Once In A Blue Moon made it’s debut appearance as a fully-fledged festival café and venue to mark a great beginning to the Summer for us this year.
Our friends at Gearfest, a small festival of 300 in Lechlade run by 3 brothers, had kindly accepted us some months back to be a part of the 2014 event, and after a lot of planning and preparation we arrived a couple of days early to set-up in a large army surplus tent donated to us for the festival. In the run-up to the event we transformed the space into an Aladdin’s cave of carpeted comfort, completely decking it out with ephemera and décor found and donated since we began our journey.
Hanging lanterns, over 40 hand sewn cushions, handmade and painted floor tables, separate bar and DJ areas and a lot of very cool tat made it a unique space that we loved spending time in. It was a pleasure to see people enjoying Once In A Blue Moon with us.
Throughout the daytimes the vibe was chilled with people relaxing and chatting around the tables and, for the more hedonistic of the crowd, even getting some much needed sleep, most notable after we held a very well received ‘Gong Bath’ sound therapy workshop, run by our friend, Rhianna Micciche.
In the morning we served espresso and freshly made coffees, blueberry pancakes and watermelon- which was particularly popular due to the amazing weather! Our usual Brazilian Cheese Toasties were popular throughout the day, although we were a bit concerned by the calcium intake of some of the festival-goers who were ordering up to 5 a day! Each day we also had an evening meal special, as well as providing the crew catering for the festival. Our policy is to provide free food and drinks to performers who contribute to the café, and this led to some amazing live impromptu performances with accordion, banjo and guitar players as well as human beat boxers and DJs throughout the weekend.
Each evening the vibe of the café changed somewhat and transformed into a vibrant party hub – our resident DJ and others played tunes of all styles and at its peak the place was absolutely packed, to the point we had to clear away all the tables as it became a dance floor rave tent!
Once In A Blue Moon at Gearfest 2014 was a great success and a massive shout out to all the hard work of those involved in putting on the festival and that helped out with the café, bring on the next one!
