Maiden Voyage

Day Festival

Lea Valley Showgroud, Enfield, EN9 1AB

Tickets start at £10 – I paid £60.50

Maiden Voyage is a festival in its infancy: having only run for two years, due to last year’s event being inevitably postponed to this year. In 2019 it was held on Three Mills Island in East London – I didn’t go but a friend did and said it only had one stage and the sound was terrible. Not a great first impression but with a total change of venue to Lea Valley Showground in Enfield I was hoping that they’d learn from their previous mistakes.

Oh my, did they learn! Firstly, there was not only one stage but 4 – complete with 3 bars and 3 different toilet areas. No half measures: it was bigger, bolder, better than before. We spent most of our day in The Hot House – weirdly renamed on the day to The Plant House (maybe as it was pretty warm outside and they didn’t want to put people off). Here were most of the Techno and Electronic DJ’s, but a generous helping of recognisable bangers were thrown in for good measure which kept me satisfied. We did go and check out the other stages, however, the main stage was having some sound issues during Biig Piig so we only lasted a few minutes. The other two stages were decent, but the amphitheatre was always a bit too crowded to fully enjoy and the big top’s tunes just weren’t as enticing as elsewhere.

Due to the fact that there were so many facilities by every stage, queuing for a drink or the loo was never too much of an issue. The food choices were pretty poor, I ended up opting for a Halloumi wrap – wasn’t feeling adventurous, more in the mood for something relatively bland and ‘safe’ to see me through the day. It was the single saltiest thing I’ve ever tasted – the salad garnish was on its last legs too, being scraped out of the bottom of the metal container by the time I got there, meaning it had been bathing in that vinegar dressing for enough time to absorb a great deal of it. Other food options included cheese toasties (think hovis plastic bread with grated cheddar) and a rather rogue burger stand, with no veggie options but the opportunity to have a Zebra burger instead.

I mean, by no means did I come here for the food, but it does explain why there was no hype about it on their social pages beforehand. It also explained that fact that there were not really any families – you often get the odd few at a day festival, but I don’t think I saw one here. This kind of explains the day to be honest – a strict party place with 99% young twenty somethings and shite food. If that isn’t enough to convince you of the clientele, then how about the fact they ran out of hard seltzer within the first 3 hours…

The walk to and from the station at the end was pretty long – we decided to keep going to the stop beyond and get the overground on the way home, as we thought it would be less busy and it took us around 45 minutes. The queue to get into the actual festival also took a while, but definitely no longer than an hour. Once we were in the site, everything was well organised, staff were friendly, and we had a really good day. The music upbeat, varied and considering the location, was able to be blasted right up. Overall, a definite improvement on their 2019 event.

OVERALL RATING: ****

https://maiden-voyage.co.uk