Preview: Offset Festival

By chloeg Last edited 187 months ago
Preview: Offset Festival
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We are all familiar with the overwhelming sense of disappointment when you disembark at Belsize Park for the first time and realise there is no lush green space as the name suggests; that White City is not complete with its eponymous promise is a source of frequent consternation; let's not even discuss Elephant and Castle. Hainault Forest, however, verdant location of this weekend's Offset Festival, lives up to its name, and the fact that it is rooted firmly on the Central Line is all the better for us.

For only £45 (or £28 for a one-day ticket) you get the chance to choose from a delectable list of 150 bands and DJs, including post-punk veterans Gang of Four, slick electronic-rockers Metronomy, rowdy alternative act Future of the Left, gentle alt-country tinged Tom McCrae and perky purveyors of popular indie the Maccabees and Johnny Foreigner.

If you fancy another chance to avoid 'landfill' indie, you could do a lot worse than going down to the woods on Saturday. Offset is brought to you by the team behind TMF Rock Festival, remembered for bringing noisy acts to the masses at reasonable prices without any of the corporate sponsorship that blights modern festivals like a plague of carefully-branded locusts. Previous acts include the Duke Spirit and Art Brut, and the new name and location of the festival, as well as the organic food stalls, art, funfair, kids' area and rare-breeds farm on show, promise a final fun festival romp before we bed down for the colder season.

Tickets are still available. If you want to get even closer to the al fresco experience, you can pay £10 more for a camping pass. Hainault Underground is on the Central Line just 30 minutes from central London.

Image of the beautiful Hainault Forest courtesy mole-volio's Flikrstream via the Creative Commons Licence

Last Updated 26 August 2008