Wellbeing Woodstock
This summer, thousands are flocking to festivals with a difference: there are no bands, drugs or hangovers — just clean living and hardcore exercise! Anna Maxted braves . . .
Summer is festival season. Sun-kissed crowds loll on the grass, swigging from bottles as a DJ on the main stage spins the decks. As the beat thumps, echoing across the fields and trees, a bunch of us move to it — women with iridescent glitter on their faces and barechested men slick with sweat.
But this weekend we aren’t dancing to a band. We’re performing a high-energy aerobic workout, led by a charismatic trainer with sensational abs and tiny shorts — and the crowds are swigging water or protein shakes. This is LoveFit, a boutique fitness festival that’s the latest wellness trend. If anyone is high, it’s strictly from the endorphin-rush that exercise brings.
While many music festivals have traditionally mixed hedonism with a dash of yoga and meditation, the vogue for fullon mindfulness and health- focused events, with the addition of great music, is new. And it’s booming, just like the uK’s health and wellness market (worth more than £23 billion in 2018, up from £20 billion in 2013), thanks to our intensifying focus on selfcare and — as one LoveFit fan puts it — the desire, common to millennials and mid-lifers alike, for a festival to make you feel ‘like you’ve had a holiday’, rather than just partied yourself into a wreck.
I’m delivered to the St Clere estate in Sevenoaks early one Saturday by the same cab firm that delivered mr motivator here last night to launch the welcome party ( theme: spandex and glitter.)
I change into sportswear in a reeking toilet — the worst aspect of any festival — and wander the grounds.
The estate is gorgeous: woods, fields and trails down to a tranquil lake. mist still hovers over the field of colourful tents and large blue dragonflies zip and dart in the warm air. But I’m not here for the quiet or to wallow in nature. I have one mission, and that is to hone my body.
Through the pines, a spin class is going at full pelt to pounding pop music while someone barks: ‘Wake up that core!’ It is incongruous in the forest stillness. I pass a hot-yoga tent, steam rising. People trot past in skimpy Lycra. everyone looks remarkably bright-eyed.
Having booked an Adventure run, I ask a man in a vest for directions. ‘It’s not what you think it is,’ he says kindly, sensing I envision a gentle jog through the trees. ‘ They’re not pointing out the fauna and flora. It’s a thrashing.’
Sure, its full billing is ‘adventure run/core/strength workout’, but I presume this entails a few star jumps. It’s 10am! The morning after Friday night! At a festival!
Twenty enthusiasts in cute athleisure gear skip after a crew member across fields and meadows. Butterflies dance, and the air is scented with hay and woodsmoke. It’s idyllic. Two instructors in black T-shirts are waiting for us. One looks angry. He suddenly screams: ‘ Why are you lot walking? ruN!’
To my dismay, there’s a selection of hard- core fitness gear on the grass. Weights, sandfilled balls, car tyres. Turns out this is a boot- camp, which features such horrors as burpees (a hateful, back-jarring exercise which involves jumping from a press-up into a squat — no one sane over 25 would do them) and running uphill carrying a tyre over your head.
I take a closer look at my classmates. The women have braided hair, glittery faces and claim hangovers, yet they’re performing lunges holding 15kg balls with no sign of distress. One wears a top with the message ‘earn the burn’. ‘How seriously do you take fitness?’ I ask suspiciously. I’m no couch potato, but I can barely speak for puffing. ‘We’re Pe instructors,’ beams one. ‘So this is our job.’
Between bouts o f heart- busting strength work, we run across the meadow and back, trampling wild mint as we go. I’m almost always last, except for one bloke in a football shirt.
I get a: ‘Well done, miss, you’re doing really well!’ This makes me feel like a very old person doing terribly.
even the shouty instructor cries, ‘excellent effort!’ as I stagger downhill with my tyres, ten paces behind everyone else. I see both trainers later by the bar — largely starved of custom until 7pm as no one is here to get wasted.
my torturers are Ian Cam and Dan Whitaker of raw Training and Nutrition, who turn out to be very sweet (though Shouty Ian was in the Army for ten years and has made paratroopers cry).
my next appointment is the 20minute PowerWave class. ‘What can they do to you in 20 minutes?’ cries someone, tempting fate. But frankly, performing squats with a weight across my shoulders in the shady woods is a relief.
I’d booked a hot tub session, but miss it as I’m inexplicably keen to get to the main stage for a HIIT class (high-intensity interval training, which raises your heart rate and burns fat by combining fast bursts of exercise with brief recovery periods.)
There’s a party atmosphere and much jumping around. You’re encouraged to ‘ scale down’ the moves to your capability, which I do, and I sneak off early, missing a burpee competition.
We’re asked to advance book no more than four activities per day, so everyone has a fair chance of reserving places — but most people take time to recuperate between classes as well. At last I flop on the grass and lunch on minty, miso-glazed aubergine with kelp noodle slaw, fermented green mango achar (pickle) and chicken — it’s a salad blessed with so many crunchy raw vegetables it takes an hour to eat.
