Walking into Boomtown through Gate 1, and my first trip to the Fair, the weather was enchantingly stifling, a picture of great fortune for a festival weekend

Strolling closer to the town’s centre from the residential camping areas, my anticipation grew with building volume of the music; I was wandering closer to the heart of the city – the Boom in Boomtown.

“The revolution will not be televised… the revolution will put you in the driver’s seat… the revolution will be live” – Gil Scott-Heron

Chapter 8: The Revolution Starts Now, brought the essence of escapism which is rife in festival culture, to centre stage, illuminating the true core of Boomtown’s city foundations, a weekend parade which is a world of pastoral paradise, but in itself a dominion which reflects the very scape we escape: the cityscape layout is truly a scene of greatness, a trait which is delivered with style.  The Districts flowed seamlessly from one to another, surrounded by suburbs of tents, mimicking the likes of a real residential city, the whole weekend felt like a marvellous dream of a despotic city of utopic anarchy.

Boomtown packed a lot of punch from the vast performances, right down to the smallest of venues and details. A pop up party city, a faraway town of mischief madness and frivolous freedom, the Alice in wonderlands tea party of a festivals with role play and a myriad of weird and wonderful features and enactments.

From inter-dimensional time travel, to aliens from outer space, Boomtown really takes the party and performance to an epic scale, with the finesse of original improvisational performances, to the dramatic billowing plume of black smoke the hung in the sky from the 20 cars that spontaneously combusted behind the tree lined horizon – it all put into perspective the enormity of this annual pop up town fair.

The variety, quantity and quality of artists, events, street actors and art installations will enchant and entertain across the districts: Boomtown is truly event to expect the unexpected, a genuine freestyle festival.

With all the choice in the world, Boomtown welcomes all kinds of lifestyles, from Clowns, to Pirates, Witches, Wizards, Aliens, Mermaids, Cybertrons, Steam Punks, and Fairies: an intercultural cosmopolitan melding pot of people unified by this massive foray of musical mischief and madness. Boomtown allows you to pick and choose, mix and match, and personalise your festival: it is the pick n’ mix with a twist of mystery and surprise, a weekend of such variety and freedom; you can really make it your own. Unhinged, unchained, liberated is the City of Boomtown, with the age of the Masked Man Rebellion, and the Memory of Nicolas Boom – the founding father of Boomtown, originally a small gathering which has now reached a grand 60,000 attendees.

The Masked Man of was seen sneaking in Sector 6, the mysterious character of the Boomtown underground, the unveiling of his identity left to yet be anticipated for chapter 9. But the Musicians and Artists provided a voice to the revolution incentivising the citizens of Boomtown to take the revolution beyond the high-walled perimeter and into the world yonder.

The best part of Boomtown, and a symptom of the even larger and more sprawling city that it has become, is the Crew, the working back bone to the party. These are the people that work to live, and live to play, and Boomtown is the perfect place where work meets play and has a ball.

The music really did make the madness: with the uprising rumbling from the underbelly of the town, in the new industrial district Sector Six, and the funky tribe of Barrio Loco harbouring and hosting the Masked Man and the roots of the Revolutionary movement. The foray of dazzling decorum embellishing epic stages in the great theatrically distinguished districts is monumental. Though the eclecticism and originality of music sets and productions was the real pulse of the weekend, with Old Town playing host to a mix of gypsy-disco-folk-hop, new stages originating in DSTRKT 5, self-contained shipping container stages pumped out all revelries of tek, Robotika stage and the Scrap Yard, which played a great host to the brilliant Mandidextrous, and Vandal. My favourite part of the Prohibition Zone, DSTRKT 5, was the Sewage works, featuring Ecoli, Jungle Syndicate, and Amen-Tal, the art production of the habitat/stage was amusingly marvellous.

The most prolific beat in my ear was classic offbeat of ska and reggae music, with a dash of hip-hop, and a drizzle of drum and bass. The ska offbeat took pride of place over the Lion’s Den with fantastic performances by, Tanya Stephens, The Skints, Soom T, Hollie Cook and Fat Freddy’s Drop, dropping an epic freestyle Harmonica piece: this is improvisational creativity that everyone loves about Boomtown, where everyone has a party.

I camped as a fellow of Baddas Bane, in the Wild West which broadened the musical lunacy with a dose of House and Funk. The mightiest stage in the West, The Old Mines, played host to the talented Beans on Toast – who expressed the he felt Boomtown is a great and true “display of humanity”, and that that humanity is what we need to harness in the rest of the world.

The party is where the good music is, and the good music is everywhere at Boomtown, there is not a spot in the house where you cannot hear music coming from somewhere, and it’s incredible walking through streets and stumbling across a different music venue only a stones throws distance in nearly every direction.

The growing population has made the town bigger and better, and while some say it’s too big, others say it’s a ‘cosmopolis’ – a cosmopolitan party fair. Spreading the festival out has granted more spaces to simply sit back watch and wonder at the world around you.

It was great to have the ability to pick and choose between peace and party at your leisure.

And the hidden corners transformed into secret Forest venues, seven decked out wooded hideaways, stages such as the Wondering Word, Tangled Roots’ Reggae Beach, The Rave Yard techno and acid house, and Tribe of Frog’s UV psytrance stage, all give the impression of the original free-party scene which Boomtown was founded upon. My favourite forest party was the Hidden Wood, featuring the likes of The Resonators, Kaotic Kartel, and Samsara. The forest is home to this pop-up City enchanted by fairies and sprinkled with hidden treasures, a land where creativity and freedom of expression oozes from every fold, enticing you to live vicariously, be a character, and live the lucid dream that is Boomtown.

The Devil Kicks Dancehall played host to many brilliant Punk acts, the two of which I had to see were, Culture Shock  with their message that we need to “Wise up to the count down,” and played “Civilisation Street” in honour of Eric Peterson, lead singer of Mischief Brew. And the American band Left Over Crack, both set a great tone and gave great performances to groove to.

Other impressive performances by The Meow Meows, Disney Racal, The Activators at China Town Courtyard, and a great set by Parov Stellar at the Town centre, and musically excellence at The Jolly Dodger stage and more.

The wildest stage in the West, Crazy Calamities Saloon, a brilliant little Street stage that took the boogie to the next level among dozens of other Street Venues in other districts, including The Asbo Disco; 24 hour Garage Girls; The So Fun Tek Shop & DVD Emporium; Madam Wrong’s Chinese Takeaway; and day time interactive role play and games from Postal Posse, Thomas Crook, and the famous Job Centre.

“We are not so different whatever we choose to bang our heads, stomp our feet or shake our booties to! We believe in the right to public assembly and free association, the innate human capacity for people to be responsible for themselves and each other. Boomtown belongs to you whoever you are, wherever you’re from and whatever you choose to believe in,” Boomtown. It was a delight to see tape around the camp sites signing ‘pace yourself’ and ‘look after one another’, Boomtown doesn’t do anything by half measures and truly makes impressive their strong sense of community an unity among all.