Fruitstock - The Innocent Festival 2006 - Guide Review

The Bottom Line

The Fruitstock Festival is an annual free summer festival for all the family, organized by the nice people who make Innocent Fruit Smoothies, billed as a "festival for nice people".

Pros

• Free!
• Suitable for all the family
• So many activities
• Chance to hear new up-and-coming music
• Chance to visit one of London's great parks (Regent's Park)

Cons

• Has got too big. Too many people, so you can't see anything.
• Transport for London caused travel chaos - again!

I attended this free summer festival on Saturday 5 August 2006, when it was another scorchingly hot day (we were having a heatwave). Fruitstock has become an annual event and had an amazing list of attractions:

• main music stage with lots of new acts
• farmer's market
• wine tasting
• Human Fruit Machine(!)
• flirting tent
• Pimm's Big Red Bus
• relaxation area
• knitting corner
• reading library
• flower arranging courses
• poetry slamming
• yoga and pilates classes
• DJ tent
• Kid's area with:
  • kid's assault course
  • buggy park
  • baby carriers being lent for free
  • kid's smoothie tasting
  • storytelling
  • circus workshops
  • face painting

Transport for London let us down again. I know there needs to be engineering works down on the tube network but it makes it harder to get to these great events laid on around town. Camden Town tube was shut to avoid congestion (it's an old station and is undergoing redevelopment to address this ongoing problem), many of the other tube lines had partial closures for planned engineering works including the Victoria Line which I needed. Festival-goers were directed to arrive at Baker Street tube and catch a bus, but local buses were affected by planned roadworks. Transport for London really let us down.

The Puppini Sisters were great with their 1940's attire singing cover version harmonies such as Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. They really got the crowd going and I'd recommend checking them out.

Check out The Puppini Sisters - Betcha Bottom Dollar - CD:

Nouvelle Vague also did cover versions (maybe that was the theme of the day?) such as the Buzzcock's Ever Fallen In Love and Echo & The Bunnymen's The Killing Moon. Again, really nicely done. Check out Nouvelle Vague's latest CDs:
[compare urlhttp://erclk.about.com/?zi=23/s%5bC]

You'd think that something that had this much good stuff going on would get 5 out of 5 from me, but unfortunately it seems Fruitstock has just got too popular. I was so excited about seeing all the various attractions that were laid on but I found once my friends and I found a spot to sit down (and that took quite a while) we didn't want to/couldn't move again. I took my baby in a pushchair but couldn't get to the buggy park to exchange it for a baby carrier. (And it was actually too hot to have the babies exposed to the sun.)

Ben & Jerry's Sundae at Clapham Common the weekend before had charged a small ticket price (only £5) and had limited tickets to 5,000. Of course, this did mean I didn't get a ticket (grr!) but my friends who made it told me there was lots of space to enjoy everything that was laid on. Maybe next year the nice people from Innocent Fruit Smoothies should charge a small price for Fruitstock and then those of us who do go will enjoy ourselves a lot more.