First Festival Of The Year - Hogsozzle 2018

Does anyone else feel like this winter has gone on for several hundred years? I've forgotten what sunshine feels like on my skin and I can't remember the last time I drank rum out of a grass-filled plastic cup. Honestly, these last few weeks of Arctic weather and cloudy skies has kind of taken it out of me.

So, finally, the Eternal Winter is over and SPRING is on the horizon. That means it's time for the band to start booking up festivals, yay! For the last three years I've been lucky enough to go to Hogsozzle in Hertford during the last bank holiday in May with our friends, an 11-piece band called The Turner Brothers - all my posts about the band and their gigs are linked here.  This year the fun starts on the 25th of May and goes on until 27th - get your ticket by clicking here!

I've shared so many pictures of Hogsozzle over the last few years that some of these may be familiar if you have ever read one of my festival roundups, but I've grouped my all time favourite pics by year throughout this post anyway, because you can't have enough festival throwback pics on freezing Spring days, right?

Hogsozzle 2015...

...more 2015

As the band have played the festival for the last four years running, they aren't on the line-up this year, but I'm hoping this won't stop us heading over yonder hill to the custom built festival site (the guys run Wilkestock from the same site later in the Summer!) and getting ridiculous - we've seen several of the same people year in, year out so I'm looking forward to reconnecting with all the friends we've met over the years.

Hogsozzle is a small festival with a friendly vibe and a serious focus on looking and being as silly as possible. My favourite thing to do there is to sit on one of the huge torn sofas perched on top of the hill and just watch the craziness happening all around.

 ...2016 continued

 Every year the staples of what makes this a joyful start to the festival season stay the same. A glorious powdered paint fight, a couple of huge sizzling Hogs (included in your ticket price) and a line-up of some seriously awesome dance and entertainment acts as well as some of the best fancy dress we've seen in the last few years - and it's one of the cheapest around too. You can snap up tickets on their official site by clicking here.

Hogsozzle 2017...

...more 2017

I would love to try out their luxury camping this time round, each year we've have created our own little campsite area with gazebos and lights but I think trying the luxury camping would be super fun - there's bell tents for hire and the whole thing is set up ready when you get there. I'll be doing some camping and festival essential guides in the coming weeks as we dig our kit out from under the Christmas tree and everything else we've piled on top and I'm always looking for recommendations and gadgets to take camping. This year my essentials are going to include a solar powered fan, some kind of non-heavy, easy to carry chair situation and a battery charger that doesn't blow my phone battery with two uses - please do pop your recommendations below.

The line-up is looking pretty sweet too, no word yet on whether our dance tent favourites Mirrored Theory are going to be playing a set but I do know that Scratch Perverts have a slot and there's a DJ set by Dub Pistols which I can't wait to get down to but the biggest draw for me is the fancy dress. This years theme is pretty generic and I think you could probably dress up as basically whatever you wanted if you put a bit of thought into your backstory - Fantasies & Fairytales. Don't forget my shopping and inspiration guides if you are stuck for fancy dress ideas, just click the images below.

Will you be coming to Hogsozzle this year, or any other boutique festivals? Buy your Hogsozzle ticket here and let me know you are coming, I'd love to join you for a dance in the Pig Pen! I'd be interested to hear about more small, friendly weekends we can get booked in for the summer. After the last few months of snow, ice and staying in I'm definitely ready to start planning an epic summer. Don't forget to drop a comment down below if you've read this far, it really means a lot to me when people comment on my blog posts :)