Midnight Odyssey

At first light we went in search of what was already lost. A corsa was stuffed with willingly lost villagers, tents and disco dust. Never to be truly found again…

On arrival at the festival, there was a distinct sense of deja vu. The mandatory security search induced anxiety familiar to any festival goer set in.

Blissfully, this was almost immediately washed away after we were granted entry within minutes without a single bag search. Fuck yes!

And that really set the tone for the rest of our stay in the village. 

After securing camp and inhaling some, carbs, we got stuck in. 

Lost Village transports you to another Planet

From crashed cockpits and parts of planes at airbase stage, to random petrol stations, fully functioning arcades, actors, and everything in between LV is the ultimate escapism experience. 

The decor has a rusted, abandoned feel to it that leaves the villager feeling like they are at a party in a post apocalyptic version of earth.

Stage size varied greatly, allowing the villager to switch between larger, more energetic sets, to smaller, more intimate ones with ease.

la musique

House, Techno, Disco and everything in between dominated the sound waves. Personally, lost village solidified my love for house music. Consolidating a gradual drift from baseline focused electronic music to house and techno alternatives.

With Headliners such as Four Tet, Peggie Gou and Overmono putting in huge shifts. While lesser known talents punched above their weight.

For the festival goer who likes to vary their intake of dance music, this would likely be your criticism. Slight variations into house trance or tech house were present but there wasn’t a baseline in earshot.

A jump up junkie’s worst nightmare. While this wasn’t a criticism of mine, its worth bearing in mind depending on your preferred musical persuasion.

The main music would finish at around 2am with smaller tents going on to 3am. While this seems relatively early for a festival, particularly one centered around dance music culture, lost village is so good in the day it would be a waste to go all night, forgoing your energy the next day. I was concerned I would be longing for later music, but found it perfect in the end. 

The Village

Despite being a baby on the festival scene, born in 2015, organisers can feel proud of their job. Facilities were kept up well, camping was not oversold, despite the festival selling out, and the variety of food options were top tier. When asking a friend who had previously been to LV the week prior to my village experience, the first thing he boasted about was not the music, but he raved about how good the food was. I was a little taken aback since that wasn’t really what I was going for, but FUCKING HELL, was he right. I can honestly say some of the best grub I have ever had the pleasure of eating was served at a Lost Village. 

Furthermore the one time I had to find paramedics  for a bloke I found scatting out on his own, an ambulance was with him in minutes. Very impressive.

The loop was also present performing drug testing. LV was very progressive in its approach to extra curricular substances that are, realistically, unstoppable in such an environment. More festivals must learn from this example of managing and mitigating drugs rather than attempting a hard line ‘war on drugs approach’.

Less progressive was their approach tackling the age old issue of lack of phone signal in a festival. I had no signal the entire time. Some of my friends had signal sporadically but it was still reminiscent of a pre-technology age.

Now this, in principle, I love. It helps you get immersed in the village vibe and keeps people in the moment. However, in the event of loosing your group, the desire to have a working phone returns pretty fucking quickly, as me and S discovered as we ran for cover during a sudden down pour only to find we had lost out tribe.

It is a hard one to balance. I’m not sure if the lack of base station was intentional to  keep people off their phones, and in the moment, but lost village is now a medium size festival so I think in the interests of lost villagers not being too lost, get a base station next year.

The Villagers

The crowd was a bit of a mix, mostly early to mid 20’s. All very stylish with vintage Oakly sunglasses and Arc’teryx jackets wherever you looked. That being said, nobody was too cool for school. The vibes were top tier from start to finish. Something about this festival attracted fun, like minded individuals, solely concerned with having a blast. 

And when it rained, BOY did it pour. With some of us only having mear seconds to survive, no one cried and went tent. Out came the ponchos and back fucking to it.

The festival collaborated with Beavertown brewery which worked perfectly for the whole aesthetic. It made a nice change from your standard red stripe at raves, despite hurting the pockets a little more. As well as this, there was a funky beavertown stage complete with junk cars, gyroscopes and other aesthetic pieces. 

While not being a boomtown level of stage production that will make you lose all grip on reality, certainly enough to take you out of hour head if you let it.

Overall 8.7/10