WOMAD CAMPING
Womad is known for its world music, Hungarian fried bread, and one of the letters from the sign usually being stolen.
But lurking behind these events is a whole other side of the festival; the campground.
Roughly 4,000 people pack into the Pukekura Raceway with a variety of camping get ups, some more extensive than others.
Cloud Craig-Smith and Samantha Haldane had fitted out a 1976 Dodge van for themselves and their two children to travel to Womad in from Bethells Beach, Auckland.
‘‘We’re professional campers,’’ Haldane said.
‘‘We wanted to make it a fun thing for us and also the kids.
‘‘The good festival experience for us is for them to have their own space to be able to escape if they need to.’’
Craig-Smith and Haldane had camped at Auckland’s Splore festival many times, but this was their first time to Womad, which they said was amazing.
The Martins, the Williams, and the Meeks had been coming to Womad to camp with their children for the last eight years.
‘‘It’s three families that have combined and it’s morphed over the years,’’ Sherry Martin, who comes from Levin, said.
‘‘It’s become more luxurious as we’ve got older,’’ she said.
‘‘Our inspiration is that we love Womad and catching up and our kids love it.
‘‘When we ask them what is the best part of Womad they always say the camping.’’
The families always arrive early to secure a camping spot next the cricket pitch for the kids to play on.
Their village of tents took an hour and a half to set up.
A group of Womad volunteers found themselves become fast friends and set up camp together.
‘‘Some of us met at a youth hostel and some of us met at our volunteering briefing,’’ Laura Samuel, who is from Wales, said. ‘‘Now we’re like a little team.’’ The group, made up of travellers from England, Israel, the Netherlands, and Germany, spent their spare time at Womad practising different acrobatic movements and playing with pois made out of toilet rolls.