Victorious Festival | Day 1

outfit: denim jacket - cancer research, dress - h&m, sandles - new look

This was my first whole weekend at Victorious Festival, being fairly local this festival is in a really good location and I had attended one day at the 2016 one. It is quite handy that you can go to a festival on your doorstep for no more than £45 a day, but it would be quite handy to release weekend tickets - which Victorious are doing for next year! You can already grab an adult weekend ticket for £80.

I managed to bag myself a press pass for the whole weekend, which included access to the VIP area. And my oh my, did this come in handy to hide from the wind and rain!

The VIP area had hammocks, hay bales, a cute circus tent with loads of seating, unique food vendors who weren't in the main area, massages, face painting, a bar and a viewing area for the main stage. This place was heaven when the weather decided to attack Portsmouth. I chose the wrong outfit of course; a completely summery festival look for anticipated photos. 

I've never paid for a VIP upgrade before but had always wanted to know what it was like, the viewing area was a godsend as it meant that a shorty like me was guaranteed to actually see what was going on! The fancy flushing toilets were such a nice surprise - I've had my fair share of horrible portaloos so this was a sight for sore eyes.

my goofy cute boyfriend

It looks like they’ve expanded their stages from when I went two years ago, there were more places to buy food and drinks from, some cool photographic signs, lots of colourful flags and hilarious Dave signs. 

the common stage

There was a food vendor called Passion and Smoke selling poutine! Which usually you can only get in Canada (I was informed by my lovely new friend Danielle that 7Bone in Guildhall Walk also do it - review opportunity to come) It was really nice but went cold a little too quickly and I’d have liked it if the cheese curd had completely melted but it was still goooood. They also had seasoned the fries which tasted lovely.

poutine on the right and delicious churros on the left

We arrived early on Friday to try and get some photos before the festival-goers turned up, but the site was quite limited as they were still setting up the other areas. There was the Common Stage, Strongbow DJ Bar and Beats and Swing tent available and a lot of food trucks were open.

One of the first things we did was check out the merch stalls, the merchandise was dirt cheap! T-shirts for £12 and hoodies for £23. I’ve never seen festival merch prices like this and I’m in love, I'm used to £20-£25 for a shirt or £40-£50 for a hoodie at most gigs. I was most definitely getting a line up t-shirt and line up hoodie.

After exploring the main area, the weather got quite bad so I sought refuge in the VIP area out of the wind and rain. I have been taking up reading again as I've always wanted to re-read the Harry Potter series as I'm pretty sure I didn't read most of them properly when I was around seven. I started chatting to some other festival-goers who I was sharing the table with and despite the gloomy weather they were very chipper, and it restores my faith in humanity when people can be really friendly in less than ideal situations! Think about it, would that have happened on a train? Probably not as train commuters are usually grumpy and don't want to be near anyone - I have been one of these people!

But put those people into a festival and those frowns turn to smiles, even with people dancing in the rain and puddles.

I caught a few of the acts at the beginning of the day who I liked; Marley Blandford, Hymn for Her and Come Together. One of the things I love about festivals is just rocking up to a stage and not knowing the artist or band and then falling in love with their sound. I'm one of those people who doesn't mind going to concerts of bands I don't know because listening to them live for the first time is such an amazing experience - plus you have the memories from the festival/gig attached to those songs.

photo credit: Tom Langford

I thought it was kind of odd that Kaiser Chiefs weren't the headliner's for Friday, I don't really know The Libertines that well. Ricky Wilson was such a good front man for the band, he put all of his energy into his performance and even at one point he started to climb the scaffolding around the stage - I'm sure this is a huge health and safety risk but it was pretty cool.

By this point I couldn't feel the lower half of my legs or my feet so Connor and I shivered our way back to the car. I was looking forward to getting all toasty in the car, and the fact that Saturday was supposed to be warm and sunny! It was really good to experience the Friday line up and I was excited for what was to come next.

Keep an eye out for the Saturday and Sunday posts!

All photos taken of me were by Connor Cleary on his Canon 5D Mark iii.

Disclaimer: Carousel PR were generous enough to grant me a press pass for the whole weekend at Victorious Festival which included access to the VIP area. All thoughts and opinions are my own.