Secret Garden Party 2008

The Secret Garden Party was probably one of the most anticipated events of the year. Since the festival doors closed on the resplendently green and undeniably perfect site last July, the organisers had been working their fingers to the bone to make SGP ’08 even more glorious. Well, this is how it went.

A four-day festival is a multi-faceted beast. Yes, of course, it’s great for the good stuff to start on Thursday. Those of us in full time employment are a little bit stitched by this but the four day rule allows you to spread out your fun, relax a little and avoid that mad dash must-cram-in as-much-as-possible to two-and-a-half days kind of vibe. It also means that everyone gets a bit twatted on Thursday night, over-excited about seeing all their friends in one place and unable to contain the monkeys on their shoulders.

For those who have never heard of SGP, it really is, in my totally unbiased opinion, the best festival in the UK today. OK, so the music’s not the priority, but it doesn’t bill itself as a music festival: the sounds have always been secondary to the fun. SGP in some ways mimics the ethos of one of the greatest celebrations of human creativity on the planet; Burning Man Festival in Arizona. Nothing is provided at Burning Man. You arrive to a blank desert with just portaloos; everything else is created by the people who go.

Now SGP is not like BM in this respect – the site is stunning and incredibly well organised - a landscaped, custom-built haven studded with art installations with a lake at its centre which cleaves the festival into North and South Fields. The similarity lies in the way that everyone who is there is involved in the rolling, four-day party. You create your own fun – there are no onlookers, the people present make the festival. And there is no advertising.

The undulating hills of the Garden are reminiscent of Teletubby land and peopled with hatted characters who look like they should be on kids TV. The areas are the stuff of dreams; a pagoda with a dancefloor which floats in one corner of the lake, a galleon adrift in the centre complete with a rig and a bar, a dance-off arena, a mud wrestling pit, a giant living room. There are untold nooks and crannies to play in; tree houses, a glade filled with hammocks, nests in trees, huge, climbable wooden structures, towering mounds of hay bales - the site is a party paradise. Everything you could ever imagine desiring during a weekend of carnage can be found here, and plenty more. To be quite honest, there is way too much to see in just four days.

Gangs of ballerinas flock as one flamingo pink candy floss mass, people are getting randomly soaked by hidden super-soaker snipers, there are zebras everywhere. The air is filled by the crack-and-hiss of nitrous being released into hilarious lungs, people are covering bubble wrap with fairy liquid then hurling themselves down the hill and into the lake, gladiator battles are being won and lost in the absolutely baking sun. There are 40-strong hula workshops, people spraying themselves silver then rolling in glitter, people coating themselves in mud then rolling in the hay, impromptu poetry jams, a giant game of twister with a pirate shouting the requests, ex-MI5 agent Annie Machon spilling the beans on what exactly has been going on all this time, a panda and a young tranny squabbling over a life-size model of a woman; ‘I saw her first’ ‘No she’s MINE’…

Absolutely everywhere you look something crazy and hilarious is happening. That’s why the music is incidental to SGP. That’s why it doesn’t matter that the tunes stop at 2am. At first, as one by one the sound systems cease, the site is cloaked in a bizarre silence. And then you hear the laughter, the drumming, the multiple mini-parties breaking out everywhere. Hamlet being performed by a roaming troupe of fancy-dressed actors, the sounds of a gang snaking their way round the festival under the giant twister mat, the crash of a piano being hurled off the WondeRealm, the splashing of illegal skinny-dipping creating ripples on the lake. The hay bales are revealed as ant hills as the first glints of sunrise light up the bodies which coat them. Chatter chatter, sparkles and starlight, bonding, beauty, giggling, relationships being forged, new friends collected. Love and happiness weaving its way round the glades like wood smoke. The secret’s out.

Triumphs:

The Burn. 120 fire spinners surrounding the lake as a flaming arrow is fired into the Galleon, which explodes with fireworks and is still smoking at dawn. Unbelievable.

The main stage , nestled in a gully beside the lake, surrounded by sloping hills and perfect for viewing Grace Jones for the 20 minutes before the boredom becomes intolerable. Bathed in sunlight as Morcheeba (minus Sky unfortunately) sing along with the hordes sitting and drinking deeply in the sun.

Sparkly Nutz: A kitsch living room with granny rugs and mounds of disfigured soft toys run by a gang of nutters, the Sparkly Nutz Teddy Bears Picnic is the best area on site. Every DJ wants to play there due to the intimacy and absolutely bang-up-for it crowd that tend to congregate in their open-sided tent. Peek inside a secret cupboard and find a teddy bear greedily hunched over a rack of lines, pick up a My Little Pony to find Rambo’s angry head spliced onto its cloven footed pinkness, stumble over a small toddler sized figure frozen to the spot, gazing intently at the trees. Is it a child? Oh, no thank God. It’s a doll.

Slight Disappointments:

The volume in the dance tents leaves a little to be desired; as in, you can happily converse whilst at the front most of the time. This is a nightmare affliction suffered by most music festivals today.

Not enough water points. The weather is happily the hottest it’s been for ages. Which means hordes of very thirsty ravers.

No alcohol allowed on site – this includes the campsites. Searches conducted at the gate. Why? Why? Why?

To Conclude:

Being at SGP makes you appreciate how lucky we all are to be alive in an era where it's possible for the partying be so immense. So much work goes into this wonderland. To see it is to love it. Get yourself there next year.


To read my article about London after-party carnage click here.

Or follow the links to read my reviews of Bestival and Shambala.