Alchemy Festival

After hearing of Alchemy festival, through a few different friends, I was really excited to be going. I had been told tales of previous years and it seemed to be an old school style festival that after a few years had managed to retain the really cool chilled out vibes that other festivals such as boomtown are reportedly losing.

We arrived late on the Thursday night. The festival officially started on the Friday but there had been limited Thursday tickets. Although we did not join in the festivities that night as we had been driving 8 hours and then had some major tent difficulties, we did get a feel for the place and got talking with our local happy campers. I could already feel the atmosphere charging up for the main event. There was a kind of static in the air. And everywhere around were glowing fairy lights guiding out pathways to here or there, eventually leading to the much more colourful lights of the main arenas and entrance. I was buzzing already. The vibe here was amazing. I settled down to sleep for the night, with great difficulty, not knowing what to expect the next 3 days but knowing it was gonna be good.

Friday morning arrived and we set out in search of breakfast. Immediately noticeable was the price difference between Alchemy and most other festivals. Alchemy say on their webpage they try to keep prices as low as possible and it seems they have done a good job. This also applied to alcohol, with drinks being well priced to. The next thing we noticed after filling our guts for the day was the lack of organisation (only negative point of whole festival). There were no lanyards or real timetables to follow as to when artists were playing. Just signs outside arenas with rough outlines of when people may be expected to play. At a lot of festivals this would have wound me up greatly. Alchemy, however had so much cool stuff going on you really didn't care and as the weekend went on we tried to catch our favourite bands.

The event was really well laid out. It had many different arenas and areas including a secret garden, full of fairy lights and quirky entertainment, a stage completely powered by bicycles and also a variety of healing workshops, etc throughout the day. Also a solar stage and a giant laser that shone 5 miles into the night sky. The artwork and sculptures dotted around the festival helped to complete this wondrous little festival site.

"The roundhouse", a giant mud hut erected around a huge speaker system and complete with bar, played host to much of my weekend and it was also in here that the legendary gypsy unit played. I have been waiting a long time to see gypsy unit live and in that mud hut type stage at Alchemy could not have been a more perfect place. Was a good thing we were around at the time as gypsy unit played later than expected.

"Shroomery", the single most pschadelic tent I have ever seen. All the walls were draped in crazy trippy artwork and when the lasers were added into the mix you wouldnt need to be on drugs to feel like you were tripping in here. Most memorable moment in here was "Serial killaz" playing on the Saturday eve. The crowd was going mental and spirits could not have possibly been higher. Its a bit of a shame that this set clashed with "Lab 4" playing on "The Mushroom Stage', the other major arena. The vibe and energy in here was just as good as over in "shroomery" with Lab 4 playing a brilliant set. Luckily the 2 arenas were a minutes walk apart and we were able to hop and change between the 2 and enjoy both sets.

Overall the rest of the weekend was much of the same..... Thanks to Alchemy's 24 hour music licence the party literally didn't stop from the start on Friday until Monday morning. We spent very little of that time resting and come 4-5am most mornings we were wrapped up warm against the cold Lincolnshire air and pottering between tents, vans and arenas chatting to the more hardcore festival heads who literally don't seem to need sleep ever.

Hearing about Alchemy prior to attending the event I had pictured a bunch of hippies excreting in wheelie bins and dancing round the camp fires. This is exactly what I found. Spot on!! But add in the insane sound systems on every stage, the epic diversity of music being played and the incredible vibe and energy of this festival and it really made for a magical event. This is a pretty hectic festival, with a lot of heavy, bassy music but it doesn't seem to attract any of the negative crowd that similar events do.

Despite all the cool sculptures and the huge rigs, the clarity of the sound, the lasers, the lights, and the superb prices, what really made Alchemy so special for me was the people. I have never met such an eclectic group of peeps in my life as I did here. I return home with many new friends from all walks of life. There were a few reported kick offs around and about and signs were up warning of tent thieves but I saw nothing of violence, anger, crime or people being generally irritating all festival. This to me is what a true festival should be. Alchemy has official made it to the top of my favourite festivals list. Organisation or not this was extreme. A total defo for next year.

By Keiran Dunne-Davidson and Lee Osgood