Loco

Keep it local for this year’s festival season and take yourself along to Brazier’s Park in Oxfordshire for a little sustainable forestry, some woodcraft, yoga, knitting and African drumming at Wood Fest 2010. The younger, greener and beardier brother of Oxfordshire’s famous Truck Fest, Wood promises to keep you entertained all weekend with all manner workshops, activities and music to shake your dreadlocks to.

From the 21^st to 23^rd of May you’ll have a chance to craft a wallet from a recycled orange juice carton, brush up on your thatching skills, and indulge in a little poetry slam (whatever the hell that is!) Throw in some tai chi, salsa and circus skills and you’ve got yourself a super weekend, and I haven’t even got started on the plethora of acoustic, guitar-type, nice folky music stuff

This year’s line-up has just been revealed and there’s more acts being confirmed every week. So far they’ve got the superb sounds of Tunng, Fionn Regan, and Danny & The Champions of the World to whet your whistle, plus a smattering of lesser known World musicians with more bongos, cajóns and djembes than you’ll know what to do with.

Tickets are on sale now, and you can get your grubby little hands on them here. But because the organisers know that intimate festivals are the business – think being able to find your friends, not queuing for hours for a loo, knowing your campsite neighbours – they’ve limited tickets to a mere 800 so get your skates on. They really are very clever I say, as they’re even using a Fairtrade ticket agency. If only everyone were so thoughtful.

Getting there

This year Wood is piloting the Industry Green certification programme to measure their carbon footprint and other impacts to keep them as low as possible. Since they’re going to all this trouble; powering their festival with 100% renewable energy, fashioning a pedal powered disco, shipping in eco-toilets, the least you can do is go Loco2 and get there by public transport.

From London town you can catch a direct train to Goring and Streatley and then jump on a shuttle bus to the festival site. Or if you fancy the bus then get yourself to Oxford city centre and hop aboard a bus to Wallingford (X39 from St. Aldate), before changing for the Braziers Park bus (X40). More details of these options here if you need them.