Now 14-years-old, the Deer Shed Festival has recenlty finished for 2024, running for 3-days from 26 July 2024.
The Deer Shed people have always been lovely to work with, and they kindly invited us down for the weekend.
Nearly everyone camps at the festival, with various options from general camping, to posher camping, where you can park near your car, or options where the tent is provided. The good thing about Deer Shed is that it is a relatively compact site, meaning there is not far to walk from the car park to your pitch. You can hire a trolley if you are not into the pack-horse look.
Most of the routes around the camping are illuminated, and there are the portaloos and showers. You are not going to be queuing for hours for the loo, and they keep on top of them maintenance-wise. That is the same for the main part of the festival arena.
Normally there are taps with freshwater throughout the campsite, and arenas, but this year there was a problem and they couldn’t be used. Hats-off to Deer Shed in sorting the problem quickly, and probably at significant cost to themselves – they bought pallets of bottled water and a water tanker.
Music gets going from around lunchtime on the Friday, and there are multiple stages. One main stage that alternates with the covered stage at the top of the hill. There is food/ shopping area that links to another area, that is slightly more geared to younger people. But the options of things to do are pretty extensive from bands, to more TED type talks, to comedy. If you can’t find something to do then you then you are not looking!
Some of the events do get really busy though, the Mayor of Manchester, Andy Burnham, was there. That was a tricky one to get to see, as was the Horne Section – the good thing is that it is easy to then just fall into something else, if your Plan A didn’t happen.
There is a strong focus on things for children, with a science and activity tent, sports activity field, along with shows just for them. Teenagers are more catered for with a large breadth of music that runs until about 11pm, but then there is silent disco until about 2:30am, along with a late bar.
Each evening had a featured headline-act, and that’s not diminishing how good the other acts were. CMAT, Bombay Cycle Club, and The Coral each took that slot for a night.
There are plenty of food stalls, but if you are feeding a family of 4 throughout the festival, just with food from the stalls, bring some money. A typical main-type meal, burger, pizza is about £12. So if you are have breakfast, lunch and tea out, along with a few beers (£6.20/ pint) you will be on about £50+ a day. Being in a tent for 3-nights can be a bit tricky, I know some turn up with electric hook-ups and even bring microwave ovens, but for many you are into cereal bars and battery packs to keep you connected to the other world.
If you want to take the family to a festival, and everyone be safe, this has to be on your shortlist to go to. You are going to see people enjoy themselves, but you can let the kids roam free and do their thing to. That means a better time for all.
As a festival it has a lot to offer, and as a weekend of entertainment offers good value.
