The award-winning Just So Festival, produced by Wild Rumpus announces its brilliantly bonkers programme based on the golden age of travel for 2015, the largest programme in its six year history

An annual, intimate, weekend-long camping festival for children and their families the Just So Festival provides an imaginative outdoor adventure like no other, showcasing the best art, music, literature, comedy and theatre for families all embedded and entwined in a wondrous landscape of woodland clearings, rolling parkland, arboreal amphitheatres and lakeside spots in the Rode Hall Estate, Cheshire.

With an incredible mix of regional, national and international artists and performers, it promises to take you on an expedition of mischief and mayhem, to lands full of magical midnight feasts, raucous pillow fights, tribal tournaments, curious creatures and breathtaking beauty.

The eagerly anticipated Tribal Tournament will once more be headed up by that motley crew from immersive theatre specialists LAS Theatre. The Fox, Frog, Owl, Fish, Stag and Lion tribes will compete in ridiculous games and all manner of unexpected shenanigans. Find your tribe on festival Sunday and round off the festival in style with the Tribal Parade.

Inquisitive and adventure driven family explorers can expect to tour the most curious of lands and encounter creatures and characters beyond your wildest dreams.

A visit to Grand Central complete with Passport Office, Bureau de Change and mischievous luggage porters is advice worth heeding, before venturing into the uncharted territory that is Just So Festival 2015. Head to our new eccentric Village Green to encounter ridiculous knitting, toddler jousting, pillow fighting and a nonsensical, outrageous game of Consequences.

Roll up, roll up at Head over Heels for the most spectacular and flamboyant area of Just So yet. Expect tumblers and somersaults, aerial mastery and juggling galore. Gasp and faint at amazing shows, and try your hand yourself at all manner of circus amazement.

Step into the Spellbound Forest to a place quite extraordinary. Woodland theatre, dancing and exploring by day, bonfire bands, stories and songs as dusk falls and the woodland magic really begins

Whispers have reached our ears of a Fairy City and Fairy Ball found within Away With The Fairies, an enchanting woodland, home of the Fairy Queen.

Make your way into the perilous High Seas supported by SunSense. Maps will be needed, encounter massive battleships, pirate training camp and watch out for the kraken.

At Footlights and Jitterbug we will see foot stomping, wild whirling and swirling, and unmissable family music and theatre performances including poet John Hegley, comedian James Campbell and authors Emma Carroll and Paul Stickland. When evening comes, dance the night away here.

At Silver Screen take part in BFI slapstick workshops, delve into the Picture Palace, encounter eccentric producers from the turn of the century, or bring a blanket while night falls and snuggle up to watch family classics.

Peekaboo, supported by Weleda, is where to find the best arts (and right royal facilities) for the tiniest visitors. Music, paint, clay, dens and bubbles, listening to stories and songs and baby bath time will ensure the littlies doze off to the sound of our choral lullabies as dusk falls.

Don't miss The Marie Celestial. A co-commission between the Northern Festivals Network, headed up by Just So, and Glastonbury Festival, this melancholy, mechanical beast will form the incredible beating heart of Just So Festival and other Northern festivals in 2015.

Winners of Festival Kidz Gold Award for three years running Just So Festival aims to create memories treasured by families year-round. 

Rowan Hoban and Sarah Bird, Directors of Wild Rumpus who produce large scale family arts events in wild natural landscapes set up Just So Festival in 2009 to create a spellbinding weekend where families could play, dance and create together and see the world class breathtaking outdoor arts.

Rowan says “At Just So 2015, audience members will be journeying through the most magical, awe-inspiring landscape for three nights. They must watch carefully the whole journey…as Roald Dahl once said, the best adventures and greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places”.

Sarah says “we immerse families into a world of imagination, letting their creativity run wild. We believe in the power of a wonderful moment to change the way that a family engages in the arts together. If we don't give you goosebumps we are not doing it right.”

For the full line-up, further information and tickets visit www.justsofestival.org.uk.

Follow Just So @justsofestival https://www.facebook.com/justsofestival

For press information, images and interviews contact:

Gemma Gibb:  gemma.gibb@wildrumpus.org.uk 07958 700 818

NOTES FOR EDITORS

1. The Just So Festival runs from the 21st-23rd of August 2015 at Rode Hall Estate, Scholar Green, Cheshire ST7 3QP with an audience of 5000
2. Tickets are £110 for an adult's weekend ticket, £50 for a child's weekend ticket, £50 for an adult's day ticket and £20 for a child's day ticket. Under 3's go free. Local residents are eligible for a £5 discount. To book visit www.justsofestival.org.uk
3. The Just So Festival won the Green Parent Award in 2013, and the Gold Festival Kidz Award in 2013 and 14, as well as being shortlisted for the UK's Best Public Event by the EA in 2014.
4. Just So Festival is produced by Wild Rumpus CIC, a social enterprise, based in Cheshire, who organise large scale family arts events in wild natural landscapes. Current and past projects include Run Wild Child for Dig The City, managing the Northern Festivals Network, The Lost Carnival in partnership with So It Is and The Spellbound Forest in partnership with the Forestry Commission. Future plans include a large scale event in Staffordshire and commission for Barnaby Festival in 2016.
5. Wild Rumpus have also received Arts Council England funding to supporting new artists at The Whirligig Forge, a place for volunteers and emerging creatives to come together and develop new skills, undertake training, showcase work, find mentors and become established in the outdoor arts sector.  www.wildrumpus.org.uk