sustainable partying at Waveform

After a rainy festival season, the sun finally shone down on Waveform 2012. Set this time in the beautiful Somerset countryside, the fields and trees provided a perfect backdrop to a weekend of dance, sustainable living, organic food, talks and workshops.

The main arena contained the Eartheart Dragon Stage and Cafe, hosting Choony's House and Gaia Chill - the former with artists such as K-Klass, and Disruptive Influence playing harder dance music, and the latter having chilled music overnight and into the next day featuring firm favourites Banco de Gaia, and Eat Static. This venue in itself was lovely, with just the cafe and bar visible from outside, with the stage tucked away in the dark behind the two, decorated with UV artwork hanging from the walls. The cafe and bar outside had the sounds from inside the tent playing to customers, and attendees could sit on soft benches with any of the cakes, teas, chais, coffees, or even full English vegetarian breakfasts on offer to enjoy. The bar sold a wide range of very reasonably priced beers, ciders, spirits and a small selection of soft drinks as well (energy drinks being only £1 a can made them cheaper than any supermarket). Eartheart also hosted a small apothecary selling psychotropic plants and herbs.

The main field also hosted the main Waveform Psy Stage, playing host to many psy-trance artists including Hypnocoustics, Steve OOOD, and Eat Static, again. Hosted by Tribe of Frog, the backdrop of a sunset over the sea behind the stage was beautiful and really helped add to the atmosphere inside the tent. Although it seemed quite dark during the day, being lit up at night made the place really come alive. Eat Static, headlining on Saturday pulled a huge crowd, and certainly everyone was enjoying themselves. Just across from the Psy Stage was the Archangel Electronica Stage - this seemed mainly a tent that hosted a lot of dubstep and quite heavy dance music, withVinyl Junkie, Havok Sound System, and Unit 9 entertaining the crowd.

Finally the most intimate venue was the Cat's Cradle & Um Bongo Stage. A little dome, it was prettily decorated inside with houseplants up the struts, and a huge flower hanging from the ceiling. More plants were outside next to benches, so it almost felt like you were sitting in a little garden at a festival. Bands performed here, whereas at the other stages it was mainly DJs, so there was a real element of artists on stage talking to and engaging with the audiences.

From bands such as Public Service Broadcasting playing dance tunes with a banjo accompaniment (and a black and white TV playing old PSAs to the audience) to Captain Flatcap with swing-style trumpet melodies and mad flute playing (they did a dubstep-style cover of 'Dragons' by Caravan Palace - I strongly suggest you give it a listen), and some fantastic reggae from the Subajah Family this stage was certainly one to discover new bands playing electronic music in very different ways. The DJs were amazing too, with , Agent Smith, and LlamaLeaf playing everything from fantastic jungle to minimal house to keep the crowd going between bands. This stage was by far the loudest on Saturday afternoon, and possibly even the best at the festival.

The rest of the site played host to mainly cafes and stalls, including the Buddhafield Cafe and Sausage Fest, selling hearty meals for all tastes and palates. Many clothes stalls were also onsite, selling organic and fair trade clothing, a head shop selling legal highs for those looking to enhance their festival experience further, and a place to buy all manner of circus apparatus from hula hoops, to juggling balls, poi, devil sticks and much more.

There was also a caring and sustainable side to the festival - green living is something at the heart of Waveform, and the Worldshift Creative Forum held a number of talks and workshops ranging from A History of Gnosticism - A Strange Familiarity to An Introduction to Kambo Tree Frog Medicine and another called Angels, UFOs and Plasma Physics, so there was plenty on for everyone to learn so much and take plenty away from the festival with a new outlook on life.

Nearby there was the Kosmicare yurt, where anyone could go if they needed a bit of looking after. The people here were experienced, patient, extremely kind and provided a safe haven if anyone needed to crash out, talk or just needed a sit down with a cup of tea. A wonderful idea for a festival - it's great to know you can be looked after if anything goes wrong by people who have been there before.

Wandering around revealed many new faces and friends to meet and make, along with giant bubbles to play with and others showing their juggling and circus skills. There were a few dogs and even an adorable cat walking about the site. Along with a man dressed as a bright LED eagle on stilts on Saturday night, there was so much to look at and be entertained by. The festival was also quite child friendly, with many families bringing along the little ones to enjoy the sunshine and music (it's never too early to be introduced to decent music). Nearby residents also turned up to enjoy the event with one quoting "the old locals think it's fantastic".

Overall, Waveform is a lovely festival - with only 3,000 or so attendees it doesn't feel crowded and everyone can very much be considered part of a wonderful weekend. On the environmental side, it works brilliantly as an ecologically friendly festival - the only downsides were that compost toilets were not available on site (after talking to an environmental assessor, they were apparently planned but alas something fell through), and there seemed to be a lack of bins, but a dedicated litter team were right on top of things to ensure that the site was kept clean and pleasant for all. Hopefully moving to a new and permanent site next year, there is plenty more in store for many Waveforms to come, which we are all looking forward to.

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