A few weeks ago Georgie & Lydia got to enjoy their first festival; LolliBop, which calls itself “The Big Bash for Little People.” It was a great day out!
We were given press wristbands which allowed us to get into the VIP area during the day, which was a nice perk as it was a quiet place to retreat to during the craziness of the day. The VIP area had plenty of comfy seating, sand pits, a face painting stand, toilets & a it’s own bar and disco area. The area also had it’s own meet & greet spot where Georgie was delighted to meet her beloved Mr Bloom and Chris & Pui from Show Me, Show Me.
There are plenty of live acts to see at LolliBop, with acts performing all day, both on the main stage and in the Lollipalladium, a large blue tent with a stage & seating areas.
As well as the main stage and the Lollipalladium, LolliBop had loads for the children to see and do. We didn’t get around to everything, but we did explore some of The Meadows, the Discovery Zone and the Activity Fields.
The Discovery Zone
We headed to the Lollikitchen quite early on and booked the girls in for a gingerbread decorating session later in the day. They did really enjoy doing this although it was a very quick, messy & slapdash affair for both of them! I think they were just eager to get a good variety of sprinkles on so they could declare them finished and eat them. Throughout the day the kitchen tent were doing these decorating sessions, as well as a few cookery sessions for older kids.
We stopped by the National Geographic Kids area where Georgie enjoyed exploring the blind touchy feely boxes, looking at the creepy crawlies they had on show, and creating a clay owl to stick to the tree. The Kia area was brilliant, Georgie and Lydia both sat down to draw/paint some pictures, and had an amazing time clambering in and out of the cars, honking the horn.
Although we would have enjoyed the River Island decorate a t-shirt activity, the queue was always really long when we were near and we didn’t have time to go & wait as there were some things we didn’t want to miss. The Nintendo area looked really cool for the slightly older kids.
The Activity Fields
There was plenty to do for kids of all ages at the Activity Fields. We explored the Little Tikes “Tikes Town”, tried out a bit of Baby Ballet, and created some masterpieces out of Duplo.
Tikes Town was great fun and well organised. We joined the queue and after a short wait were given a coloured waistcoat for each of the girls. They sent in groups of kids at a time and each group had a few minutes of playtime to enjoy the massive array of Little Tikes toys. While the red group were in playing, the staff would be sorting out the next group, signing them in and handing out blue waistcoats. The system was really fair and if kids wanted another go they could come out at the end of their session and rejoin the queue.
Baby Ballet was quite good and high energy for the kids to enjoy. Georgie found it too loud after a few minutes of joining in, and Lydia was really too young to understand she wasn’t supposed to try and join the dancer on the stage, so we had to leave before the end of the session. Duplo was much more successful and we had to encourage the children to leave otherwise they would have stayed there building things for hours. They had a fun bit where you could build one of their suggested animals etc and then see it come to life on the screen.
The Meadows
Heart were there with their giant deckchair which we jumped into for a photo, and they also face painted Georgie’s face for her and gave Lydia a balloon which she enjoyed thwacking us all with, waving it around madly. Georgie really loved the Baby Annabel area, although it seemed quite small and crammed with toys – they really could have spread out a bit! Our eldest is really into role play with dolls and toys at the moment so she had a whale of a time putting a doll to bed, getting it up again, giving it some breakfast, etc. The Disco Shed looked awesome but we didn’t manage to catch any of their “party times” while we were in the area.
We chatted to the lovely folks at The Collective for a while, and all sampled some of their yoghurt pouches – the kids really enjoyed them and they would be perfect for lunch boxes. We took some home with us so I’ll be posting a review of those soon. Bear were giving out samples of their new Bear Paws fruit snacks and their Alphabites cereal, which the kids both really enjoyed.
Live Acts Area
The only live acts we saw were a little bit of Justin’s House, and the full Mr. Bloom set. We were expecting to watch all of Justin but Georgie wasn’t bothered at all so we went and had some fun instead! He was really popular with massive crowds all around the stage. Alex Winters, who was host for the main stage, did an amazing job of entertaining the kids between acts, and was full of energy and bounce. We kept seeing snipped of Lazy Town Live as we walked past too, which seemed really fun and high energy.
They moved Mr. Bloom to the main stage for Saturday and Sunday after he was really popular on the Friday, which was great as it meant we didn’t have to try to get into the Lollipalladium which had huge queues all day long full of bored looking kids. Next year I really think they should put up a screen outside the tent with a grassy area for people to sit & watch what’s going on inside, as there were always disappointed children having queued and not getting in. We would have gone in for Chris & Pui’s Mini Roadshow but we didn’t want to waste time queuing when there was so much to see and do, only to possibly get turned away and miss the show.
The Thomas & Friends area was also squeezed in the area with the Live Acts and offered loads to do for the kids. I think it may have been better off in the Meadows to be honest, as that area had loads of empty green space and the area where Thomas was had a heavier foot flow; it was almost in the way especially as it’s high popularity meant there were long queues snaking around it.
Georgie and Lydia enjoyed digging around in the ball pit to find toy Thomas figures, hooking a Thomas, and trying to knock down the cans. We managed to get a go clambering around on Thomas at the end of the day too; this was something that had long queues all day.
Food & drink
The prices for food and drink were pretty typical event/festival prices… so too expensive for us! There were loads of places to sit and eat around the site, and a dedicated picnic area too. We stopped at Tesco on the way and bought a nice picnic which we ate in the VIP area. We did treat ourselves to some delicious strawberries in melted chocolate and there seemed to be a big variety of food and drinks on offer, even an alcohol bar for the adults (which I found a bit weird to be honest, at a kids festival… although perhaps an over exposure to Justin would drive any sane adult to drink).
