Latitude Festival 2019
AD – My tickets to Latitude Festival were gifted in return for blog and social media coverage.
40,000 people flocked onto Suffolk's vast Henham Park for the 14th year of Latitude Festival this July. Known for being one of the UK's most varied and immersive festival experiences, as well as the UK Festival Award winner for Best Family Festival. Between 16-19 July the buzzing atmosphere echoes from the moment you arrive at the festival gates and you can enjoy everything Latitude has to offer from it's line up of music and performing arts.
Latitude is popular with families and has a laid back vibe to it. Year after year the line up spans music, comedy, poetry, theatre, politics, film and workshops across the weekend. 2019's line up was just as thrilling as previous years with headline sets from George Ezra, Stereophonics and Lana Del Rey. Whilst over in the comedy arena the likes of Russell Kane, Katherine Ryan and Jason Manford and theatre productions take place on the Waterfront Stage from such incredible companies such as Sadler's Wells.
Over the weekend you can take a wander around the site, stumbling across woodland film screenings, live art and the sanctuary of wellbeing, where you can relax amongst ambient soundscapes or get involved with a yoga class.
We arrived on the Friday afternoon and quickly set up our tent in the Guest Area. Our campsite was spacious and came equipped with toilet & shower facilities as well as a small stand for coffee and breakfast too! We managed to position ourselves in a better location than we had on our last trip and got decent sleep over the weekend too.
FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS
We began our Latitude experience by heading over to the BBC Sounds Stage. The tent which has become iconic for its red and blue stripey tent high on top of the hill overlooking the beautiful grounds of Henham Park. This stage enables you to enjoy the very best in up and coming artists, DJs and astounding solo singer songwriters, indie icons and even legendary big name acts.
First on our visit was to list to Freya Ridings. It was a special day for Freya as it was the day that her debut album was released (and I haven't stopped listening to it since seeing her live!) She launched into a fantastic set of well-known and brand new tracks, her voice is astounding and I loved her performance so much. Her forceful voice is given the maximum opportunity to capture the audience only backed up by a cello and a drumbox - highly effective.
One of our definite highlights on Friday, if not the entire festival weekend was Amusical. Jayde Adams and Kiri Pritchard-McClean love their musicals and can definitely belt out a show tune too! This duo invite comedians onto the stage - and who are lovers of musicals too to have their moment to become a star! With the help of a live band, headed by Dave Cribb the thunderous vocals make for a cracking night for musical lovers like myself.
We were in for an absolute treat with Maisie Adam singing Grease's 'You're the One that I Want' as both Sandy and Danny whilst Sindu Vhee sings another Grease classic 'Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee'. The evening doesn't lose it's element of comedy and was honestly one of the funniest nights of the year for me.
They've also recently released a podcast! Go and listen to it here.
Over the weekend you can take a wander around the site, stumbling across woodland film screenings, live art and the sanctuary of wellbeing, where you can relax amongst ambient soundscapes or get involved with a yoga class.
We arrived on the Friday afternoon and quickly set up our tent in the Guest Area. Our campsite was spacious and came equipped with toilet & shower facilities as well as a small stand for coffee and breakfast too! We managed to position ourselves in a better location than we had on our last trip and got decent sleep over the weekend too.
FRIDAY HIGHLIGHTS
We began our Latitude experience by heading over to the BBC Sounds Stage. The tent which has become iconic for its red and blue stripey tent high on top of the hill overlooking the beautiful grounds of Henham Park. This stage enables you to enjoy the very best in up and coming artists, DJs and astounding solo singer songwriters, indie icons and even legendary big name acts.
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| Photo Credit: Matt Eachus |
First on our visit was to list to Freya Ridings. It was a special day for Freya as it was the day that her debut album was released (and I haven't stopped listening to it since seeing her live!) She launched into a fantastic set of well-known and brand new tracks, her voice is astounding and I loved her performance so much. Her forceful voice is given the maximum opportunity to capture the audience only backed up by a cello and a drumbox - highly effective.
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| Photo Credit: Teodora Andrisan |
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| Photo Credit: Kyle |
We were in for an absolute treat with Maisie Adam singing Grease's 'You're the One that I Want' as both Sandy and Danny whilst Sindu Vhee sings another Grease classic 'Look at Me I'm Sandra Dee'. The evening doesn't lose it's element of comedy and was honestly one of the funniest nights of the year for me.
They've also recently released a podcast! Go and listen to it here.
We couldn't complete our Friday night without a trip to the main area, the Obelisk Stage for George Ezra! He was absolutely fantastic! He wowed the audience with some of his chart-topping songs like 'Paradise' and 'Shotgun'. The arena was packed with families, friends and strangers dancing together and the set came to a close with celebratory fireworks - it was the perfect way to close our first night and we definitely walked back to the campsite singing the songs!
SATURDAY HIGHLIGHTS
Although the weather on Saturday was very touch and go with rain but it didn't dampen our spirits for the second day at Latitude. We began our day by heading to the Waterfront Stage to see some gorgeous dance work. We were treated to James Wilton Dance's Leviathan. This fantastic piece of dance is based on Herman Melville's seminal novel Moby Dick. It's a thrilling piece of movement that blended athletic dance, martial arts, capoeira and partner-work. I couldn't keep my eyes off this powerful work which was accompanied by a electro-rock soundtrack by Lunatic Soul too.
We then headed to a very packed out Comedy Arena to see a snippet of Katherine Ryan's set. Her set is proudly feminist and packs in a lot of sass! We didn't see much of it because of the crowds but it was hilarious from what we did experience!
We also managed to sing karaoke in a caravan, eat delicious food from the wide selection provided by the Street Feast and enjoy some sunshine! Street Feast are the organisers of London's greatest street food markets and they created their biggest line up yet at Latitude.
On the Saturday evening we began with listening to The Magic Gang who definitely gave me vibes of Two Door Cinema Club and a band I'll definitely start listening to more!
For the Saturday evening headliner we had the delight of listening to the Stereophonics, a band I heard a lot from growing up as my dad enjoyed their music. Their music was familiar and a perfect summer soundtrack with iconic songs like 'Maybe Tomorrow' and 'Handbags and Gladbags' echoing around the entire site. I thoroughly enjoyed their performance as the sun went down.
Before heading to our final event of our festival experience we headed to the SOLAS area - which certainly comes to life at night. This area of the festival is a retreat based in woodland areas, dedicated for chilling out. It's a gorgeous space of light and colour which certainly captures your attention!
Our final destination of the night was to participate in the Massaoke! The Massaoke Band came back to the festival by popular demand if you enjoy the greatest anthems of the 80s, 90s and 00s then this would certainly be up your street! I absolutely loved singing along with some of my favourite songs of all time!
I wonder who will be performing at Latitude next summer? Hopefully I will be returning for my third year!
I wonder who will be performing at Latitude next summer? Hopefully I will be returning for my third year!