On the 14th-16th July 2023, we were so happy to celebrate 10 YEARS OF ONCE IN A BLUE MOON CAFÉ! What a long way we’ve come since the early days of guerrilla set-ups and traipsing around fields selling home-made cakes and lemonade. It seemed the perfect excuse to throw a big old bash as well say a huge thanks to all of the amazing staff, volunteers, friends and wider community of people who’ve been part of our journey – and whose invaluable help we couldn’t have done without! So without further ado (and in truth in due to a solid 12 months of planning too), our own mini-festival party weekender went ahead at the amazing Three Pools Permaculture Farm in Wales.
With an eclectic schedule of music, workshops, activities and delicious food in store for our attendees over the weekend, there was also the added allure of camping, glamping or staying in a van in what is surely one of the most idyllic private party settings around. A mountainous Bannau Brycheiniog back-drop and lush green woodland and rolling hills surrounded the beautiful site. We wanted to create a collaborative, community-led spirit at the event, so thanks so much to everyone who came to be a part of it: the cooking team (big up Lynn, Margaux and Miriam in particular!), set-up / take-down and decor crew and all of the DJs, performers and workshop holders.
Say hi to the build-crew here! Enjoying a communal meal of produce grown right there on-site after a hard day’s work during set-up.
Luckily, after an absolutely torrential downpour in the daytime, things calmed down a bit for arrival time on Friday evening and our guests started to trickle in and get set up at the venue. After lots of greetings and a wholesome Ethiopian Stew for dinner, we got the fire-pit going, the bar opened and Pineappleman and FlutterByOne spun party tunes into the early hours to kick the weekend off.
Saturday daytime saw a huge communal brunch / lunch for everyone – including a DIY ‘make your own cheese toastie’ sesh (we couldn’t NOT have toasties involved…), followed by yoga from Lucy AKA Festival Yogi, a belly dancing workshop from Heather and the infamous and ever-evolving ‘Blue Moon Quiz & Games’. There were also drop-in massages as well the chance to just enjoy some peaceful relaxation around the site! We’d specially requested the wood-fire sauna to be open for a few hours which, followed by a spot of wild swimming in the adjacent lake, proved very popular. Soundtracking the day were some top notch musical selections from Bristol’s own Rizzla, Curly Waters & Earl Tucker.
The Three Pools farm crew also kindly organised a tour of the site, taking a big group of us on a long walk to check out some of the amazing permaculture and back-to-basics farming projects that they have going on there. It was inspiring to learn about what they’d done so far, and hear about plans for the future of the land and sustainability of the venue. The host Tom later said it was the best turnout to any of the Farm Tours he’d run yet!
Saturday also saw some delicious Caribbean-style Ital Stew, fried plantain and Asian-influenced salads go down very well with the hungry crowds. We were also graced with the presence of a few old festival collaborators making the trip to play live – Matthew Oneman followed by the awesome Sweetcorn Bread! These guys in particular we hadn’t seen in many years, and they treated everyone to a ripping couple of hours of rockin’ blues and funk.
Saturday evening saw us lighting the fire once more as well as going full throttle into the late night dance proceedings in the venue’s ‘party barn’, which we kitted out with cosy decor and kept going well into the early hours. Payta, JELLiSQUID and our very own PXM under the OIABM Cafe Soundsytem moniker were followed by some banging jungle / D&B from Flowmont then Disc Locator to make this a very memorable and fun night.
Thanks to everyone who made it down – love you guys! Bring on another 10 years x
