Shambala Special-ness

It’s funny now thinking back to just how tired we were after our Good Times at the Greenman. Luckily, the amazing healing powers of a couple of nights in our own beds set us up nicely to finish off the festival season with a trip to that magical mystery place; Shambala.

The weather proved the biggest challenge of the weekend with rain early in the week making the site pretty muddy before the crowds had even arrived. By Friday night the busiest routes were slick with mud, but nothing could dampen the mood for the crowd, who were probably the most up for it bunch we'd encountered all summer. None of our team had been to Shambala before and so we were pleasantly surprised by the happy, chilled crowd and the attention to detail and sheer number of independent tents and sound systems. The woods were pure magic and reminiscent of the arts trail of early days Big Chill, but even better.

In terms of our mobile charging stand, it felt like we'd hit the nail on the head, and were rewarded with a constant queue of punters. We have to say a massive thanks to our team for the weekend, in particular Julie (Mejoolie) and Anna (Booda) who worked tirelessly, despite the fact they were tired and still managed to make brilliant scrambled eggs and endless cups of tea. We took along our mate Lenny's record player and a stash of his 7" records which not only kept us amused but also kept our cyclists going. With the number of phones we were charging, 700 over the course of the weekend, coupled with the record player and sound-system, it was hard work!

We were sorted out with a beautiful old-style canvas marquee (thank you Shambala HQ) and this really came in handy when the (frequent) rain showers passed. People ran to us for shelter and the crowd inside would support and cheer the cyclists pedaling valiantly in the rain to keep the record player going. This is what it's all about, joyful people coming together to make stuff happen. It made our summer.