Just So Festival

Just So Festival announces 2016 programme

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THE GAME IS AFOOT FOR THE AWARD-WINNING JUST SO FESTIVAL 2016

The award-winning Just So Festival, produced by Wild Rumpus has started to reveal its marvellous programme for 2016. Codes & Ciphers, Detectives & Disguises, Mysteries & Mayhem the game is afoot!

An annual, intimate, weekend-long camping festival for children and their families the Just So Festival provides an imaginative outdoor adventure like no other, showcasing the best art, music, literature, comedy and theatre for families in a wondrous landscape of woodland clearings, rolling parkland, arboreal amphitheatres and lakeside spots in the Rode Hall Estate, Cheshire.

Just So was awarded Best Festival in 2015 by the National Outdoor Events Association and is the only combined arts festival dedicated solely to families in the UK.

With an incredible mix of regional, national and international artists and performers, it promises to take you on an expedition of mischief and mayhem, to lands full of magical midnight feasts, raucous pillow fights, tribal tournaments, curious creatures and breathtaking beauty.

With intrigue and trickery as the theme for 2016, family adventurers should keep their ears to the ground for new and exciting experiences to be announced and further instruction from the brilliantly bonkers Just So Bureau.

Inquisitive explorers can expect to tour the most curious of lands and encounter creatures and characters beyond your wildest dreams.

Dance like wild things to the outstanding line-up on the Footlights stage. Headliners include 6-piece folk actSkinny Lister joining us fresh from their US tour and the inspirational Hope & Social, who will be spreading the feel-good factor by getting the whole Just So crowd dancing as part of their set. They will be joined by over 20 other brilliant artists and bands. Do some more foot stomping and wild whirling and swirling atJitterbug. More unmissable music and dance performances and workshops include the first chance to squash, roll, pop and squeeze in Sponge, the premiere of the new show by participatory dance artists Turned On Its Head andAround The World in 80 Notes with Melanie Ash and Jade Jagger. When evening comes, dance the night away at the DISCO here too.

Head to the eccentric Village Green to meet some of the UK’s favourite children’s authors sharing the best new books out this year and encounter a sports day with a difference – toddler jousting or pillow fighting anyone? The Village Green is also the nerve centre and our Just So GCHQ of the Tribal Tournament. Headed up by that motley crew from immersive theatre specialists LAS Theatre. The Fox, Frog, Owl, Fish, Stag and Lion tribes will compete in ridiculous games and all manner of unexpected shenanigans. Break codes and solve mysteries to win points! Find your tribe on festival Sunday and take part in the Tribal Parade, a Just So highlight.

Step into the extraordinary Spellbound Forest and experience the best new outdoor performance for families. Laugh until you fall over at a new show from comedian James Campbell, and be led on an interactive dig like no other by curious archeologists in How Time Flies, by Handmade Theatre on the Woodland Stage. Be inspired by high octane manoeuvres in Phone Box, a new solo production by Corey Baker Dance. Witness live demonstrations of impossible happenings and glimpse some of the greatest mysteries of the universe in Professor Kelso’s Strange & Unusual Phenomena. Don’t miss campfire tales, music and songs as dusk falls and the woodland magic really begins.

Tales of Animalia is a brand new area for 2016, from the strange and unusual imaginations of our friendsThe Fabularium.  Step into the wild to hear the Tales of Animalia. Beyond the pines and oaks lies an open glade where creatures play, telling stories and singing songs for all that wish to hear. But to grace the forest with your presence you must tread carefully, and with luck the animals will invite you to meet the Moving Trees and the Living Stone Fossils. Whispers have also reached our ears of a Fairy City and Fairy Ball found within Away With The Fairies, an enchanting woodland, home of the Fairy Queen.

Make your way into the perilous High Seas for some bonkers nautical adventures. Think Treasure Island and Robinson Crusoe meets Swallows and Amazons and watch out for the kracken!  For the first time adventurers can take a voyage in wooden rowing boats onto Rode Pool and bring a blanket while night falls to the beautiful outdoor cinema here. Snuggle up to watch family classics such as Labyrinth, The Wizard of Oz and, of course, Swallows & Amazons.

