Summer Sundae Weekender lives up to its reputation as a sunny, well organised green festival

Our expectations were high as we made the journey to Summer Sundae, and over the three-day sunny weekend Leicester's friendly festival more than met them, making this one of the most enjoyable weekends of the summer.

We arrived to be directed to the camping area a tree lined area in Victoria Park beside the festival, with plenty of loos, that were cleaned incredibly regularly. Colourful campervans were parked alongside the hard standing under the leafy boughs and providing a barrier between normal, and family and quiet camping.

The festival is based in the grounds of De Montfort Hall, utilising the venue's indoor stage, bar, and front steps. Although the weather stayed fine, the balcony fringed indoor venue, and four other stages (Rising, Musician, eFestivals Comedy Tent, and Phrased & Confused were all covered as all weather venues. Also beside the house was the centrepiece of the festival, a large outdoor stage placed in a natural amphitheatre and flanked by trees.

The main stage provided festival goers with a choice of music, (see other music reviews) and well planned running times meant when it was silent the smaller stages, and the soundproofed indoor stage could perform with no sound bleed. The diversity of acts on offer at the same time meant rarely was a stage housing tent overcrowded, and if it was there was plenty of other things on offer a bit less packed. The building itself offering seated balconies to watch the acts, out of the sun, and rest tired legs after a day exploring the festival. Its solid stone steps a good place to sit and revitalise, or a good place to meet up with friends.

All weather walkways, or hard standing led from the main arena to the village area, or for the young kids - 'The Garden' and the 'Kids Fun Zone' just around the corner from the entrance covered in giant mushrooms and a huge foil saxophone. Better still, it was offering fun rather than imposing any off putting draconian entry policy that other festivals have.

The area was separate, enclosed, and alcohol free, alive with youngsters making stuff, and enjoying a full programme of activities including a tea party and giant pillow fight. As the evening arrived kids would exit the area in front of the Hall holding some well conceived examples of their handiwork.

There's a large purple bus beside the hall offering favours for people, carried out by the purple shirted volunteers who are part of the National Young Volunteers Service. They are a bit like 'bob-a-job' without having to pay the bob. The most striking of them is 'Favour Man' who is covered in useful gadgets from toilet rolls, to first kits, condoms, to wet wipes, and he is there to help any festival goer in need for free.

We're told the the Village area had this year been expanded, and looked lovely. The multitude of tents and stalls offering information on good causes both global and more local, and issues to read and talk about. There were stalls selling colourful festie goodies, lots of caterers, and free samples from the likes of Pringles, Walls pies, and Bulmers to name three. The Hurly Burly Cafe, and Asian Grub Foundation providing music to accompany a cup of tea, and some churos.

It's a bit of a shame this area had to close at 1am as it provided a great late night area - with many sitting on the grass chatting enjoying the warm night air under the stars. The silent disco also keeps late night revellers happy, until 1am, and then spilled out its sweaty party crowd.

This caused my only gripe of the weekend. The closing of the Village Area brings hordes into the campsite at the same time, despite the strung lighting, the revellers seem unable to see the smaller tents on the edges of the path to their tent and there's many damaged tents each night, which then get binned on the final day. I've seen strip LED lighting in clear plastic tubing used at other festivals in the campsite to create a path for those walking back to their tents a bit the worse for wear to stay within, and not trip over guide ropes, which does a good job at reducing this problem.

There are a couple of overly rowdy revellers who the security deal with rapidly, and apart from that the campsite (on a new site this year) has a nice atmosphere, lively bubbling talk, and quietly playing music, meaning those that want to sleep aren't disturbed. Talking of disturbed sleep it seemed that the quiet and family camping weren't separate enough or clearly marked, the use of a large sign would have helped. Although the nearby ear plug selling stall must have provided some relief. Talking of signs, on Monday as we drove our campervan out there were no signs or marshals directing us out and we ended up having a gentle arrive around the park looking for the exit, some signage here would also have helped.

At a time when many festivals are blaming the recession on having to hike up their prices it was great to find that wasn't the case here. Plenty of food priced reasonably from snacks around £1.50 to reasonable £4 tasty budget meals and a wide choice available around £6.

Drink too was reasonable, a real ale bar priced 20 ales at £2.90. A choice of only Bulmers ciders (yeurk!), a Red Stripe bar, cocktail bar with £4 the price for decent measures, and a Jack Daniels bar. You'd have thought with these low prices that there would be alcohol banned from the arena, not so, and festival goers brought picnic hampers too, yet food sellers started to run out on Sunday and the ale bar ran dry too. Other festivals who ban drink and food in the arena should perhaps come to Leicester and see that it doesn't mean no profits on food and drink.

Those who brought their food to sit in front of the main stage for the day, were allowed blankets but not chairs. I don't know if it's the people the festival attracts but there seemed to be a bigger sense of fun, and more people willing to interact with others in the crowd, rather than it being an insular experience.

The audiences seemed fairly well mixed age wise. Although the mix of those camping included much more teenagers spending the weekend with friends. There were young children there, although they tended to be kept busy in the village and kids area until the sunset and they joined the throngs for the headliners. Although crowds in the main preferred to watch rather than dance to many of the acts, it was the local bands who really impressed.

These thankfully weren't the usual offering at other festivals of young fledgeling bands, bringing their mates with them to trash the campsites and be 'rock'n'roll' for the weekend. But, instead, proper circuit bands who provided a great flavour of the music scene at the live venues in Leicester.

Musically the festival offered a variety of acts with the best finds often on the smaller stages. The festival programme doing a fairly decent job of letting me know what sort of music I could expect, and the comedy and spoken word offered good wider options during the day. There was even a chance to enjoy a film or two - although I suspect more inclement weather would have brought bigger crowds to the more alternative festival offerings.

The festival is heavily into being green, having won greenerfestival awards, and the city of Leicester itself aims to be green. It was impressive to see how clean the campsite was left as people packed up on Monday morning. The arena was spotlessly cleaned each night, and during the day it's been the only festival I've seen so many attendees sorting their rubbish into the correct bins. Clearly festival goers are proud to keep this festival so clean and green.

A compact little all weather festival, was never overcrowded, and I could tell a lot of care going into the details, offering much for the festival goer to explore, as well as the diverse range of lively music across the stages. Great for all ages, a nice vibe, with everything so close, and the city of Leicester available for late night revellers.

The festival is also living up to its green credentials and the audiences should be commended on keeping it so clean. The festival had friendly staff, and low key policing, and I saw no anti-social behaviour in the arena all weekend. Well done for Richard H and the team for putting on such a lovely event, one of the nicest festivals of the summer. I'd highly recommend it to anyone.

Latest Updates