I also have a tiny pot of sugarfree salted caramel ice- cream, which boasts 9g of whey protein and is unexpectedly delicious. But I need sugar and I am not surprised when two women briefly flee the festival to buy chocolate. (‘We’re desperate.’)
I make do with banana bread, which gives me the energy to track down LoveFit’s founder, Lauren Tickner, 29. She grew up in Sevenoaks, works in events, is a personal trainer and loves the outdoors. She observed the recent trend at festivals for wellbeing areas — yoga tents and reflexology stalls — and felt it could be done ‘in a big way’.
LoveFit is only in its second year, but has already doubled in size — with around 1,000 fitness fiends happy to pay £99 for three days of classes. Camping is included, though you can upgrade to a bell tent with attendant luxuries for an extra £400 (two people, three nights).
‘When you come out of a fitness class, it’s a very similar endorphin-rush to when you’re at a music festival,’ says Lauren. ‘And a lot of studios, especially in London, reflect that.
‘A lot focus on high- energy music, making you feel you’re in a club. This seemed like the natural next step. Being outside is so healthy. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never worked out before or if you’re super-fit, you all enjoy it together.’
While most activities here are unisex, the majority of attendees are women. Lauren’s father, Mark Griffiths, who is part of the crew (as is her whole family, dog included), believes this contributes to the warm atmosphere.
Most of the crowd are in their 20s and 30s, but there is a significant number of older guests too. Theresa Gallagher, 56, from Bedfordshire, is new to festivals and camping, and is no fan of the grim toilets, but says: ‘I’ve tried a lot of new things here — yoga, hot yoga, and mixed it up with HIIT and boxing, which I do at home.
‘It doesn’t matter what level of fitness you are at, you can work as hard as you like and have as much fun as you like. I’ve absolutely loved it.’
Indeed, you can take it easy if you wish. ‘We’ve done sunrise meditation, and yoga and [skinny] bubbles!’ exclaim a posse of thirtysomethings, amused that I’ve over- exerted myself. I also learn that last night the gin flowed and some people stayed up ‘till 1am’! I bail — or bale — on the Farm Fitness challenge, as I don’t fancy more heavy lifting.
Instead, I catch Louise Holland, 45, from Henley-on-Thames, and Sarah King, 40, from Surrey, taking part in Groove Om, a disco-themed yoga class.
Louise, trim in lime green, does combat classes, Pilates, yoga and spin at home and Sarah runs and works out at the gym — but ‘nothing crazy’.
Louise says of the festival: ‘I think it’s great. I’d definitely come again. We had a good night last night, bit of a boogie. Mr Motivator was really fun. All ages were really into it — the younger ones don’t even know who he is!’
Sarah says she’s heard grumbles about the food choices, but she’s happy. (Later, I witness someone’s tantrum over the ‘lack of protein’.) After Groove Om, I devour a posh pizza and chat to Linda Tweddle, 63, from Northumberland, elegant in jeans, a blue-and-white striped shirt and delicate earrings.
She’s probably one of the fittest here — she does Pilates, circuit training, spin. And a bit of Zumba. And swimming. And tai chi. She’s made the most of a day pass (£69) with daughter Lorraine, 38. ‘We did hot yoga, primal flow, paddle-board yoga on the lake — it’s so beautiful — then we did kickboxing. I didn’t fancy it and would never have thought of trying it. But we won a prize! I got the most kicks in the entire room.’
Meanwhile, Laurence Fountain, 32, owner of Salus boutique gym in London, is here with friends. Resplendent in round mirrored sunglasses, beaded tassel necklace and velvet shirt, open to reveal a fantastic array of tattoos, he confides he thought the weekend would be dire. (He imagined a work do.) He’s been pleasantly surprised.
A seasoned music festival goer, Laurence says: ‘This is vastly different, but shares the common spirit of all festivals — uniting with people who are like-minded and on a similar journey.
‘Often there’s that segregation with fitness and the rest of society, who like alcohol and drinking. You can almost feel alienated by being healthy,’ he adds.
Yet LoveFit, he says, ‘ is a combination of people doing what they love, in a relaxed environment and finding joy and respite in the dancing.
‘There’s a lot of natural engagement between different festival goers that you don’t often find at other festivals. In the morning, people are smiling and energetic. Last night, there was some really good dancing.’
There is indeed something lovely about this festival. It feels intimate, good- natured and civilised — almost like a country wedding without children (it’s over-18s only). And unlike after some festivals where the site is a mess, Lauren says that people formed a conga which became a spontaneous litter-pick.
As the sun sets, some diehards are still doing chin-ups in the Farm Fitness area. Others have graduated from spinach and cucumber mocktails to prosecco and gin. A band of women have put flowers in their hair.
Dry ice wafts from the stage where the DJ plays house music at immersive pitch. It’s brilliant, but most people remain sprawled on the grass.
As I regretfully leave, the barman swears that tonight’s party will be ‘hedonism at its finest’.
But even these fit and fabulous festival-goers need to rest and recover first.