About Us

It all started with a rusty VW...

One Sunday morning I was offered a T4 as a project at a price I simply couldn't turn down. There was just one small problem — the van was about 70 miles away, wouldn't start, had been off the road for over a year and had brakes that had effectively become part of the scenery through rust.

We had her recovered home and, over the next 18 months, gradually brought her back to life. Eventually, "Frankie" the T4 was back on the road.

There was just one question... What do we actually do with it?

We stumbled across VanLife at the Hall in Malton, went along and absolutely loved it. Various other festivals followed and we were hooked. We even picked up the third member of the team on the way back from VanLove at York — Peaches the Frenchie.

As we already had Frankie, we decided our new pooch needed a name to match. Before we got home, she was re-named Fran.

From there, we started doing more festivals ourselves — Camperjam, Busfest, Dub Odyssey and a few other random ones that we stumbled across, usually with Fran in tow. She likes vans a bit too much and often jumps in any van thats left open

As part of this, we discovered that we really enjoyed being outdoors, having a laugh, meeting great people, having a drink and just chilling for the weekend.

From festival-goer to volunteer

The following year, I spotted an advert looking for volunteers for a brand-new local festival, Slumber on the Humber. I applied, was accepted and joined a group of volunteers, some of whom are still working together today.

I loved it. With my previous management experience, I offered to take on the role of crew chief — or head volunteer. However, these days I prefer the more accurate title: Chaos Co-ordinator.

I went on to do another three Slumbers, along with a couple of ReKINDLE. At some point, Sue joined me, because apparently one person trying to organise all that chaos wasn't quite enough and my legs got tired of running around in a field all weekend.

Along the way, we continued visiting festivals ourselves, although not quite as many as during that first year.

Seeing the other side

Volunteering at festivals gave us something that simply turning up as a visitor never could — an insight into what happens behind the scenes.

There is an enormous amount of work going on that most festival goers never see — planning, site operations, volunteers, logistics, safety, infrastructure and all the little jobs that have to happen at exactly the right time to make a festival weekend work.

It's the stuff that isn't noticed when everything goes well. And that's exactly how it should be.

Rollin' our own?

Then we went to the annual bonfire at Winterton Showground. We both looked around and thought: "This would make a bloody good festival site." however we assumed it would be far too expensive, so it was initially just one of those ideas that you have and then forget about.

Until, through the Heritage group in the village where we live, I got talking to the guy who handled the lettings, and it turned out that the site wasn't nearly as expensive as we'd assumed.

So we thought... Sod it.

And that's where the idea for HumberCampfest was born, we decided to not follow what others did to try and create a unique identity.

And then came Campfest...