routines and explosions of bunting, which delighted the crowd in attendance, before a rousing performance of their super hit “Rather Be” to close the show.

After the main act we moved back to the Beach before jumping onto the bumper cars, which were so much fun we went for three rounds before ending our night dancing the night away to some funky soulful tunes.

Saturday brought a much welcomed cooler climate so we decided to try more of the food on offer. The options were impressive, so much so we had a hard time choosing. In the end we went for Mac and Cheese - one of my absolute favourite dishes – halloumi fries – you may be sensing a theme here – and burgers – with cheese, of course! Every single one of these dishes absolutely delivered.

The crowd at Neverworld was incredibly diverse with folks of all ages. The festival even provided an area called the Neverwoods, an area full of fun activities for the kids during the day, and an evening nanny service to let parents go and party while their kids were entertained.The entertainment for adults was equally as varied as we were treated to burlesque and cabaret shows, glitter wrestling, comedy performances, human bowling and UV raves as well as the ever increasing wellness options – this was a true festival for all.

Another thing we love aboutNeverworldis how they don’t just throw a bunch of huge names on the bill, but instead showcase a lot of great, young up and coming talent such as Declan McKenna and Tom Grennan, giving them great exposure. Additionally , you’ll find some incredibly unique and entertaining acts like Elvana: Elvis fronted Nirvana – yes you read correctly, Nirvana fronted by Elvis from the wonderfully named “Disgracelands” – hilariously entertaining!

On the Main Stage on Saturday night were festival regulars Bastille, who were fantastic as always. Lead singer Dan Smith was in especially great form jumping around, climbing things and even took a little trip into the crowd. We later headed down to the Goldmine, a pit like area surrounded by a forest, after all who doesn’t love a good forest rave?!

However, our night was cut short as the pit and all the other stages were shut down. We were told whispers of a council noise complaint and that we could all move into a quiet music tent for the rest of the night. The quiet music tent was quite fun, but was also shut much earlier than the advertised 5am finish. But alas, the show must go on and we ended up having a rather large after party in and around our tent – apologies to our sleeping camp neighbours.

We all recognise that the noise complaint issues were out of the organisers’ control and hopefully this issue is sorted in time for next year. All things considered, year 12 of Neverworld (formerly known as LeeFest) was an exceptionally enjoyable, diverse and colourful event that had something for everyone.

Like the Lost Boys, we never want to grow old and with festivals like Neverworld, we’ll never have to! Roll on Neverworld 2019!!