Friday 26th August 2022
There are lots of interesting talks and workshops scheduled for today which we plan to go to! However, as we found out, some of the fun and magic of Shambala is everything you come across that you haven’t planned to see!
Firstly, whilst whilst walking around to find the various venues, we came across Ubuntu Food giving an open fire cookery demonstration, where they cook a seasonal veg platter whilst explaining how to use an open fire and certain ingredients in the most effective way. Everyone got to taste their food - it was so original and tasted amazing!
Located near to the Community Garden was the Sustainabubble, with a talk starting at 11am on ‘Fostering Optimism and Agency - Letters from your future self’. This focused on the climate crisis and visualising a better future, to write a letter to our current self explaining how that better future was reached. It definitely gave us a lot of think about, especially as we have had some guilt around thus roadtrip, so will think more in the future about our own actions and the effect they have on the climate.
Leaving aside these thoughts for now though, we wandered on to Rebel Soul at 12.30pm for a talk on ‘Organising for Collective Joy in the Community’. Shauna Rushton ran a great workshop here, where people had to discuss in smaller groups ideas for communities in how to bring everyone together. It was nice to speak to others at the festival, who live in completely different areas of the UK, to come up with ways to connect to those living nearby.
Other sights during the day:
Shambala is definitely a festival where ‘audience participation’ is central, but it works so well! This was demonstrated again later on, when we went to watch some of the Shambolympics! This is where teams of 6 ticket holders compete in challenges to try to win their team a ticket to Shambala 2023. The hosts of the Shambolympics were really funny and so were the participants, who had to try and get the most points in challenges like ‘ski jumping’ and ‘diving’. Located opposite to the Shambolympics tent was the dance workshops, where they teach Salsa, Balkan Folk Dance and many more types of dance! This also looked so much fun!
At 4pm, a wedding took place at the Shambolympics stage, as a couple had pledged their savings in lockdown in order to ensure that Shambala could continue after the Covid-19 pandemic. In order to thank them, Shambala had organised a big wedding celebration for them, as they had met at a previous Shambala festival. There was a huge audience watching!
One of the highlights of the weekend was seeing Simon Armitage performing some of his poems in Phantom Laundry. He was really good and it was very popular! The venue was also beautifully decorated!
Once he had finished, we decided to go back to the van to get a bit of rest before our night shift. Neither of us managed to get any sleep as the music was quite loud, but it was nice just to rest for an hour or so!
Our shift started at 23.45. We were based on the Woodland Exit for the first two and a half hours, making sure that the one way system was in place and checking wristbands for campsite access, as well as moving the barriers for vehicles. We were then moved to the Woodland DJ Treehouse, where we stood for the last half an hour of the DJ, to make sure everyone in the audience was okay. We stayed near that area for the rest of our shift, opening the gate for crew members.
When 8am came around, we were tired but pleased that the night shift had gone well! We had thought it could be tricky but mostly all was fine. Bed for a few hours before it all starts again - so much to see during the day that we don’t want to miss too much!!
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