As our plans come together for 2020, we thought we’d look back on some memories from 2019’s festival season. It was another busy summer for us, perhaps the busiest yet! We started off in lovely Hay-On-Wye with our first appearance at How The Light Gets In, a festival of ideas, talks, philosophy, stand-up comedy, music and more! The Cafe doubled up as the Acoustic Stage, where we hosted Blues, Jazz and Folk acts all day and into the early hours. We also had an in-house sound engineer for the first time, big up Cheezy!
After that all roads led south west, as headed to Cornwall for another appearance at The Great Estate. This family bonanza in a marvellous country manor grounds seems to be going from strength to strength, and we had a good time situated in the same spot as last year in between the arena and the campsite. The weather was great, some lovely new folk joined our team, and Joe aka Element Handpan dropped an an interactive Hang Drum workshop – which went down very well with kids and adults alike – a cafe first!
We obviously can’t keep away from Eden, as with barely a day off since the season began, we cruised directly up to Scotland for the 3rd year in a row! Back in our usual cosy spot in the Healing Area, this time around we had a DIY pop-up Sauna next to us (which did mean there was a lot of naked traffic past the windows of our kitchen every day…) – luckily it was run by a crew who were more than happy to offer us free access in exchange for some food and drink. We had a good chance to check out the festival this year, with highlights including the unexpectedly hard-hitting Sketch (think Scottish fiddle music meets 90s techno!), the 24 hour Vishnu Lounge, the Drive-in cinema and of course the amazing artists and performers, such as Isaac below, who came to woo the crowd in the cafe.
After Eden we stayed up north, spending two days on the Scottish border near Hadrian’s Wall and partaking in some rustic country pub sessions! We then headed to our first ever event in England’s northernmost county of Northumberland – Mighty Dub. Situated in the grounds of the spectacular Alnwick Castle, this event turned out to be something of a holiday for us rather than a busy few days of trading. Most people cooked their own food at what turned out to be a VW / Campervan extravaganza and sadly the Cafe wasn’t the busiest. So, to make up for it, we headed to the seaside, hopped on a boat and embarked on a cheeky trip to the nearby Farne Islands! This natural reserve is famous for its Puffins, and there sure were a lot of birds, some of which got a little ‘protective’…
We had a couple of weeks off to recuperate after that, although it was still an exciting period for us as we eagerly anticipated the arrival of our brand new Marquee from overseas. Custom designed in India and in a similar style to our current one, it arrived and then it was full steam ahead! First things first though, we had a cafe to run at Wonderfields, at what sadly turned out to be its last year. We’re glad we made it there in the end – and we wrangled a little session for our crew in the lovely spa and hot tub set up.
It was straight off to Latitude after that, to set-up the big tent for use in their beautiful SOLAS area. Nestled amongst the trees, it was used as a huge communal massage and wellbeing space! Whilst the big marquee was there, we took the cafe to an exclusive secret Private Party in a beautiful location, we’ll say no more but the location was spectacular…
No rest for the wicked, we were straight off to set up the new marquee again in the campsite at Standon Calling before a brief hiatus in Bristol, where we had a good old party to celebrate Pat’s 30th. A couple of days later, it was up to Yorkshire for our second year in a row at Underneath The Stars.This family folk festival is becoming another highlight of our summer, an incredibly friendly vibe coupled with an excellent lineup meant it was a thoroughly enjoyable working weekend. We set up our beautiful new blue velvet stage curtains for the first time, and amongst other performers, Joe was on the hangdrum again!
En route back to Bristol we dropped off the marquee for our friends at Tribe Of Doris to use it as a healing space. Then in another first, just outside Bristol, the big Marquee was up again at math-metal fest Arc Tangent! A few days later we cruised over to St Alban’s to set up both of the tents up at Meraki before having a well deserved festival off for once at the amazing Shambala! Our Cafe Resident PXM dropped a DJ set in the late night House Party venue, and (OK we did work just a little bit) we set up a lovely backstage VIP / Green Room for the artists there – a welcome additions by all accounts! We also found time for a crew photoshoot 😛 Check out our new 2019 design t-shirts here: https://onceinabluemooncafe.com/shop/
After a wholesome weekend, it was back to usual cafe business for our second year at Field Maneuvers! This time around cemented it as one of our favourites – the ‘no frills’ intimate rave vibe of 800 people meant that almost everyone in attendance must have stepped through our doors at least once over the weekend. We were happy act as the 24 hour Ambient Stage again too, welcoming back Mixmaster Morris, Miro Sunday Musiq and 12th Isle onto the decks in the cafe, amongst a host of other talented DJs who kept the vibes going from midnight until midday every night with some diverse selections.
The following weekend we dropped off the new marquee at Illusive, sadly we could get the full cafe there for a 4th year in a row but it was nice to see the festival site in build mode, preparing for what we’re sure was another cracking year. We were instead firmly focused on preparations for our first Wedding! Over a very hot and sunny September weekend, we handled all the catering, decorated an in-door barn area and provided the dining space and stage area via our marquee for the marriage of the lovely Bobbio and Rachel. We’d met this awesome couple in previous seasons at Curious Yellow, and it was wonderful to see our tent put to such good use, not only as a space for people to enjoy the delicious buffet spread we cooked up, but also for speeches, toasts and later some serious music and dancing. Cheers to the happy couple! Festival weddings look so fun that we’ve decided to launch our own Festival Wedding Package.
We finished the season off in Lincolnshire with our second year in a row at Equinox, the final festival of the season. It’s certainly the ‘gathering of the tribes’ it claims to be, as people from all different backgrounds came together for an end of season blow-out: an absolutely massive fire and a lot of anarcho-punk and psy-trance music! This year luckily, there was no storm.
To really finish off the season, in January 2020 we hosted our annual gathering of staff, volunteers and friends old and new in the form of a Crew Warehouse Cocktail Party! Taking place at our new HQ, we cooked up some lovely food, got the tunes and a fire going and had a jolly old time…although we have to admit, it did get a little cold so as the night progressed, the mass move to one of our houses for an after party was welcome 😛
A massive thanks to all of our hardworking staff and volunteers for everything you guys did over this season, keep an eye on our Calendar for the events we’ll be popping up at in 2020!
