I have to say that there hasn’t been a festival which has stood out head and shoulders above all the others as being the best of the year in the same way that Boomtown Fair has for me in both 2012 and 2013. In fact, and in no particular order, I would say that my 3 favourites this year have probably been Eden, Beat-Herder and Shambala, and all for completely different reasons too. I’ve seen a number of people leveling a degree of criticism at Shambala this year for having a slightly weak musical line up but to me this is rather missing the point because rather than dashing from stage to stage it’s more about relaxing and communing with like minded souls, so many of whom I probably won’t get to see again now until May rolls around and festival season 2015 kicks itself into gear. It’s also top of the pile for fancy dress with the majority of punters chucking themselves well and truly into the “Seas of Shambala” theme as well as the cross-dressing on Fuity Friday.

Personally I believe that Shambala really does tick the vast majority of the boxes I look for in selecting a festival. With numerous stages and venues there’s always plenty to see during the daytime and then lots of smaller venues to dance the night away or chill out among the woodland installations. There were no real massive changes to the site from 2013. The Bearded Kitten area moved away from the main stage arena to a new position close to the lake and renamed itself “Sham City”. I didn’t spend a huge amount of time there but I did spend a far greater proportion of my weekend than I have in the past in places like the Wandering Word, the Social Club and the Swingamajig. There was also last year’s favourite, the Waiting Room, which had moved on from the wartime air raids of 1943 to 1947 and Indian independence.

The only real noticeable change from my perspective was the moving of the Campervans to a completely different field which was much closer to the action but also resulted in my only negative experience of the whole weekend which was the 90 minute wait to get out on the Monday. Even the weather was relatively kind and, although I still don’t believe we’ve had a totally dry festival all summer, the precipitation during the festival itself was limited to a few sharp showers.

I’m waffling. It was great. Here’s the photos…