Just So Festival, a family-focused event programmed by Wild Rumpus, transforms Cheshire's Rode Hall estate into a fantastical world of fancy dress, performance and play. The festival invites families to embrace their wild side and come as one of seven animal clans to compete for the festival crown.
Emily Heward, Head of What's On, arrived with her five-year-old daughter expecting to be unimpressed. Having covered mudbaths, riots and debauchery in her years as a festival-goer, she had hung up her wellies for good until the invitation arrived. The event, she says, delivers all of the magic and none of the misery.
Animal Clans and the Carnival of Animals
Festival-goers commit seriously to costumery. There are fish folk sheathed in shimmering sequin scales, owls with feathered capes, frogs with green bucket hats and goggle eyes, stags with antlers protruding from top hats, bees in striped dungarees and tutus with deely-bopper antennae, and lions with furry hoods and headdresses for manes.
Children can cast their votes and make campaign posters to plaster over a polling station at the heart of the festival site. The electioneering culminates in the Carnival of the Animals parade on Sunday evening when the winners are crowned. On this first visit, the foxes - Heward's chosen family - win. The prize includes a dedicated area at Yuletide when the Christmas lights event returns to Tatton Park later this year, plus a party in honour of the victors at next year's festival.
Music, Crafts and Campfire Storytelling
This year's celebration is dedicated to previous victors, the fish. A shoal of sea creatures gathers in front of Rode Hall itself, turning the sloping lawn into a sparkling sea of aquamarine and turquoise costumes. Percussion group Drum Machine beat out thunderous applause for the reigning champions as the sun sets over the lake below.
On the main stage, The Shindig, live music comes from bands including folk duo The Village Strays and funk and soul outfit The Freebugs. In the Spellbound Forest area, the Campfire Social stage offers woodland storytelling and songs led by Scout leader Ian Mackintosh and Ian Douglas, of the Magic Lantern, while visitors clutch cups of hot chocolate.
Workshops and Family Amenities
The Craftism area offers hands-on, creative activities. In the orchard, messages of hope and words of wisdom left by other festival-goers hang on placards among the apple trees. The Studio, a vast barn, hosts workshops where visitors fashion willow branches and tissue paper into golden suns. Artist Vic Jay teaches braiding barley into corn dollies, an ancient harvest custom.
For the very littlest, the Peekaboo tent caters to babies and toddlers under 3, with messy play, baby massage, lullabies and baths. Food and drink options include pizza, pasta, Indian street food, a Jamaican jerk barbecue and the fully vegan Earthworm Kitchen. A Cloudwater bar serves pints of the Manchester brewery's beers for £6.50 a pint.
Camping pitches sit metres away from the car park, with compost loos a five minute walk up the hill, along with a shower block and water points. The site is spacious, peaceful and well-managed - a far cry from the chaotic, crammed-in campsites at other festivals.
Just So Festival returns to Rode Hall from Friday August 20 to Sunday August 22, 2027. Early bird tickets are on sale now, priced at £183.70 for adults, £63.18 for children aged three to 16 and £10.78 for under-threes (inclusive of booking fees). Parking costs an additional £17.59 per vehicle.