Roll up, roll up at Head over Heels for the most spectacular and flamboyant area of Just So. Expect tumblers, somersaults and aerial mastery from the best performers in the land. Gasp and faint at amazing shows, and try your hand yourself at all manner of circus amazement. Don’t miss The Fantastical Flying Exploratory Laboratory by Les Enfants Terribles. Follow Dr Latitude and his team of misguided misfits on their global quest in their hot air balloon flying machine to discover new lands, tribes, flora and fauna!

Peekaboo, (for 0-2s) is where to find the best arts (and right royal facilities) for the tiniest visitors. Don’t miss becoming part of a carousel in Cheval Solitaire the new inspirational interactive dance and music show by aboutNOWish. Music, paint, clay, dens and bubbles, listening to stories and songs and baby bath time here will ensure the littlies doze off to the sound of our choral lullabies as dusk falls.

Winners of Festival Kidz Gold Award for three years running Just So Festival aims to create memories treasured by families year-round and has a pioneering approach to accessibility, enabling families with all needs and preferences to enjoy and participate together.

Rowan Hoban and Sarah Bird, Directors of Wild Rumpus who produce large scale family arts events in wild natural landscapes set up Just So Festival in 2009 to create a spellbinding weekend where families could be immersed in incredible stories and moments of wonder together,  and experience world class breathtaking outdoor arts.

Rowan says “At Just So 2016, audience members will be journeying through the most magical, awe-inspiring landscape for three nights. They must watch carefully the whole journey…as Roald Dahl once said, the best adventures and greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places”.

Sarah says spending time together as a family, exploring the woods, venturing to the Lake at dawn, singing around the campfire, eating under the stars, dancing like wild things to incredible foot stomping bands and listening to stories that will fill us full of awe and wonder at the magical world around us….what’s not to look forward to?”

 

START YOUR ADVENTURE NOW

For the full line-up, information and tickets visit www.justsofestival.org.uk.

Follow Just So @justsofestival https://www.facebook.com/justsofestival

 

 

Just So, the family festival is just three weeks away

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JUST SO FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES INTRIGUING ADVENTURES FOR ITS 2015 EXPEDITION – THREE WEEKS TO GO

The award-winning Just So Festival (21 – 23 August), produced by Wild Rumpus announces its brilliantly bonkers programme based on the golden age of travel for 2015, the largest programme in its six year history.

An annual, intimate, weekend-long camping festival for children and their families the Just So Festival provides an imaginative outdoor adventure like no other, showcasing the best art, music, literature, comedy and theatre for families all embedded and entwined in a wondrous landscape of woodland clearings, rolling parkland, arboreal amphitheatres and lakeside spots in the Rode Hall Estate, Cheshire.

With an incredible mix of regional, national and international artists and performers, it promises to take you on an expedition of mischief and mayhem, to lands full of magical midnight feasts, raucous pillow fights, tribal tournaments, curious creatures and breathtaking beauty.

The eagerly anticipated Tribal Tournament will once more be headed up by that motley crew from immersive theatre specialists LAS Theatre. The Fox, Frog, Owl, Fish, Stag and Lion tribes will compete in ridiculous games and all manner of unexpected shenanigans. Find your tribe on festival Sunday and round off the festival in style with the Tribal Parade. Inquisitive and adventure driven family explorers can expect to tour the most curious of lands and encounter creatures and characters beyond your wildest dreams.

A visit to Grand Central complete with Passport Office, Bureau de Change and mischievous luggage porters is advice worth heeding, before venturing into the uncharted territory that is Just So Festival 2015. Head to our new eccentric Village Green to encounter ridiculous knitting, toddler jousting, pillow fighting and a nonsensical, outrageous game of Consequences.

Roll up, roll up at Head over Heels for the most spectacular and flamboyant area of Just So yet. Expect tumblers and somersaults, aerial mastery and juggling galore. Gasp and faint at amazing shows, and try your hand yourself at all manner of circus amazement.

