The Just So Festival 2017

Friday 18th to Sunday 20th August 2017
Rode Hall Parkland, Scholar Green, Cheshire, ST7 3QP, England MAP
£140 adult; £50 child

Daily capacity: 5,000

Last updated: Tue 18th Jul 2017

Just So Festival is a small, weekend-long festival of creativity aimed at children, young people and their families returning to Rode Hall Parkland, near Scholar Green (just 10 miles from the old site at Barnswood) in Cheshire, held over the weekend of Friday 18th until Sunday 20th August 2017.

Line-up

Music acts confirmed so far are Circe's Diner; Howlin' Ric and the Rocketeers; The Rip Roaring Success; Rajasthan Heritage Brass Band; Rob Richings; Laura Oakes; The Hot Rock Pilgrims; Cut a Shine; The Bobbysocks ;David Gibb ;The Baghdaddies ;Thingumabob & the Thingumajigs

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. For details please see the Just So news section.

Tickets

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Tickets are £140 for an adult weekend camping ticket, £50 for a child weekend camping ticket, £80 for an adult 2 day ticket, £30 for a child 2 day ticket, £50 for an adult day ticket and £20 for a child day ticket. Under 3’s go free. Local residents are eligible for a £5 discount.

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 electricity points for bottle warmers and sterilisers, and more.

Accessibility

Just So Festival has been awarded Gold on Attitude is Everything's 'Charter of Best Practice' - recognising its status as one of the UK's most accessible events for deaf and disabled people. Facilities include an accessible camping area, signage marking slope-free routes, early access to the accessible campsite and certain performances and flexible viewing areas.

For 2017, the festival launched an online audio programme, and 360-degrees Virtual Tour of the festival site.

Other attractions

The 7th year of the festival will provide an experience where art, music and literature are embedded and entwined in the landscape. Expect also a lantern parade, midnight feast, festival opera, festival choir, kids dressing up, children's authors and illustrators, workshops, pottery, puppets, and more.

New this year are 3 new areas - Silver Screen, The Forgotten Courtyard and The Social Barn.

The Village Green offer the chance to meet some of the 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 home to the Tribal Tournament. Headed up by 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.

Spellbound Forest will offer new outdoor performance for families, including a new show from comedian James Campbell, an interactive dig with curious archeologists in How Time Flies, by Handmade Theatre on the Woodland Stage. Phone Box, a new solo production by Corey Baker Dance, and live demonstrations of impossible happenings in Professor Kelso’s Strange & Unusual Phenomena. As well as the return of campfire tales, music and songs as dusk falls and the woodland magic really begins.

Tales of Animalia, from the strange and unusual imaginations of The Fabularium. There's another chance to take to the High Seas for some bonkers nautical adventures.
The Head over Heels area will be home to tumblers, somersaults and aerial mastery with shows, and a chance to have a go at circus skills, there will be The Fantastical Flying Exploratory Laboratory by Les Enfants Terribles, and the opportunity to 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!

For the very young (ages 0-2 years) there's the Peekaboo area where you can find arts (and facilities) for the tiniest visitors. This year toddlers can become 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, as well as choral lullabies as dusk falls.

This will all be accompanied by the usual magical madness of midnight feats, pillow fights, den building and the Wild Rumpus Parade.

There will be more information here when available.