Friday 29/07/11 Camp Bestival Festival @ Lulworth Castle, Dorset

Located on the grounds of Lulworth Castle, Camp Bestival is a family friendly spin on Rob Da Bank’s successful Bestival Brand. Having been awarded ‘Best Family Festival’ consecutively since 2007, I was certainly in for a completely new experience.

Glastonbury has kid fields but I have not experienced a festival that is fully family inclined. Spread across three days, Camp Bestival prides itself in being unique as it allows children and adults entertainment to be mixed seamlessly. It also gives a chance to somewhat unknown bands to show off their wares to the ‘Dad dancing’ circuit, which can’t be a bad thing. On the Saturday, Gentlemans Dub Club pulled of one of the highlights of the day, who after being introduced by Dick & Dom put on a riotous performance that had the audience on their feet and dancing by the end, with ‘Fire’ being a definite crowd pleaser. The Correspondents repeated this crowd success on the Sunday by putting on one of the best shows of the festival as eccentric dancing and crowd warming skills brightened up the afternoon.

This mix did backfire at times as some bands found themselves playing to empty tents. The quality Mirrors found themselves playing after DJ Yoda and clashing with Jaguar Skills and Groove Armada, both of whom put on fantastic sets. This meant that Mirrors were left with only a handful of punters watching them, a fact they seemed rather annoyed by.

The headliners pulled no punches as Rob Da Bank invested in the trio of Blondie, Groove Armada and Primal Scream to make sure those tickets were bought. Mark Ronson also pulled off a fantastic set, dedicating it to the late Amy Winehouse whilst making sure that the crowd found out how flexible he is as a producer and as a musician by playing a fantastic ‘Bang Bang’ melody.

Like Glastonbury, not everything is based around the stages as certain variety areas allowed you to try you hand at dancing and even sword making, wooden ones at that, just in time for the Medieval themed fancy dress Saturday.

If you are a parent you fancy introducing your kids to a festival that is the same amount of fun for them as it is for you, then Camp Bestival is the ticket. It fully deserves its award winning accreditation's.