Step into the Spellbound Forest to a place quite extraordinary. Woodland theatre, dancing and exploring by day, bonfire bands, stories and songs as dusk falls and the woodland magic really begins

Whispers have reached our ears of a Fairy City and Fairy Ball found within Away With The Fairies, an enchanting woodland, home of the Fairy Queen.

Make your way into the perilous High Seas supported by SunSense. Maps will be needed, encounter massive battleships, pirate training camp and watch out for the kraken.

At Footlights and Jitterbug we will see foot stomping, wild whirling and swirling, and unmissable family music and theatre performances including poet John Hegley, comedian James Campbell and authors Emma Carroll and Paul Stickland. When evening comes, dance the night away here.

At Silver Screen take part in BFI slapstick workshops, delve into the Picture Palace, encounter eccentric producers from the turn of the century, or bring a blanket while night falls and snuggle up to watch family classics.

Peekaboo, supported by Weleda, is where to find the best arts (and right royal facilities) for the tiniest visitors. Music, paint, clay, dens and bubbles, listening to stories and songs and baby bath time will ensure the littlies doze off to the sound of our choral lullabies as dusk falls.

Don’t miss The Marie Celestial. A co-commission between the Northern Festivals Network, headed up by Just So, and Glastonbury Festival, this melancholy, mechanical beast will form the incredible beating heart of Just So Festival and other Northern festivals in 2015.

Winners of Festival Kidz Gold Award for three years running Just So Festival aims to create memories treasured by families year-round. Rowan Hoban and Sarah Bird, Directors of Wild Rumpus who produce large scale family arts events in wild natural landscapes set up Just So Festival in 2009 to create a spellbinding weekend where families could play, dance and create together and see the world class breathtaking outdoor arts.

Rowan says “At Just So 2015, audience members will be journeying through the most magical, awe-inspiring landscape for three nights. They must watch carefully the whole journey…as Roald Dahl once said, the best adventures and greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places”.

Sarah says “we immerse families into a world of imagination, letting their creativity run wild. We believe in the power of a wonderful moment to change the way that a family engages in the arts together. If we don’t give you goosebumps we are not doing it right.”

For the full line-up, further information and tickets visit www.justsofestival.org.uk.

Follow Just So @justsofestival https://www.facebook.com/justsofestival

 

Just So Festival announce program details for 2014

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Just So Festival the award winning family music and arts  festival has announced its initial programme release for 2014. The festival celebrated as a cultural highlight of the summer for families runs from the 15th to the 18th August at Rode Hall Estate in Cheshire.

Highlights include Long Nose Puppets Arthur’s Dream Boat, Gabby Young and Other Animals, Mr Wilson’s Second Liners, Shanty Theatre’s Story Giant and Cheshire Dance presenting The Dancing Games.

The performances and activities on offer span a wide range of high quality arts and this year will include premiers of new commissions as well as works reimagined for the outdoors.

Director Sarah Bird said “We’re phenomenally excited about our 5th Just So Festival, the programming is by far the best we’ve had yet. It is a hugely eclectic line up that celebrates and rewards the curious and imaginative, it’s as much a mix of high quality arts and performances as surprising interventions and intriguing happenings”

The award winning event takes the very best in arts aimed at the whole family and presents them in a variety of outdoor environments from an arboreal amphitheatre to a beautiful lakeside and glorious parkland.

Just So Festival asks you to throw away your inhibitions and immerse yourselves in a world of pillow fights, midnight feasts,  campfires, jiving and acrobats.  Families who camp for 3 nights on the Cheshire Estate are immersed from dawn til dusk in a magical awe inspiring environment.

Full programme details at www.justsofestival.org.uk

Just So Festival News – Pirates, laughing and Flying Machines‏

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The last few additions for Just So Festival have been announced, and you can now see the whole programme over at www.justsofestival.org.uk

Laughing Yoga master and guru of giggles Robin Graham invites all comers to a laugh off competition. In keeping with the sock theme contestants will need to enter a pair. Warning: Laughter is infectious and there will be no antidotes available on the day. This is just a tantalising slice of programming from a brand new area at Just So. Watch this space for all the details of ‘All over the place’.

