I’m smelly but happy today as I’ve just got back from the brilliant End of the Road festival.

This has to be the friendliest, sweetest and greenest music festival ever (ok, this is only my second festival-going after Glastonbury but my more festival-experienced friends assure me my assumptions are correct!). For a start, it’s a smaller festival (around 6,000 people I heard) which makes it easier for the organisers to keep a watchful green eye on everything.

Let’s start with the food and drink stalls…mmmm No flashing Coca Cola signs at this festival – organic, fair trade, locally sourced produce was the order of the day, arriving mostly in reusable or compostable containers.

We gorged on minted peas, groovy (that’s gravy to you!) and pie – handmade with local produce of course – courtesy of the punningly-named Pieminister. At least we did until they shockingly ran out part way through the last day… I wouldn’t have wanted to be the Pieminister who turned the last hungry customer away, oh no. Pieminister policy for 2008 should be…more pies!

Sustainably caught fish curry from the confusingly Cornish ‘The Goan Seafood Company’ was next on the menu (I can’t find a website for them I’m afraid but they seem to have been at The Big Chill Festival and Bestival so catch them at a festival near you!), and it went down swimmingly (sorry!).

Sunny Sunday saw local company Purbeck Icecream giving out free (and additive free – the mint icecream is white for once, that’s how additive free it is!) icecreams for 2 hours. The queue was inevitably long but it was well worth the wait – yum!

To wash it all down we had the good old Cider Bus, selling Somerset hot cider and beer tents tempting all comers with real ale – including a selection from the local brewery (my hometown local brewery), Badger Beer.

Even better, if you kept hold of your (plastic) glass and went back for a refill, you got 50p off the price of the drink – now that’s a policy all our high street cafes should be following, not just festival stalls.

Of course, recycling bins were everywhere as well so we could separate out cans from plastic bottles, food waste from paper and card (and you could see people really were doing it).

There were no big brands that I noticed at the event – even the cigarette stall just had a balloon saying ‘Cigarettes’ without any branding at all! And rather than rolling off an industrial style photocopier, posters for the festival and for the bands were screen printed as you watched… just another special touch to a unique festival.

The organisers had also made a big effort to be family friendly so instead of being plonked in front of the telly for the weekend, the kids were learning circus skills, face painting, drumming or even asleep tucked up in duvets in the corner of the gig tents (aw, cute!) while their parents watched a band at midnight…

And let’s not forget about the music! While not strictly speaking ‘green’ (although bands were asked about their carbon footprints in their interviews for the festival magazine) it was great to see so many smaller bands playing that wouldn’t normally get the exposure. Rather than just heading to the known names and dismissing the rest, the fact that we knew very little (if anything) about the bands playing meant we were really open to just go along and listen…broadening our musical horizons, if you will, beyond the grasp of the big record companies. We certainly came away with a long list of indie record label albums to investigate!

As I’m now starting to scare myself a little with my outpouring of passion for this festival, I think I’m going to stop here…but you should all definitely come next year.

Well, some of you should…don’t want it to get too big!

Katie

p.s. The loos were fantastic – clean and plenty of toilet paper! Am just emailing the guys who provided the loos to see if they’re environmentally friendly too…