There's a magical family festival that happens every August just one hour from Birmingham. It's a wonderful place to introduce your children to experiences they may never have encountered before whilst reliving nostalgia from your own childhood.
Just So Festival is all about families making new memories together in the great outdoors whilst enjoying music, theatre and storytelling. It's a chance to step outside of everyday life and indulge in midnight feasts, campfire singing, hidden retreats, a traditional sports day and a kitsch silent disco.
The idea is that parents (from bumps to great grandparents!) get involved in the mischief and mayhem rather than sitting watching their kids have all the fun! Set in the grounds of Rode Hall near Stoke on Trent, the intimate festival is mapped out into glades with intriguing names like Marauder's Cove, Spellbound Forest, Shangri-La and Peekaboo.
Read more: I took my kids to the Just So - a forest festival with magic around every corner
Founded by Wild Rumpus, an arts organisation that strives to deepen our connections with nature, this year's Just So Festival takes place from Friday August 18 to Sunday 20.
Listen to Just So co-founder Sarah Bird talking on the award-winning Brummie Mummies podcast here
"Just So invites the whole family to get involved in activities, rather than parents sitting on the side lines as their children have all the fun,” said director Rowan Cannon. “It’s a chance for grown-ups to rediscover their inner child and for kids to enter a world of magic and wonder which will stay with them for years to come."
Brummie Mummies has partnered with the Just So Festival and is offering a competition to win a family weekend pass. Enter via our Brummie Mummies Facebook page.
What to expect at the Just So Festival 2023
Running for the last 13 years, a highlight is the Carnival of Animals where festival-goers choose their animal family, dress up and compete in challenges over the weekend to win golden pebbles for a tournament ahead of a grand parade.
There will be live music from Just So favourites David Gibb Big Band, London-based brass band the Perhaps Contraption, Thingumabob & The Thingumajigs, folksy ska band Lazlo Baby, and the Rin Tins. New for 2023 is a DJ set from Anna Whitehouse - aka Mother Pukka who leads the flexible working campaign Flex Appeal.
Expect theatre performances that connect families to the natural world, including Eye of Newt’s The Hare and The Moon which is performed in miniature inside a vintage suitcase, and The Bug Hotel by Hurly Burly Theatre, a show which celebrates the wildlife beneath our feet.
There's a shadow puppet theatre on wheels, The Magic Lantern, which will be based at the campfire in the woods. At this same campfire, there will be storytellers and live music. Another new addition for this year is Colourado, an area dedicated to crafts.
And two bizarre travelling machines, The Flycycle and The Submercycle from Pif Paf Theatre, will take tiny groups of festival-goers on a journey round the festival site telling fantastical stories from under the sea and high in the sky.
Workshops include forest skills, a uke chorus, sound seeing, a poem cave, Bollywood dancing, nature detectives, gong baths and hula hooping. And there's a whole glade dedicated to babies and toddlers where you can enjoy sensory storytelling, clay workshops, rhythm time and more.
Where else can children experience the beauty of a harpist one minute, the excitement of an acrobat suspended from a giant helium balloon the next, a noisy boisterous carnival of animals and the thumping percussion of an exhilarating African band way after it's gone dark? Read our 2022 Just So review here. Find out more and book weekend or day tickets via the Just So Festival website.
How to get to the Just So Festival from Birmingham
The address is Cricket Ground Entrance, Rode Hall Estate, Scholar Green, ST7 3QT. It takes just over an hour to reach from Birmingham, via the M6.
You can also reach the festival by public transport by catching a train from Birmingham New Street Station to Kidsgrove, which is three miles from the venue. You can then either catch a bus or a taxi to Rode Hall.
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