Avast! And welcome to the world of the Mirth, a group of debauched and maniacal buccaneers that have been plundering the British Isles far and wide for the last several years. Combining hilarious live shows with pounding dance music, Seas of Mirth are a band unlike any other around. With high speed gypsy beats, a thrashy folk influence and some majestic bellowing, they even manage to throw in a bit of old- school hip-hop for good measure. They’ll be whipping up a frenzy of excitement at the grand finale of the Tribal Tournament, and following it up with the most piratanical performance.

Making sure that the Just So Tea Dance goes with a swing, Dixie, Tallulah and Scarlet are the glamorous members of the close-part harmony swing group The Polka Dot Dolls.  With seamed stockings and victory rolls in place, The Polka Dot Dolls will be on hand with toe-tapping swing numbers and romantic love songs of the 1930′s and 1940′s.

They’re back, they’re back, of course they’re back. The marvellous Pif Paf theatre will be hitting the High seas in 2013 in their fantastical flycycle… Come away with us on a journey of your wildest dreams, aboard our famous traveling machine, The Flycycle! Choose a traveling companion, find the Departure Lounge and we’ll take care of the rest. We take two at a time and dress you in hats so sublime. With Captain Bigshot, you’ll fly up up and away, crossing continents in turbulent adventures.Together we’ll weave unforgettable stories.

2013 Festival Tickets…

…are, of course, on sale now. Weekend tickets are selling more quickly than ever before. Don’t leave it too late this year or they will all be gone!

Just So Festival update

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Site specific music, art, theatre and dance designed with a family audience come together to create a magical experience.  The musical line-up is rife with accordions, ukuleles, banjo’s and horns with festival favourites Cut A Shine being joined by Skinny Lister, the Lovely Eggs and The Perhaps Contraption,  an astonishing, twisted brass, art punk marching band.  Just a few of the theatrical highlights are; Lost In Translation Circus production of La Balade de Bergerac a wild, breathtakingly beautiful circus show inspired by Cyrano De Bergerac;  The Revenge of Mr Trout, a zany chaotic, interactive outdoor adventure and Taking Flight Theatre’s inclusive a Midsummer Night’s Dream. Co Director Rowan Hoban said “this will be the most adventurous and exciting programme line up we’ve ever had”

The award-winning festival, which takes place in Cheshire each August takes families out of their day to day lives and invites them to sing, dance, play, explore and discover art together in a spellbinding natural landscape. The festival is unique in its offer of a weekend packed entirely with performances and workshops specifically for families. It has grown from strength to strength in its first three years and organisers are certain that Just So Festival 2013 (16/17/18 August) will be the best yet.

In 2013 the festival team will be delving further into the woods on the Rode Hall Estate to bring the audience some exciting new areas including Telling Tales, a world full of books and The High Chaparral where everyone can release their inner cowboy.  Buckets & Spades the beach installation from 2011 will be making a return and what better setting than the banks of the lake at Rode? Peekaboo, their area for 0-3 year olds will again be providing high quality performances and experiences designed around their smallest visitors.

The Just So team are gearing up to make a resounding success of their 4th annual festival for which Early Bird tickets sold out in September.  Full details of all acts, activities, adventures and tickets are available on the website now at www.justsofestival.org.uk

Just So Festival moves to a new home!

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The festival provides a magical experience where art, music and literature are embedded and entwined in a beautiful and wondrous landscape. We provide a broad range of musical, theatrical, visual and aural performances, workshops and installations within a safe, natural and magical setting. Every clearing and glade holds a new way to unleash creativity. Families discover and delight in the spectacular within the woodland environment during this spectacular weekend event.

The Just So Festival has a brand new home for 2012 – the wonderful woods and parkland of Rode Park, near Scholar Greenthe beautiful woods and parkland of Rode Hall in Cheshire. The not-for-profit family arts festival will take place in its new location over the weekend of 17th-19th August 2012 when families can share a weekend of wonder, magic and discovery in the company of authors, performers, artists and musicians. Sarah Bird, festival director, said “Rode Park is a beautiful landscape, with acres of mysterious woodland and surprising nooks and crannies just waiting to be transformed into magical and exciting spaces. Campers will be able to spread out among glorious parkland, which has at its heart a breath-taking lake”

The family arts festival was launched in 2010 by Sarah Bird and Rowan Hoban, who after spending years visiting traditional festivals with their children found much of the entertainment off-limits for the whole family. The result was the Just So Festival, a weekend-long journey of the imagination, where everything from a beach installation, gypsy bands, top-name authors and creative workshops illuminated the arts for children and parents amid the natural landscape.

