WOMAD offers a wealth of world music and food

WOMAD stands for World of Music, Arts and Dance and although it now holds numerous WOMAD Festivals around the world, the flagship UK event is now established at Malmesbury in Wiltshire. The event which brings together artists from all over the globe is hosted by Lord Sussex and family who announce with one year left to run on the current contract to host the World's largest world music festival, the event will stay at Charlton Park for another five years after that.

We arrive with clouds building on the Thursday, and the festival is well signposted and easy to find, getting wristbanded is easy, and before long we are setting up camp in one of the many fields around the central arena, overlooked by the country house. Navigation is simple, the site is well signposted and there's coloured zones to make finding your tent easy, easier still with the help of fluttering flags set up by other campers.

WOMAD's trademark is the flags made by Angus Watt especially for WOMAD although these aren't visible until we enter the arena. Arena entry is via the woodland area, a lovely introduction to the festival with its lush grass, round yurts housing healing areas, and stately trees. We're checked again for wristbands before entering the arena proper. A well spaced flat area surrounded by trees that houses the catering stalls offering a veritable feast of food, interesting stalls, a steam fair, wall of death, bars, and four proper stages. In total the festival has five proper stages, with another outside the arena amongst the trees - the Radio 3 Stage, beside it is the Taste The World stage offering food and music made by the acts. There's additional smaller stages, such as one in the real ale bar, and others being built especially for performances on the last night. Food prices range from £2 for a corn on the cob, to £8 for a local steak and chips, with a wealth of spicy, ethnic food from curries to jerk chicken, in between. Drink prices are set at £3.50 to £3.80 a pint.

As well as lovely food, retail therapy, great music from a wide melting pot of sources, healing and massage and a wide selection of real ales to keep the adults happy, WOMAD offers a wealth of activities for kids in the World Of Kids where they utilise all kinds of crafts to make armfuls of colourful things. There's other entertainment on offer too like talks and films, a human library (I wondered what happened if I let my human get overdue, but they wouldn't let me), and moving portraits. There's even a spa offering cocktails, and haircuts, although perhaps a lack of interactive installations aimed at adults.

We've not been for a couple of years, and it takes a while to re-orientate to the new layout (it's not changed much from 2009 we're told). Thursday, as is usual, offers an extra day to acclimatise and offers a little entertainment on the main outdoor open stage, and the covered Siam tent, and as these are next to each other performance times are staggered to ensure that both stages are not in use at the same time. We think as the drizzle turns to proper rain, that we're in for a wet weekend, but it stops before the entertainment starts, and we're in for a warm and dry weekend.

The festival has plenty of toilets on site, they're in impressively good knick all weekend, and also plenty of seating, something I think many festivals fall down on. Although with such a wide range of ages, there are up to four generations of families here, the norm is to take fold up chairs and settle at the back of the arena, behind those preferring to stand nearer the stage. It's worth also mentioning that I saw no trouble whatsoever the whole weekend.

The entertainment is prefaced by a welcome from Lord Sussex, where he tells us of the plans to keep the festival here for another five years. This is followed by Rhythm & Roots consisting of Malmesbury School Children, music teachers, and the occasional star, like saxophonist Pee Wee Ellis, Justin Adams, and Juldeh Camara opening the show with a spirited performance. A quick walk to the other end of the arena (it's not far) and in the Big Red Tent we are blown away by The Bays and The Heritage Orchestra with John Metcalfe and Simon Hale creating electronic scores for the orchestra to accompany the grooves of the band. It's a pumping mix of beats and strings that's unlike anything I've ever heard before, and it's made up on the spot.

It's back to the Main Stage for Cheikh Lo. Despite being from Senegal Cheikh delivers far reaching music flavoured with Latino, and Cuban notes, it's a good introduction to how much music we'll hear over the weekend that's been mixed on the palate of world music, whilst still retaining the key notes of the acts respective homeland. Better still crowds are respectful and you're able to hear the music not constant nattering. We head to our beds pleased that with no plans for a yoga workshop or similar we don't have to worry about getting up early as the first act will grace the main stage at 1pm.

The central aim of the WOMAD festival is to celebrate the world's many forms of music, arts and dance and to create awareness of the worth and potential of a multicultural society. To this end it greatly achieves this, and Friday's crowd not only sports all age ranges, but a diverse mix of cultures too. Saturday sees all classes with Prince Harry even wandering on site, perhaps to sample a vodka jelly from the vodka jellyman. It's good to see WOMAD appealing to such a mix of people, although I do feel perhaps there should be a greater promotion of organisations like Hope Not Hate, and more activism within the main arena. It seemed to me that Oxfam, Fairtrade, Global politics, political prisoners, Amnesty International and the like have been pushed to the margins, making the festival feel like a more mainstream, and commercial event, rather than a WOMAD event, if it wasn't for the music on offer, and the flags you'd be hard pushed in the main arena (apart from a few stalls) to distinguish which festival you were at.

Perhaps the music, and the people it appeals to is enough, but I felt the lack of a visible one world platform was a mistake. But, anyway, onto the music, and what a choice of music there was on offer, it took me until late in the festival to discover the music workshops in the real ale tent involved a music session and a Q&A, and I missed out on the Taste The World food and music sessions. My plan was to try and see as many acts that appealed to me as I could, and over the weekend my ambitious plan succeeded, well with a few slips on Sunday where chilling in the sunshine won over dashing around all day.

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