Top tips for Just So Festival | Family Festival for Kids

*NB: We were guests of Just So Festival 2019*

If you’re looking for a magical festival where parents can be a little less grown up and kids can frolic in an adventure wonderland – than read about our top tips for ‘Just So’  as this is the festival for you. As someone who loved festivals before I had Kids, I was so excited to be heading to a children’s festival ‘Just So’ in Cheshire this Summer. It’s one we’ve been wanting to visit for ages as it has a reputation of bringing alive magical childhood fantasies with a large programme literature, arts, theatre, dance, music and comedy. And it totally didn’t disappoint. Despite the mud and rain, we had the best time at Just So Festival 2019 and it was made even more adventurous as we pitched a tent in torrential rain! More rain fell in one night then in the whole previous month! But we loved our weekend despite all of that! There are a few things I’d do differently if we were to go again (which we will, the kids are begging us already to attend next year in 2020!) so read on for our full review of the Just So Festival with a video of our Just So Highlights and also our Top Tips for Visiting the Just So Festival.

What is there to do at Just So Festival?

‘Just So’ is the ultimate children’s festival, where the children are at the centre of the entertainment. It’s not a loud festival, it’s child friendly everywhere, the music finishes early and there is plenty of baby friendly changing areas and child centered activities. With areas named ‘The Garden of  Delight’ and ‘The New Curiosity Shop’ it’s a perfect festival to ignite the imagination! ‘Just So’ has a lovely setting at Rode Hall in Cheshire – outside which we watched a lovely theatre production of ‘The Hare and the Moon’ by Fabulariam.

There are woodland areas named The Spellbound Forest and The Woodland Theatre where they have children’s theatre, magicians and storytellers – we loved toasting marshmallows and listening to stories cosied up around the camp fire and we played in the forest with a giant marble run whilst making clay faces! There is also an old barn called the Flamingo Lounge which acts as a covered area, perfect for sheltering from the rain! We watched a great family stand up comedian – James Campbell here and also learnt how to dance to Queen songs in a family dancing competition! The Village Green is at the heart of the festival and here we watched Trapeze artists as well as the very comical Balloon Man (this was my kid’s favourite performance). You also have to make sure you’ve had a dance at Footlights – one of the main stages of Just So.

Activities at Just So Festival

There is something to see and do in every area of ‘Just So’ – we followed The Fabularium theatre company through the Garden of Delight dressed as animals and later joined a Pirate Opera and awed at a female circus group called Mimbre. And yet, even with all the amazing acts we saw – there was still so much we missed! I love that there is so much to do at Just So for kids of all ages so for a family like ours with 4 kids aged 3-11, there’s something that will suit everyone and every age group! A real family favourite was a space where they could use real tools to create anything you liked out of wood! I think the mud left behind after the rain on the Friday made the event. Our kids loved wading through it and even did a barefoot walk to feel the squelch! The liked the unique fact that I didn’t care how muddy they got – they could just explore and be free – it reminded me that kids do love getting messy and sometimes I need to let them embrace that more!

The Tribes and Dressing Up at Just So

We had read briefly about Just So Tribes and understood a little about the importance of dressing up before we visited but oh my goodness we had underestimated how significant this is to the Just So Festival experience! Families are encouraged to choose their tribe from any of the seven animals – frogs, bees, stags, lions, fish, owls or foxes before attending ‘Just So.’ Over the course of the weekend, the children take part in various activities to earn coveted golden pebbles for their tribe. And everyone really does dress up! It’s a total delight to see Owls spill out of cars as you arrive and fox tails bobbing along as you set up a tent. Some of the fish costumes were among the most wonderful theatrical displays I’d ever seen – it’s as much fun walking around and gazing at the costumes as it is watching the real theatre happening! It was one of my favourite pastimes of Just So. What I loved about it was seeing grown men dressed as frogs or families dressed as an entire pride of Lions – I love that Just So is a place where pillow fights and midnight feasts and family dressing up means families can be a real unit together – they can be families without the commitments or worries of the outside world. If you don’t dress up, you will be welcomed but outnumbered and also beware that there is serious loyalty to one’s tribe – families will stop to chat to you if you’re the same tribe as them so it’s great for getting to know people. Our kids have been planning their costumes already and arguing over which animal we’ll commit to as a family for next year!

