The Beat-Herder Festival

Beatherder is a good festival but after having read previous years' reviews one wonders, whether this is still the same festival.

The biggest gripe is, that one gets searched just about every time one wants to go anywhere, the worst being upon arrival.

After parking your car you end up taking all your kit on a mile long hike which gets interrupted by being thoroughly searched. If you are unlucky enough to need two or three trips be prepared to be searched again and again. Therefore setting up camp can take hours, especially if you have a bit more kit because you are a bit older or have children (which is most people at this festival).

Once you have set up camp you'd like to explore the site and also go and see some acts.

Be prepared to get searched again. So make sure you bring everything you need for the whole night and also give yourself plenty of time as otherwise you may not get to see your favourite acts.

If you need to go back to your car to get more supplies...see above, and so it goes on and on, a real downer for the festival spirit.

If you are (un)lucky enough to stay in a live-in vehicle you will be searched twice every time you want to go and enjoy some music.

Despite the above, this is a good festival, mainly because the punters are a bit older and therefore are not just very friendly but also have respect for everybody else, resulting in a great atmosphere.

The food is good and varied, with veggies and vegans also having enough choice. The food prices are a bit steep (£3.50 for a cheese burger, £6-7 for a full meal) but the portions are quite large and those prices are only to be expected at a festival.

The sound on the Main Stage and at Toiltrees is excellent, less so in the many smaller tents dotted about, with some systems sounding downright awful.

Toilet facilities are excellent for a festival, right up to Sunday. Not only do the punters make a bit more of an effort but the toilets are also regularly serviced, making the festival that bit more enjoyable. We didn't try the shower facilities this year so can not comment, but there are sufficient washing facilities.

Medical care was excellent (a friend broke a leg in the mud) but the organisers could have done some things like lay felt mats or straw in the worst places, as they do at other festivals.

The music, although this festival obviously can't compete with the "big" ones, was good this year, with the highlights for us being Lee Perry, Orbital and System 7, with Mr Scruff also playing a great Sunday afternoon set at Toiltrees.

All in all a great little festival set in beautiful surroundings with everybody being very friendly, mostly due to the size of the festival and the age of the average punter.

The only downsides were the indignity of being subjected to frequent searches and the lack of organisation in dealing with the mud, especially as this was the wettest June since records began and the weather forecast was well known.

It was also sad to see that all the tents left behind were just simply crushed and put on heaps, rather than recycled.

If you were to take a group of creative artists and music-lovers, feed them acid and ask them to brainstorm their ideas for the best festival on earth, then you might get somewhere close to imagining the wacky carnival of 'Beats and Barminess' that is The Beat-Herder festival.

Born five years ago out of Bradford's underground party scene, The Beat-Herder is funded by an independent group of friends and held in the beautiful rolling hills of the Ribble Valley, Lancashire. With no corporate ties or commercial interests, The Beat-Herder sticks two fingers up to the big boys: this wacky jamboree hasn't forgotten its roots.

Diverse, vibrant and exploding with creativity, the only goal is for everyone involved to have a good time- and for a small back to basics festival, there's a million ways to do it. Meander around the eclectic array of stalls (including many fancy dress shops, ideal for Saturday's annual competition), play chinese whispers around the firepit, take advantage of the 'pimp your wellies' service, or chill out smoking hookah pipes and enjoying the acts in the Smoky Tentacles Shisha Lounge. Take part in an African dance or art workshop, challenge your mates to a space-hopper race, crawl on your belly through 'Granddad's tunnel', or try your luck on the bucking sheep rodeo.

You won't have to queue for 45 minutes to buy warm beer at extortionate prices in the main arena: feel free to take your own drinks through security, buy some cold cans once inside, or get a traditional pint in The Beat-Herder and District Working Man's Club (who wants beer tents when you can have a whole pub?) This authentic and reasonably priced watering hole had a 1940's theme this year, with a great variety of acts, comedy and entertainment, including bingo, a pub quiz, and not forgetting the annual 'Beat-Herder's got Talent' competition- judged by Corrie's Janice Battersby.

The Beat-Herder crowd is arguably the most eclectic and colourful mix of people in festival-land, and the beauty of this knees-up is that everyone- without exception- throws themselves wholeheartedly into the festival spirit: there's a whole lot of love going around and the party atmosphere is second to none. Unlike other festivals, the punters become part of the overall entertainment- a wander through the campsite means stopping off at friendly raves that rival those in the main arena, and in the campervan area you're likely to find girls selling vodka jellies and other such party treats out of the back of a 1960's ambulance.

At The Beat-Herder anything goes, and the wonders never cease. A highlight for me is John's snug, a tent decked out like an old lady's living room, complete with shabby sofas, bookcases and old paintings, with the DJ hidden behind what first appears to be a mirror. The main stage and the various tents dotted around the site offer something for everyone- folk, funk, reggae, psytrance, breaks, dubstep, techno, drum n' bass- but when the sun sets orange and purple behind the breathtaking hills, there's only one place to head for- the Toil Trees, a dreamy grotto of fairy lights, cool bars and banging tunes, where basslines wobble through the enchanted wood and the whole forest comes alive with magic.

Memorable acts this year included Erol Alkan, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip, Utah Saints and the hilarious Lancashire Hotpots, with a fantastic set from The Dub Pistols- 'bringing down the forest' for the final set of the weekend. Then there was Key-Lo and Sicknote, a little-known breaks act from nearby Todmorden making their festival debut. With the whole of Toil Trees bouncing and a reciprocal energy rarely seen (arguably one of the best crowd responses of the weekend) they really proved that you don't need big names at festivals to have a belting time.

There were, however, a few disappointing acts: a rather poor performance from Prodigy cover act The Jilted Generation for example, which left many punters questioning why the real deal weren't approached instead, and Laylo and Bushwacker's set didn't quite live up to the hype. Andy C's set in the Stumblefunk tent, on the other hand, proved so popular that a one-in one-out policy had to be adopted, leaving many punters annoyed.

Perhaps the biggest drawback of The Beat-Herder is that there is a complete shut-down of the site at midnight on Sunday, when most people are just getting into the party spirit. In addition, 3500 extra tickets on sale this year meant cattle-market style security barriers that have been absent from previous years, and as a result of this (plus stricter searches and bigger queues) many Beat-Herder regulars complained that the festival was heading towards the slippery slope of commercialism.

But this remains to be seen, and for the moment The Beat-Herder retains its charm and sticks firmly to its underground roots. It still has style, soul and plenty of substance sorely lacking at the bigger festivals. The Beat-Herder is the Alice in Wonderland of summer events, a teddy bear's picnic for grown-ups, a melting pot of insane theatre, mad shenanigans, wonderful nonsense and the best music you'll find at any dance festival.

At five am, when a beautiful lake of mist gathered eerily in the valley beneath nearby Pendle Hill- famous for its legendary witches- I began to think The Beat-Herder must have soaked up some of this ancient cosmic energy for itself.