A Summer of love

With Glastonbury off the festival calendar and the Carling Weekend already sold out, Features investigates the world’s alternatives...

By Jess Best, Alana Lewis, Harold Shiel, Rosie Powling and Annika Henderson

The Welsh Options:

Escape Into The Park

If you prefer hard house to heavy metal, and would consider yourself a more sophisticated mover than a mosher, then Escape could be the festival for you this summer.

The pride of Welsh dance fans, Escape will be a twelve-hour extravaganza held in Swansea’s Singleton Park on Saturday June 17.

The main stage will play host to headline act Goldie Lookin’ Chain and huge dance acts Deep Dish, Mylo and Shapeshifters. But that’s not all, a further five arenas including the Radio 1 stage, the Polysexual Extreme Euphoria Arena and the Raveology Arena offer genres from drum and bass to funk, hard house to R’n’B.

With involvement from Radio 1 and her sister station 1Xtra, Escape provides an alternative for those who want to party hard, minus all the camping hassle. Falling conveniently at the end of the exam period and only an hour up the road, it could be a perfect way to start your summer.

Jess Best

Location: Swansea.
Cost: General entry: £34.50
VIP entry: £49.50
Date: Midday to Midnight, Saturday June 17

The Full Ponty

Festival-lovers need not venture far this summer with the arrival of the Full Ponty festival, set to take the May Bank Holiday weekend by storm.

Pontypridd’s Ynysangharad Park play hosts to two days of great bands in an indoor tented arena, with special late night comedy, DJ sets and unplugged sessions.

The hugely popular Delays are to appear with Feeder, Goldie Lookin’ Chain and the Automatic on Saturday May 27. The Heights and the Poppies, one of Britain’s best unsigned acts, complete the first night’s line-up on the main stage.

Biffy Clyro, Fightstar and Bring Me the Horizon will all perform on the Sunday’s more rock-oriented event, headlined by Funeral For A Friend.

The accompanying Fringe Festival features an impressive array of eclectic world music artists and street entertainers, together with some of Wales and the UK’s top and upcoming alternative comedians, and is sure to round the weekend off in style.

Alana Lewis

Location: Pontypridd.
Cost: Saturday Ticket: £22.50, Sunday Ticket: £19.50
Date: May 27-28

The English Options:

Truck Festival

The main stage is actually in the back of a truck. That’s so wicked. My love of Truck festival stems from the three absolutely mega times I’ve had there.

It’s a really small festival, which nobody knows about, in Steventon just outside ‘posh-central’ Oxford. The farm lets us madheads take it over for one weekend a year and gets some mental bands to entertain us.

I’ve seen everything from Buck 65 to the Shit, who was totally shit but he was a right sound geezer. Truck has nothing corporate and is completely for the kids and anti-establishment. Even the local vicar is there, selling ice-cream to raise money for the fucking church. Nuts.

The barn stage is metal by day and ‘mental’ by night when they get the hard-house in and have a ruck for the boys. Then everyone continues in the campsite for the rest of the night.

It’s grown in the last few years and will only go from strength to strength, so strike while the metaphorical iron is allegorically hot and GET INVOLVED!!

Harold Shiel

Location: Oxford.
Cost: £35.
Date: July 22-23

Hi-Fi Festival

Hailed as ‘the festival for the iPod generation’, Hi-Fi debuts this year at two sites on May 27/28.

Hi-Fi North will be a one-day event in the grounds of the Northumberland National Park with big names on the live stages including Ian Brown, Newcastle lads Maxïmo Park, ex-Libertine Carl Barat’s Dirty Pretty Things and the Subways.

Hi-Fi South is set to be a full weekend event, with the obligatory camping experience available at the Matterley Bowl venue in Winchester, for those that camp.

Live acts here include headliners Hard-Fi, Super Furry Animals and the Go! Team. The event’s USP is that it gives dance and rock artists equal exposure in its attempt to embrace an ever more eclectic generation of music lovers and both sites will also feature top dance acts Paul Oakenfold, Erick Morillo, and Pete Tong, plus many more.

Away from the music, Hi-Fi offers a wide range of weird and wonderful stuff. Whether it’s fairgrounds or a chill-out village, break dancers or body poppers, graffiti artists or a VIP area hosted by Hed Kandi that takes your fancy, Hi-Fi’s 2006 debut looks set to spoil you for choice.

Jess Best

Location: North: Northumberland, South: Winchester
Cost: North: £58 for the day, South: £99 for the weekend
Date: North: May 27, South: May 27-28

The American Option:

Burning Man Festival

For one week only in August, the bare Nevada desert becomes Black Rock City, USA: a bustling community of artists, nudists and hippies called Moondancer. It’s an arts festival that ranges from immense ice sculptures to the largest see-saw in the world.

Alongside the sharing community, live music, desert nightclubs and unbelievable range of art, there’s lessons available in just about everything you can think of (eg yoga, massage, pole-dancing, Capoeira, aerial silk).

A welcome change: there’s no commerciality and no being raped of your money because the entire festival works on a gifting economy and the only things you can buy are ice and hot drinks. Hundreds of people open up bars and serve free alcohol all night; last year one guy flew from Israel to cook pancakes for everyone every morning.

Add to this living in desert heat, not having a shower the entire time, the frequent dust-storms and the ridiculously embellished nature of the Yanks (you’re boring to live in a mere tent, some people build wooden houses or set-up their entire living room outside), providing you can sufficiently open your mind, Burning Man will be one of the best and most unique weeks of your life.

Rosie Powling

Location: Black Rock Desert, Nevada.
Cost: $250
Date: Aug 28-September 4

The European Option:

Haldern Pop festival

Waking to the sound of birds singing, the smell of freshly baked goods and the distant echo of sound checks, only to find you are having your face licked by one of the local residents.

No, I don’t mean by a friendly German, but a warm greeting from a local cow, which has escaped from its neighbouring field and trampled its way into your tent with a bottle of Diebels beer between its hooves. Now that’s what you call a good wake-up call.

Welcome to the Haldern Open Air Festival, one of Germany’s more alternative festivals where such greetings are just part of the experience. With only around 8,000 visitors, it prides itself on its friendly, intimate atmosphere.

Don’t assume due to its size that it doesn’t manage to rope in the big acts. Past line-ups include the likes of Patti Smith, Muse, Bob Geldof, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, the Cooper Temple Clause, Belle & Sebastian, Reef, the Coral, Kings of Leon, Paul Weller and Supergrass.

If you’re lucky, you might catch a band with their trousers around their ankles, preparing to plunge into the mouth-watering, crystal clear, blue lake located backstage at the festival; the perfect way to cool off between the acts.

Annika Henderson

Location: Haldern, Lower Rhine.
Costs: 47 Euros.
Dates: August 3-8