The inaugural year for a festival is always an important one and there was a lot of hype surrounding We Are FSTVL especially as it managed to sell out of tickets the week before.

On arriving at Upminster station all seemed fairly quiet with a free shuttle bus to the site and a steady stream of taxis that had started dropping off happy festival goers from 11.30 in the morning.

Two rounds of queues made the journey through the gates take a little longer than expected, but the ticketless wristband system worked smoothly.

Once in the arena the festivals branding really came to life. Striking artwork was dotted around the site, along with various artefacts, posters and picture opportunity areas.

The acts booked looked like a list of who’s who in electronic dance music on the aptly named ‘Cocoon Heroes stage’ with a 3 hour set from both Sven Vath and Ricardo Villalobos.

Sven Vath being among the first DJs to play trance records had an enormous crowd which left the arena alive and dancing for the rest of the day. Ricardo Villalobos looked incredibly chilled throughout his set, playing with effortless ease.

Rudimental performed live and filled The Speaker box tent asking the crowd to keep “waiting all night” in the top ten that weekend.

Kerri Chandler had a packed crowd over on the Mulletover Stage delivering beautiful, monster jams and Mistajam himself reminded the whole tent to be very proud that they were the very first to witness We Are FSTVl and played an animated set.

One of the highlights of the day for me was seeing someone new for the first time; in this case the incredible talent that is Monsta, a bouncing set. Definitely one to check out at festivals this summer.

The V.I.P like the rest of the festival had a chilled out and friendly atmosphere and the weather could not have been more ideal even if some did still don the wellies while the sun shone down. 

For a first event and not on a small scale it seemed that many happy festival goers enjoyed the event and balmy weather. If they can rectify a few of those 1st year teething problems, 2014 I can only imagine will come back even bigger and stronger.

P.S. Please melt the alcohol tokens down and make them bigger and stronger as well ☺