El Dorado takes place in early July, on beautiful grounds set deep within the Herefordshire hills. In between areas of outstanding natural beautiful, with castles and hills set mere fields apart from our campsite. What a beautiful landscape to have a festival in. The vibe is very relaxed both in the area and throughout the surrounding campsites. Overall, El Dorado feels like one of those safe, friendly festivals that also manages to feel fresh and exciting at the same time. That feeling when the organisers manage to get it just right is a special one, and it was a pleasure to experience throughout the weekend as we explored.
Getting around was straightforward, with most things being laid out so they were accessible and close together, enclosed within the area with a walkway around outside to the campsites. Everything was well signposted, and we never struggled to find what we needed when we needed it. From the moment we walked into the arena from our campsite, we could tell a lot of love had been put into creating El Dorado, with a considerable amount of attention to detail. It felt like such care and attention had been put into making sure that there was something for everybody, which really added to the overall community vibe of the festival.
After the line-up poster for El Dorado caught my eye while trying to pick a festival for the early summertime, one of the things I was most excited to see was Vice city. Marketed as a pop-up strip of enthralling venues, full of character and a multitude of impressive performances and artists on all throughout the day and night. Gay club? Check. High-end salon? Check. Outdoor colosseum? Check. Incredible art installations and trendy bars? Check and check. All with one thing in common: a commitment to Vice City’s vibrant nightlife scene.
Vice City’s popup venues are as diverse as they are welcoming. But what really sets Vice City apart is its diversity and dynamic nightlife, as though you’re on a strip of venues in a video game. At night or when it rained, there were of course more people in the venues, but for a collection of smaller enclosed areas, it never felt like there was a big problem with space which was great as that’s been something I’ve struggled with slightly at festivals with a lot of indoor stages.
One of my other favourite stages was the floating stage, which was situated on top of El Dorado’s Lake. With a near constant audience a boatload of shiny, happy partygoers waving up from the decks to the dancing pirates on top of a huge boat stage we made sure to visit every day.
One of my favourite things about the music at El Dorado was the amount of feel-good music. For those like us that crawled out of bed in the afternoon, the 80s disco at the colosseum area of Vice City was the best way to wake up, with hundreds of partygoers dancing away under the sunshine, with an incredible audio setup (the colosseum is enclosed with upper levels around the outside to dance on with the walls of vice city enclosing the rest of the venue) to an incredible mashup of 80s classics and a DJ (can’t remember the name!) who knew how to hype up the crowd and keep them there.
I was lucky enough to catch Groove Armada live on Saturday night, who gave an incredible performance with the live band. They really bought the sounds to life with their diverse range of singers and gorgeous technical displays throughout the set, each able to add something unique to the songs. I was disappointed to learn that the performance was one of the only shows that duo planned with a live band in the future, possibly forever. Hopefully not as they were such a highlight, but the duo reported that they want to focus their future on DJing, which I’m sure if their history is anything to go by is bound to be impressive.
David Rodigan performed on the main indoor stage Saturday night and bought the house down with an incredibly high energy performance, as always. With over 45 years’ experience as per his Instagram bio, the set felt so friendly and welcoming as he was so engaged with the crowd and the music was just perfection!
The food at El Dorado was great. Plenty of variety, and not long to have to queue for anything in particular except for peak times at very popular venues, such as the smoothie van in the morning. It’s nice to see that there is so much vegetarian food on offer on pretty much every festival we went to this summer and El Dorado was no exception. Shout out to the vegan paella.
The only minor thing that I could nitpick would be that the cashless system was a bit difficult to navigate and sometimes there were a few errors in our transactions, which was a common complaint. The idea in principle is good and to be fair from memory we never had to queue for a long enough time to notice, this is often an issue with festivals all over the UK, so hopefully with time this system will work out and continue to improve.
In summary, not only does El Dorado boast an incredible line-up of musicians, but it also has a range of striking and immersive venues which set El Dorado even further apart from its bigger, more mainstream festivals. The layout of the festival grounds also creates a unique and intimate experience that is unlike any other.
From art installations to bars, whether you are watching your favourite band and dancing the night away in the summer air or exploring all the different vendors, you are sure to have an incredible time at El Dorado, and we can’t wait to return and see what next year has to offer!
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