The final festival of our season. Eco friendly music festival and educational event Out Of The Ordinary Festival took place on a petting farm in Sussex over the Autumn Equinox weekend.

OOTO is 3 day eco & family friendly festival set in the beautiful Sussex Countryside celebrating the Autumn Equinox. Solar powered stages and wind generators powering, fascinating talks and workshops plus children’s activities, a green market place plus many more out of the ordinary surprises!

Out of the Ordinary Festival aimed to be a snapshot of how people could live together in a sustainable way. For the weekend families have the chance to come together and learn something new at one of the many talks or workshops taking place at the event. The festival itself took place on a petting farm in Sussex. We arrived late on the Friday when most people had already arrived. Space in the campsite was already full and the facilities were already overused. To get to the main campsite you had to walk through the festival arena itself as there were no clear barriers between the festival arena and the camping. The idea being that the festival has the feeling of a camping community where people are free to wander as if in their own eco-village for the weekend. The emphasis here is on having an educational and enlightening experience with lectures from people such as Professor Gordon Hillman the wild food expert, and Andy Thomas a crop circle expert. The biggest draw being a talk given on civil rights.

The festival was staged around a handmade modern stone circle built and aligned to the heavens as a working observatory and the main event of the festival was a sunrise from the centre of the circle along the autumn equinox alignment. Many of the stages were solar powered, the bands were not the main draw for the festival and the music stages were small and enclosed in tents. However Banco Di Gaia and Eatstatic were by far one of the highlights of the weekend and kept revellers happy. Alternatively, the performance from Poi Passion memorized the crowds.

With the layout of the festival being similar to a village there were streets set up for the green ethical market supporting local businesses. There were numerous stands selling items such as crystal jewellery, hemp clothing, second hand clothing, car-boot goods, educational books, natural foods, handmade jewellery and all manner of ethnic products. There was plenty of time to visit the healing fields, to enjoy some cabaret, get involved with the circus, learn some yoga moves, and take in some comedy. If you are looking for a camp with the chance to explore some alternative theories then OOTO festival is one for you.

Unfortunately being a smaller festival space is limited and this is not a festival to attend if you are looking for a spacious pitch. The toilets there are compost toilets which are normally more than adequate at any campsite or festival. However at OOTO I had one of my most unsatisfactory experiences of a festival toilet and ended up covered in compost and feeling like I needed to get changed every time I went to the toilet. I can’t comment on whether this was a design fault, or if it was because of a general lack of knowledge amongst the festival goers on how to use these particular toilets at OOTO. If you attend next year I suggest you get there early and a travel loo, or a Sheewee to avoid getting compost stuck to you and tissue to stick up your nose to avoid the smell.  Overall the facilities at this festival need improving on as there was a lack of parking space, and poor toilets. But the helpfulness of the crew and the fantastic handmade chips more than made up for this.

Recommended for:

Eco-Friendly