Bearded Theory Sunday 2015 – pirates, beards and bands

Sun­day is unabashed­ly fun day at Beard­ed The­o­ry. Pro­ceed­ings kick off with Mr Moti­va­tor and a mass exer­cise ses­sion at the Wood­land stage at the unearth­ly hour of 12 noon, and the place is packed out – Mr Moti­va­tor’s appeal is clear­ly undimmed. There’s so much to cel­e­brate today. First­ly those threat­en­ing rain­clouds are beat­ing a retreat. It’s also Pirate…

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The best festivals for 2014 – an update

Here’s an update of some of my top fes­ti­val rec­om­mends for 2014 and as of the time of post­ing, still have tick­ets avail­able. These are all small to medi­um-sized gath­er­ings (no hour-long trudges to the are­na). All these fes­ti­vals have plen­ty of well thought-out activ­i­ties for chil­dren and a fair­ly broad age range of atten­dance, so whether…

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Green and pleasant: festivals for 2014

Dust down the sleep­ing bags and camp­ing stove, the start of fes­ti­val sea­son is only a cou­ple of months away. These days, music fes­ti­vals are work­ing hard­er to attract a fol­low­ing, offer­ing debat­ing ses­sions and work­shops, ban­quets and bal­loon­ing, hop­ing to carve out a unique and iden­ti­fi­able image from a sea of for­mu­la­ic events. Here…

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Festivals round up 2013. The greats and the RIPs

With such a gor­geous hot sum­mer it’s been a good year for music fes­ti­vals. Glas­ton­bury organ­is­er Michael Eav­is who final­ly bagged the Stones this year is call­ing it one of their best ever. But my inter­est is in small­er fes­ti­vals, part­ly because I like being able to walk from tent to are­na in under ten min­utes, partly…

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Review: Letting our hair down at Bearded Theory 2013

Beard­ed The­o­ry fes­ti­val 2013: it’s the fes­ti­val of Beards, Bands and DJs, and that just about sums it up. Now in its sixth year, Beard­ed The­o­ry is set in pic­turesque Kedle­ston Hall, Der­byshire. With some­thing like around 8,000 rev­ellers it’s a nice size, and man­ages to feel like one big par­ty. Beard­ed The­o­ry’s line-up leans towards…

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