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In the year 2018, Camp Quirky opened it’s doors to the public which enabled a festival full of self-converted camper vans and their owners, a perfect space for those who are interested in big hunks of metal that happen to contain houses.
Stages
The main stage of the festival was a picturesque teepee, complete with bar and hay bales. By day a haven of information and by night a vibrant venue of musical vibrations.
The other stage was a marquee, more talks and workshops. Lovely community feeling in here.
Although these were the only two official stages, I went to a talk on 3D modelling that was held outside the guys van (hi Rob!), and there were other things happening around and about the place where vans briefly became venues, proving just how wonderful and versatile a home on wheels can be.
There were also a wide variety of Quirky Campers on show, with helpful owners to show you around. But one of my favourite things about the whole weekend was the helpfulness and willingness to chat that every person there seemed to embody, Quirky Camper or not. The sense of a community atmosphere was simply fantastic.
Talks
There was a nice mix of talks, everything from more the more technical like solar panel installation all the way to more travel lifestyle driven like a discussion of slow travel.
Some of the highlights for me were the one I mentioned earlier about creating a 3D drawing for a campervan, a panel on the aspects of long-term van living, and a great talk at the end of the festival on some aspects of wood joinery, I’d actually planned to go to many more but I ended up getting totally distracted falling into conversation with various van owners across the site, which I don’t regret for an instant.
Music
Something I didn’t anticipate was the quality of the music, the atmosphere of the Teepee at night was great, and some of the acts were really impressive, highlights for me here are the wonderful tones of Tracy Gallagher and the unstoppable Langan Band. Lovely bonus add-on that I wasn’t expecting.
Things that made Camp Quirky stand out
Here some things that I thought set Camp Quirky apart, their unique selling points if you will:
Sharing of Ideas
The sharing of ideas is at the core of many festivals, but the campervan theme of this one meant that there was so much relevant conversation going on, I had a lovely time wandering around catching snatches of people discussing their favourite overnight spots, or their plans for future conversions.
The festival emailed a print-out that you could stick on your van if you wanted people to come and say hello, this really promoted going and popping your head in and it meant I saw loads more vans over the weekend than I otherwise would have.
Refreshingly Unrestricted
There were no camping restrictions, and you could park up pretty much wherever you liked, this was really refreshing as I’ve been to some festivals in the last year or two where the parking restrictions are totally over the top and end up taking away from the experience. This was a perfect demonstration of the fact that if you leave people to sort out their own parking, then everything will still work itself out perfectly well.
There were also a limited number of dogs on site, you don’t see this very often on festival sites, perhaps because of the number of people at with bigger festivals. But nevertheless, it was really nice to have some dogs running around, it really added to the wholesomeness and realism of the experience.
Vans!
Following are a load of photos I took while I was at the festival. Truth be told I spent most of my time getting distracted and didn’t photograph half of the top quality stuff that was there, but here is what I did find.
Plenty of established van-dwellers
An inspiring aspect of the festival was some of the well-known van-dwellers in attendance, the likes of The Rolling Home, The Indie Projects, Beyond The Van, Houseless Not Homeless, and Florence and the Morgans to name a few! The ones I met turned out to be lovely people (who would’ve thought!)* and it was great to see them all answering peoples questions and concerns, another aspect of the festival I really didn’t anticipate.
*Purple for sarcasm, because I assumed they would in fact be lovely people!
My Thoughts
I’m very glad I made my way over to Camp Quirky this year, I’ve got a huge stack of notes and ideas to go through, I was surprised at just how many full-time van dwellers there were, it’s very exciting to see this movement developing.
It seems like there is an increase in this particular strain of alternative living at the moment and it’s great to see events such as this one pushing it forward, so shouts going out to everyone who turned up with their beautiful vans, sharing information and just being a lovely group, it was great meeting those of you that I talked to.
I’ll definitely be going back next year, I’m very interested to see where it goes in the future and wish the Quirky Campers crew the best of luck in future festivals.
I would absolutely recommend this festival to anyone with almost any degree of interest in the van lifestyle, it’s a great crowd of people going and if you decide you’re up for it, I’ll see you in the fields next year!
Who made it out to Camp Quirky this year or would give it a shot next year? Any thoughts on the festival itself? Leave a comment below!
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