MUSIC FESTIVALS,  MUSIC REVIEWS

CREAMFIELDS STEELYARD WEEKENDER

STEELYARD WEEKENDER – CREAMFIELDS

So Creamfields Steelyard weekender came to Finsbury park a couple of weeks ago and I think anyone that attended is just about recovering! Our Tanya attended the vent for us and this is what she thought of The Steelyard!

Most of us have heard of Creamfields, the massive festival that falls across the August Bank Holiday Weekend, but did you know there is a London Creamfields Steelyard Weekender across the May Bank Holiday. Held in Finsbury Park the music, the glitter and the party set up camp across the past Saturday and Sunday with Above & Beyond and Tiesto headlining the respective days.

Arriving on Saturday I collected my tickets from the Box Office and went through the many stages of the entrance set up. You will need to be scanned by the guards with metal detectors, be checked over by the drug squad dogs and then queue up in the boy or girl’s queues to have final bag checks and pat downs. I understand the importance of these checks to make sure everyone is safe and having the best time without having it ruined by one person, but they could have thought through the amount of boy vs girl queues as girls take longer and there were 2 extra queues for boys.

There is a great selection of food and drink stands, so not only are you not standing around in queues all day worrying about missing all your favourite tunes, but I would say that pretty much everyone is catered for. There is the standard bar which spans across a large portion of both sides of the music tent, two cocktail vans and a wine bar where I was excited to find out you could buy Prosecco.

I was expecting the drinks to be quite expensive, but a double Vodka and Cranberry juice was £8.50, and a bottle of Prosecco was £32, which I would expect to pay in most London pubs. You could have a few drinks prior to arriving but don’t go overboard and don’t bring any with you as they will be confiscated on the day.

If you drink beer, cider or spirit and mixers then I would suggest going to the bar on the opposite side of the music tent as there is one right by the entrance which gets extremely busy due to people not having realised yet that the other one exists, which is exactly what happened to us. We grabbed a drink and decided to take a lap of the grounds before making our way into the main tent to have a dance.

As the writer of Glam Glitz Global I’m sure you could have guessed that my next stop was the glitter and face painting tent where for just £10 you can have your face and body painted and get yourself into the festival mood. On the Saturday I went for an array of pink and silver glitter running across my face and into my hair, and on the Sunday I went for a galaxy constellation face paint with a splash of glitter. Using a special primer it easily washes off but be prepared to be finding glitter everywhere and anywhere for days after.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous across the Bank Holiday so we found a spot on the grass, prosecco in hand, and took the chance to bask in the sun whilst being close enough to the main stage to hear the music. Soon enough we had made our way over to the main stage and surrounded by people, the music pumping and the strobe lights putting on quite a show we were soon immersed in the crowd dancing away.

We had to stop for food at one point to refuel so we wandered around the different food stands to see what took our fancy. Amongst the options there was a Caribbean serving Jerk Chicken and a Chinese and Thai Noodles offer but what caught our eye the most was the kebab house. I’m at a festival, I’m on the Prosecco and I’m dancing like no one is watching so it only felt right to break that up with a chicken shish kebab and it was so good that I was disappointed with my choice.

If like me you are not the most prepared when it comes to carrying cash, I literally pay for everything on my card, you will be happy to know that everyone takes card and that there is a cash machine on the grounds if you want to keep a closer eye on what you’re spending. The only place I’m not sure if you can pay on card is the rides as I made the bad choice of drinking too much first and it wouldn’t have been my best idea to then hit a bunch of stomach turning rides but from the excited screams and happy faces coming off them I would say they were a big hit for the day.

 

The main thing that I loved about Creamfields was the atmosphere and the great mood that seems to wash over everyone in the vicinity. I was chatting away to people I’d never met, both attendees and staff at the event, and they were more than happy to have me take their photo for reviews and I now have a number of new friends across Facebook and Instagram. Whenever I see them pop up on my feed I will now think back to what an amazing weekend I had, and I’ll be counting down to the next year when I plan to go back again.

Photo Credit: Anthony Mooney