Latitude Festival 2008 is another overwhelming success with tickets sold out and thousands of music fans joined together in one of the most relaxed and fun festivals of the year. The music is again, top quality, with headliners like Sigur Ros and Interpol sweeping the crowd away, and smaller acts treated to the blissful calm of the Sunrise Arena located in a wooded area of the woods just far enough away from the main stage for acoustic acts to be heard properly. The Lake Stage again hosts top up and coming acts endorsed by BBC6's Huw Stephens and is a great place to relax and picnic in the main arena while forming your opinion on the new talent.
The great thing about Latitude is the array of other events aside from music with feature films, documentaries, top comedians, literature readings and poetry all taking place around the arena. It's nice to take a breather on some comfy cushions in the rather relaxed Poetry Stage where there's a fast turnaround of varied acts, including a wonderfully entertaining performance in which performers and audience members are invited to read their worst teen angst poetry to a giggling audience. The Cabaret Stage features a rather grotesque freak show, some enchanting burlesque performers including the jaw dropping Vicky Butterfly and quirky Stella Plume, and some male stripping to cheesy 80's tunes with a drag queen compere. Once the music is finished, the cabaret and literature readings go on well into the night, with disco music blaring from the Disco Shed and plenty of activities to keep you busy into the early hours of the morning. Mark Lamarr's presence also brings about a set from the Buzzcocks in the Music and Film Arena.
Latitude has to be one of the most friendly and varied festivals of its size in the UK with a mixed crowd and abundance of crazy entertainment. Where else would you walk through woods to see multi-coloured sheep or a performance art project consisting of people galloping around in one-man tents?