Over the coming months the team will release lots of exciting bits of programming, great acts, workshops and vendors, but with Early Bird tickets sold out since September festival goers will need to be quick if they want to join in the festivities. Rowan Hoban, festival director, explained, “ We certainly won’t be expanding the number of people at the festival, we think that we currently have the right balance with a safe and intimate atmosphere so that families can have creative adventures, singing, dancing and playing together without having to queue up or make their way through overwhelming crowds. Our aim is to create spellbinding environments where the audience feel like anything is possible”

 

Date: 17-19 August 2012
Location: Rode Hall Parkland, Cheshire

Saturday Day Tickets sell out at the Just So Festival

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The Just So Festival was the brainchild of two mums with a love of the arts and a desire to create a shared experience for families through participation, discovery, wonder and play.
 
Director Sarah Bird says ‘Day tickets for the Saturday have now completely sold out but we still have weekend camping tickets available as well as day tickets for the Sunday. Our programme of events has more than doubled since last year and there are many performers, workshops and events taking place on both days as well as a great many which are exclusive to the Sunday. Tickets will not be available at the gate, so we would recommend that families planning to come along this year snap them up quickly!’
 
Co-Director Rowan Hoban continues, ‘The response to this year’s festival has been truly amazing. Our early bird tickets and glade camping tickets sold out incredibly quickly after last year’s festival and we are unspeakably excited about welcoming our families into the festival to share what promises to be an extraordinary line up of events.’
 
Some of the many varied highlights of this year’s festival include music from the Zen Hussies and Polly and the Billets Doux; workshops by bestselling authors Adele Geras and David Lucas; a beach installation; circus and pirate training; a midnight feast; digital camera workshops; baby yoga; multisensory and food sculpture as well as appearances from both The Gruffalo and Elmer the elephant.
 
Rowan Hoban says, ‘This time last year Just So Festival had only existed inside our heads and we couldn’t quite believe it was really happening. We’re so happy that we’re here again; that we’re allowed to call this festival organising lark our job. We think 2011 is going to be even more magical than last year and are ever so grateful to our festival families for coming along and making it what it is.’

Just So Festival 2011 announcement

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Held over the weekend of Friday 19th August 2011 to 21st August 2011.

Line-up

Girl Peculiar, Polly and the Billets Doux, The Zen Hussies, Cut a Shine, Gypsies of Bohemia, Jessie and the Orbits and The Augustalias are the first acts confirmed.

Tickets

An adult weekend ticket (16+) is priced at £80 , a weekend child ticket (aged 3-15 years)is priced at £35, with children aged under 3 free to attend. Please note that 2011 camping will be a mix of glade and field camping. The first 250 families will be allocated glade camping, and later bookings will be camping on adjoining fields. An adult day ticket (16+) is priced at £20, a child day Ticket (3-15) is priced at £10. Under 3s day tickets are free. All under 18s must be accompanied to the festival by a responsible adult..

Babies

The family festival experience includes family camping, nice loos, baby changing tents with changing mats and wipes, a breast-feeding boudoir, an area with electicity points for bottle warmers and sterilisers, and more.

Location

Just So Festival is set in 65 acres of English woodland in Staffordshire, under an hour away from Manchester and Derby, and under an hour and a half from Birmingham, Liverpool, Nottingham and Sheffield.

Other attractions

The festival will provides an experience where art, music and literature are embedded and entwined in a beautiful and wonderous landscape. Expect also a lantern parade, midnight feast, festival opera, festival choir, children’s authors and illustrators, animation workshops, machinery drama workshop, Wonderland, a Gingerbread House, circus skills, Bespangle hazel wood circle, Famous Five Picnic, storytree, puppet show, the Jumblies, The Button Museum, and more.