I try to go to a festival every year and this years festival of choice was the Holi Festival of Colours in London. Originally the festival dates back to ancient times in India celebrating harvest and to welcome in Spring. It is also seen to celebrate the colours and unity within people, forgetting everything and to celebrate life.
The Holi Festival of Colours I attended in London did a whole lot of that. The Festival travels all over the world and did two dates at The Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at a cracking price of £38.00! So I had to get myself a ticket. The aim then was the collect your powder paint, wear white and every hour throw a whole lot of paint around to some amazing DJ's.
The day festival didn't start off to the best of starts. All week I'd been watching the weather on my MET office app like a hawk. It had been sunny and hot in Cardiff for the past three weeks, of course I'd be fine for the festival, if Wales can have nice weather of course London can. Oh how wrong was I? Torrential rain attacked the field in the early afternoon, thank god before the majority of the paint was to be thrown. That really would have put a dampner of the day (no pun intended).
We still decided to dance and throw paint around in our wellies and macs, hey that is how a festival look is supposed to really look.
My personal highlight was Zane Lowe's set. He played some classic tunes as well as some new good ones such as 'Turn Down for What' which was a crowd pleaser as he made us lower to the ground and then jump when the beat dropped. Imagine watching a field of 20 thousand doing that and then throwing paint, I wish there was an aerial shot of that somewhere.
Another favourite was Bombay Boogie Soundsystem whom seemed to also play the part of compere when the countdown struck. They had a hybrid of Western and Eastern music, and during their second set included two incredibly talented Indian dancers to the stage.
It is easy to say I was well and truly caked in paint, and even four days later am finding sprinkles of paint on myself, I do wash don't worry. It just gets everywhere. Walking back through Stratford was amazing to see so many happy, smiley, colourful people, we definitely did turn a few heads.
Even on the train back to Catford I had people coming up to me asking about it so hopefully the festival will get even more goers next year! Safe to say I'll definitely be going again and bringing a big group of people with me. If you like clubbing/ festivals/ dance festivals/ paint/ general fun, get yourself there next year!
I'll include photos below and there is also a vlog up of my whole weekend, in which the next day I will blog about in a separate post as that was eventful!
Enjoy! xoxo
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