Parklife is a festival set in Manchester and has boomed in size and popularity. Tickets sell like hotcakes and an organised mentality is one to have for this event. Although a day festival set over a weekend in early June, the organisers of Parklife continuously push creative boundaries with interesting ideas for staging and small quirky details to make this festival more than the average day festival, such as Wireless or Magic Summer Live. With a stage in a tree top, circus performers and large letters of Parklife scattered over the festival, features such as these are shown in various pictures on Facebook accounts as evidence of a great time had here.

Whilst I was studying at University up in Manchester I attended this festival (as did most of the university students there) two years in a row. I saw a number of fantastic people; Disclosure, Fred V, Iggy Azalea, High Contrast, Annie Mac, Snoop Dogg, Jurassic 5, Sbtrkt, Bastille, Soul II Soul, to name a few. And each year I paid an extortionate amount of money to ride the Ferris wheel, which is worth it to see the vast number of people at the event crawling below as if like ants. Timed well this view is perfect over the sunset. There are the usual festival rides there as well as a log flume, although Parklife was and will be the last time I go on one of them!

One thing that really let down the festival was its transport. It seems it is organised going to the festival but coming back it is an absolute shambles. The first year in no way whatsoever were the organisers prepared for the number of people who attended. You had to fight for buses (even in the city centre there were no way near enough buses running through the night meaning half of the festival walking around the city) and there was one taxi queue with a four hour wait. This year things were a little more organised but it seems that the organisers need to be more prepared for future years because this festival will just grow bigger and bigger.

Parklife is a fantastic day festival if you live up North and want to see a variety of acts from the genres of pop, R n B , house and D n B with a young crowd. Although if you are looking for something more unique, this isn’t the place. A young crowd attends this festival, punters seem to go with the “less is more” attitude to clothing and fights are beginning to happen more frequently every year. This festival is a great one to go to if you need a short day of escapism or are a young Manchester resident, although I wouldn’t attend this festival if you have a specific taste in music or don’t understand the concept of YOLO.