You can’t wish for a more perfect weekend for a festival than this one just past: Beautiful sunshine, rolling hills, sunflowers, a lake and a heap of musicians once again making SGP a stunning and immersive festival.

SGP knows when it has a winning formula. The combination of art, workshops, performers and music create a giant playground for grown-ups. It’s not like a lot of the other British music festivals - you could quite happily go, ignore all the music going on, and still have a whale of a time!

This year the festival demonstrated its cross arts approach more than ever with more ‘secret areas’ (or maybe I’ve never been very good at finding them), Yoga classes, Dance Workshops and interactive art installations & performances. It was so much fun finding a beautiful field of Sunflowers big enough to get lost in hidden behind a portaloo door, a winter wonderland in a Wardrobe, and an Alien labyrinth behind the dodgems. Not to mention myriad pianos dotted around site, a giant water bed, wicker mushrooms, cling film hammocks … the list goes on!

Despite finding new things this year, it was old favourites which made my SGP. Beans on Toast once again drew an enraptured audience at the Wild Things stage on Sunday with his lovable festival-folk, the Correspondents had a huge crowd kicking up a [dust] storm in the scorching heat at the Main stage, even pulling out an old favourite as an encore, gearing everyone up for the traditional paint fight and bouncing David Roddigan Reggae set. This year’s fireworks extravaganza with added planes, microlights and water-haze projection was every bit as beautiful as past years’. Personally I would have loved to see the Emerald city burn as the climax of the evening, but logistically it did not work out and instead made a fitting climax to the weekend on Sunday night.

The Dance-off stage is probably one of my favourite places at SGP. Heading there early in the weekend gives you a great opportunity to see which woefully overconfident reveller thinks they have the moves like Jagger, but it’s always worth popping back for the grand finals/Professionals dance-off on Sunday afternoon to see how it’s really done. If you’re more of a two-left-feet kind of person, improve your moves by heading to one of the many Swing Dance workshops throughout the weekend – I had a great time learning solo Charleston, and a little simple swing.

Musically speaking, this year’s festival was quite a polar mix, with up- and down-beat Artists lined up side by side on all three nights. Kyla La Grange, despite having a few technical issues, set the general chilled summery festival vibe on the Friday. This vein was carried through the festival with a brilliant set from The Ramona Flowers on the Wild Things stage Saturday morning, Submotion Orchestra on the Main stage later that night adding to it with a chill out experimental groove, and Sunday’s headliners Fat Freddy’s Drop providing a very laid back grand finale.

On the flip side this year’s hottest property, Clean Bandit, whose stage presence is growing and settling with every festival they play, had the crowd singing at the top of their lungs and bouncing all over the place on Friday night. Foxes brought a lovely quirky girl pop performance to the main stage on Saturday, with Beyonce-style wind machines and her adorable niece-phews, followed, after the aforementioned Extravaganza, by the unstoppable ball of energy that is Public Enemy, running all over the main stage. A personal highlight of the festival came from DJ Lord scratching up Nirvana’s ‘Smells like Teen Spirit’, closely followed by the entire crowd singing along to Martha Reeves & The Vandellas’ ‘Dancing in the Street’.

Photo: Rachael Wright

As always, I had so much fun at SGP and it’s great that more people than ever are coming along. However, one of the downsides to its increasing popularity is seeing people get destructive when they get carried away. It was such a shame to see too many of the beautiful pieces of artwork dotted around the site ending the weekend with more than just a bit of wear and tear. We all know festivals are places where the rules go out of the window, and we can all let our hair down, but I do think respecting the beauty of it all and getting immersive can go hand in hand without tearing it apart, however temporary a world it is.

Things you should definitely do at SGP:

Swim in the Lake

Take a Yoga Class

Grab a cuppa at a set in the Living Room

Dance like a madman at the mini, movable stages

Find a secret place

Get covered in glitter

Get covered in Paint

Get on the Lake stage before they burn it down.

Watch/join in the Dance-off

Find a new favourite band

Other acts I saw and liked but couldn’t fit in here: Deap Valley, James Brute, Backyard Rhythm Orchestra, Eagles for Hands, Tung, Denai Moore, Subfocus.

Tickets for the 2015 are now on sale here.

Review and Photos: Elizabeth Rogers except Firework photo for SGP by Rachael Wright