The Tribal Tournament

All the collecting of golden pebbles leads to the Tribal Tournament on the Sunday evening where the winning tribe is announced. Tribes dress up, meet their Tribe leader and then march together in the Wild Rumpus to the crowning of the winning tribe. It was a shame that we had to leave and head back to London and so we missed the march – it’s definitely something that we need to try and stay for next year! With technology having such a huge part in the lives of our kids today, being somewhere where friendly family loyalty is central is a great reminder of everything that family life should be.

9 Top Tips for getting the most out of the Just So Festival

Top Tips for Just So Festival

1. Order the programme in advance. There is so much to do at Just So and with the rain and mud on the first day, we didn’t get a chance to read our programme properly. You can just wander around the festival and see plenty but I think we would have seen more variety if we’d all had a chance to look at our programme and plan our weekend out a little more. Programmes can be delivered to your house in the upcoming weeks before the festival.
2. Embrace the dressing up! As mentioned above, dressing up is essential for Just So. There is lots of face paint and glitter a plenty – on Dad’s especially! Choose your family tribe and dress up! Not just for Sunday parade, most people dress up for the whole weekend!
3. Book the Friday off work and arrive early! You can enter Just So from 12.30pm on Friday but the entrance is small and there is a bottleneck getting in. We sat in a long traffic jam to get in after arriving around 2pm. Another option is for one family member to get out whilst you sit in the queue and walk in to find your camping spot – we saw lots of families doing this.
4. Take lots of plastic bags!This is the same for all camping trips but particularly as Just So was wet – we used lots of plastic bags to carry our equipment and luggage from our car to our tent to keep everything dry so we weren’t bringing wet items into the tent. You can see our other camping tips here.
5. Book early for some activities Some activities need to be booked early. These were mainly things for older children such as a robotic coding club, animation workshop and journalist writing course. We didn’t get organised to book in for these, but I think our older kids would have loved them. The programme gives full information of where to book the workshops.
6. Make your lantern in advance Our favourite part of Just So was the lantern parade. It’s a memorable experience that happens on Saturday night. The handmade festival light up the night sky with hundreds of glowing lanterns, creating a magical spectacle. Lantern making takes place on the Friday and Saturday – kids head to a tent and are all given all the equipment they need to fashion a lantern; willow twigs, tissue paper and glue and, with a little time and a lot of imagination, they create the most amazing structures! The lanterns are left to dry then you’re invited to collect them, on Saturday evening, just in time for the lantern parade. The lantern making tent was really busy and supplies take a while to get – if I was to do this again, I’d bring tissue paper or masking tape with me or create the lantern at home, beat the queues and bring it along to parade – which brings me to my next point….

7. Make your costume glow in the dark!

I saw some amazing costumes on the lantern parade donned with solar fairy lights and tea lights  – next time we go to Just So I’ll make sure we have light up costumes too to properly embrace the lantern parade!

8. Bring a camping trolley and picnic blanket

There’s lots of theatre groups, comedy acts and dance groups performing around Just So but little legs get tired wandering around so a picnic blanket is essential. The campsite is not as far from where you park car as I have seen at some festivals but it’s still a reasonable distance so a camping trolley makes the set up and pack up of your tent much easier!

9. Wrist Band Collection

You need to collect wrist bands before you can enter the campsite – the are long queues to do this around 2pm when the festival opens so either wait a while to collect or make sure you divide and conquer – some pitch the tent while others collect the wristbands.

A Glimpse into the Just So Festival | Video Review

Here’s a very short video that gives you a little glimpse into our fantastic weekend at Just So Festival: