Nova Festival 2012




With the British Festival Season well under way we took ourselves up the road to the very first Nova Festival (formerly The Big Chill) which was held at Bignor Park last weekend

Arriving on site nice and early on the Thursday in order to get our extended fix of festivities we were greeted with the now obligatory sight of muddy fields that are now part and parcel of many an outdoor experience in this country

However, undeterred and with our opening set in The Nova Arms on the Friday lined up we all jumped head first into the weekend and took full advantage of what was on offer

Festival highlights included, CRAZY P who turned in a fine set on Friday evening (Stop Space Return) on the main stage, HOWIE B playing some wonderful deep funky techno on the main stage later in the weekend, FUZZY LOGIC kicking off Thursday in the main site field with some great new rave music, THE POP UP CASINO holding things down in true Brighton fashion with a great mix of disco, funk, classic house and soul all weekend, THE SEA HAWKS in The Nova Bar on Friday night dropping some excellent loft party disco, SHEP DOG nice(ing) up the festie with some well received drum n bass biz outdoors in the pouring rain and our new friends THE NON SUCH DJS who we heard from the campsite on Thursday laying down some quality house music in the countryside (nice one lads sorry we were still busy setting up)

Overall, the vibe is what you would come to expect from a festival of this nature, low key, friendly and very relaxed with the inclusion of some great music to top things off

The layout of Nova was well thought out with a separate camping area from the main festival site which thankfully never felt detached from where the action was

We also had the opportunity to walk through some fantastic woodland when travelling from the campsite to the main festival field which was occupied by the poets, the bee keepers, visual artists and children's entertainers over the course of the weekend

The Nova Arms was situated in a great spot just across the road from where the campers were situated which meant that when the weather was at it's very worst you could still here DJs such as Tim Love Lee and Mixmaster Morris from the confines of canvas until the early hours

One aspect of Nova that could be looked into a little closer would be tapping into the very abundant crop of local artists from Brighton. This was something that came up in conversation regularly over the weekend and is something that you would hope would be investigated should the festival remain at Bignor in future years to come

A massive thank you goes out to all those that made it down to our outdoor dj set on the Friday, it was a pleasure playing as the sun eventually peered through for that brief moment, just a shame that most people were still working in the office or stuck in traffic before getting on site at midday

To everyone we met and partied with many thanks for a memorable weekend, no matter how challenging the conditions got we all got through it with smiles and good cheer

At the end of the day we're very lucky to be able to do these kind of things outdoors in the countryside in this day and age of bureaucracy and red tape

Here's to next year

BTW we loved the hot tubs and the mud wasn't that bad !!!

Here's a few images that we took over the weekend from various places on site including The Main Stage, The Zen Garden, The Pop Up Casino and The Nova Arms