New Forest Fairy Festival Review 2015

Dear Mummy, we’re big fans of fairies in this house! I have numerous tutus and magical wands dotted around. It was a real joy to put on my fairy costume (in public) and join other like-minded folk at the New Forest Fairy Festival in Burley. It was the first time we’d visited and we were pleasantly surprise by the lack of heavy traffic from Basingstoke through to the New Forest. We travelled down the M3 and M27 without a hitch.

When we entered the quaint little village of Burley we were signposted into the Fairy Festival car park with no queuing – it was great and put us in a good mood straight away. I slept all the way down in the car so I was ready and prepared for all the dancing, prancing and fairy dust! The car park charge was £2.50 for the whole day! Wowee mummy that’s really good!

The New Forest Fairy Festival is a two-day event perfect for day trippers (camping only for stall holders and organisers). We went on the Sunday and unfortunately missed the world record attempt for the number of fairies all in one place, as it was held the previous day, but we didn’t mind as we saw enough of them on the day we visited. You can pre-book tickets off the website (which we did) or turn up on the day and pay on the gate. It was a real bargain at £6 for adults, £3 for children and under 5’s were free!

The organisers had put real effort in decorating the festival gates, which got all the children giggly with excitement. Pink turrets of a castle greeted us on the entrance with wooden unicorns poking their heads out of the castle windows and so much glitter! It was like a little childs’ dream come true! Even for my mummy it was magical and she had butterflies in her tummy with excitement and anticipation.

We could see other fairy folk walking around with elaborate costumes and huge fairy wings and it was such a colourful spectacle. Whole families were dressed up…… including the daddies!! The Fairy Festival was recommended to us by a close friend who had been in previous years. That’s how you hear about niche little festivals like this – by word of mouth. However The New Forest Fairy Festival’s Facebook page is really great as you get little updates from the organisers via video uploads which is a nice touch.

We were very fortunate with the weather, the sun was out for most of the day which added to the sparkle. The wasps were a bit of a pain but that was more to do with the time of year than anything else. Dogs on leads were allowed into the festival too and came in all shapes and sizes. There were some real characters there in costume and my mummy could have spent the whole day people watching!

We’d brought some food and drink with us in a rucksack and were quite thankful for that as there weren’t many food or drink outlets. The ones that were there had big queues but were speedy and efficient compared to some of the other festivals we’d been too. Someone could have done a roaring trade there my daddy thought! By the end of the Sunday they had run out of beer, but luckily my mummy enjoyed two ciders while my daddy grabbed the last of the cans of coke that were on offer! They could have a done with some more food and drink outlets and that was our only grumble of the day.

The event was run seamlessly and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and were super happy and friendly. The music was fantastic and chilled in the afternoon and it was such a stress free day for my folks. I could run round and was in eyeshot of them in the circular festival arena. The fairy decorations were throughout the site and the tents were beautiful and magical with foil streamers and windmills.

The entertainment was great and there was something for everyone to do, my mummy spent some time making a fairy tutu for me while sitting in the sunshine, I enjoyed hula-hooping and watching the Little Rabbit Theatre performance. We all enjoyed listening to some great live bands, dancing and soaking up the friendly atmosphere. My mummy only wished she’d joined in with the meditation sessions and got a relaxing massage while she was there!

The highlight of the event for us was the range and diversity of the market stalls. It was one of the best craft and art fairs we’d been too and the standard of craftsmanship at the New Forest Fairy Festival was tremendous! We could have spent a small fortune on magical and fairy inspired products! In the end my mummy bought me a fabulous Fairy Door from Fairy Sparkles Fairy Doors, a beautiful handmade pink necklace with a fairy dust bottle (made on site!) by Fairy Rings Jewellery and a beautiful piece of fairy artwork from Wiccaknitta. Other notable stands were Gothic Hats, Borrage the Elf, Bev’s Crafts and The Coven of Stitches to name a few.

We even spotted some famous characters as we were walking around including Tinker Bell and Snow White!

We had a great time and will definitely be back. Thank you so much New Forest Fairy Festival! You really opened up my imagination and my folks free spirit and we had an experience we will always cherish.