Campo Sancho: Our family festival adventures in Hertfordshire

What happens when Notting Hill’s veteran party-starters decamp their crazy Carnival soundsystem to the countryside?

Making hay in the sunshine. All Photos: Roman Tamas Babel
Making hay in the sunshine. All Photos: Roman Tamas Babel

The UK is not short of a few summer festivals. The nation’s ranks of ravers-turned-parents are fairly rude in number, too. But if anyone is still going to be able to pull off something just that little bit special, with as much appeal to wide-eyed, grinning two-year-olds as to 50-somethings (of similar facial disposition), you’d wager it be the Sancho Panza crew.

Two decades of throwing the mother of all free parties for a cast of thousands of loons at Notting Hill Carnival certainly gives them the chops. But despite having also transformed numerous warehouses, Thames pleasureboats and insalubrious nightclubs into their very particular kind of joyful house music sanctuary, a festival in a bloody great field is a whole new level of challenge.

So it’s with a potent mix of anticipation and trepidation that their dream, many years in the making, sparks into life in a secluded glen somewhere near Stevenage. By the time the party faithful start arriving on Friday lunchtime, chief Sancho instigators Matt and Jim and their team have been hard at work on the site for days, carving kid-sized seats from tree trunks to place around the camp fires, and building their very own answer to Notting Hill’s imposing Westway, a beautiful, freshly hewn wooden ‘flyover’ across a ditch in the middle of the site.

The beautiful site, as seen from the fire pit. Photo: Photo: RTB
The beautiful site and ‘flyover’ as seen from the fire pit. Photo: Photo: RTB

The event holds less than 500 people, and this relative cosiness – in festival terms, anyway – means it’s possible to enjoy the kind of meticulous attention to detail that sets this lot’s parties off a treat.

Carnival devotees – so upset that their fave system is no longer viable on a bank holiday in the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea – quickly spot a Middle Row W10 stage, complete with street sign and lamppost in the middle, just as it always was for the legendary annual bash.

But otherwise, the vibe in the field couldn’t be further removed from the chaos of those street-level hoedowns, as kids toddle about making fairy wings and blowing bubbles, their adults lounging on bales of hay.

Kiddie raves are nothing new, but many of the parents rendezvous-ing in this verdant, sun-dappled clearing have been meeting and partying together for over two decades: some of these kids are Sancho Babies, so there’s a real extended family vibe as everyone reassembles for the gathering.

Unlike some other mature party tribes though, who often seem to revel in the exclusivity of their membership, the spirit of those wild, welcoming carnival days lives on here. Anyone can belong, as long as they don’t mind a bit of dad dancing and spirit of ‘88 idealism in their festival experience.

As kids begin to flag in the descending darkness, inevitably the excitement is beginning to prove too much for many of the adults. It’s all getting fairly hedonistic under the canvas of the Snare & Hi Hat tent. The frozen margaritas flow, Ray Mang is going all underground disco on us from the DJ console, and it’s not long before everyone is roaring at each other, throwing crazy shapes and generally succumbing to dancefloor abandon as if there’s no tomorrow.

Happy campers. Hi de hi! Photo: RTB
Happy campers. Hi de hi! Photo: RTB

When tomorrow does in fact come, and rather abruptly too, with the waking of the kids, there’s thankfully plenty to keep them occupied while mum and dad negotiate/await the hangover. Down at the Panic Circus tent, a Punch and Judy show revels in its un-PC traditions. Later, a samba workshop ropes in players of all ages, some of whom are notably better coordinated mid-morning than others.

We gradually work our way through the food offerings, including pizza atop Peckham’s festival-hopping wood-fired double-decker, Crust Conductor, plus burgers direct from the local farm and a mean dahl from the nearby curry house.

By afternoon on the outdoor stage, Sancho fave Eren moves from this summer’s essential, an exquisite Prince selection, into a ‘kidisco’ set aimed squarely at the young ones, complete with a giant Hello Kitty inflatable swaying above a squealing crowd.

Sancho ravers warm up at sunset. Photo: Photo: RTB
Sancho ravers warm up at sunset. Photo: Photo: RTB

All the artists at Campo are all old Sancho muckers, but the house music nepotism doesn’t mean they are a compromise, each is hotly anticipated by the faithful. By the time Crazy P Soundsystem start belting out their live vocal numbers, complete with a picture-perfect sunset framing someone’s hot air balloon flight over the neighbouring field, it feels like all the work is starting to pay off big time for Matt, Jim and co.

Then to see my pint-sized, usually quite bashful six-year-old daughter grab a flashing hula hoop and rule the packed dancefloor with her impromptu show over in Snare & Hi Hat: well, this Disco Daddy has never felt quite so proud.

The Panza posse have long had a close relationship with speaker dons Funktion One, often premiering new configurations of devastating bass bins and those trademark, sci-fi tweeters back in the Middle Row days. Here at the Campo, the sound is truly remarkable. Crystal clear and booming, unlike so many tented experiences, yet never dominating or deafening either. Those cute fluro ear defenders on some of the kiddies pretty much redundant.

A spot of tag-team bedtime parenting sees me return to the party after a few hours, to catch The Revenge play an infectious, loopy set before long-standing carnival spinner Darren Roach carries things forward until dawn (again) for the collection of foxes, pink panthers and other podium-bait who are making an impressive attempt at seeing day two through to the end.

Middle Row, Herts: Carnival spirit alive and well. Photo: Photo: RTB
Middle Row, Herts: Carnival spirit alive and well. Photo: Photo: RTB

By Sunday, everyone has eased into full utopian mode. The kids have all made friends and are chucking hay around gleefully, there’s more al fresco dancing underway, more pizza, more frozen margarita.

As the mid-afternoon samba parade winds its way across the site, ensuring the child-free are roused from their slumbers in time to catch Faze Action performing their eagerly awaited live show too, it would be safe to say everyone is having even more fun than when we started off, over-excitedly two hazy days previous.

If festivals are supposed to take you elsewhere, remove you from the daily grind and show you what a life filled with only love, laughter and music might be like, then Campo Sancho a massively impressive debut event.

“I can’t quite believe it,” says Matt, as we pass him in the field after shaking the bejesus out of shakers as part of the samba band.

A slice of perfection in the sunshine. The carnival spirit alive and well. A whole new chapter. Roll on next year, we all can seriously hardly wait.

Keep an eye on sanchopanza.org for updates on 2018’s event and tickets, plus the famous boat parties, club residency and more.

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