You may remember we recently wrote about GoFest 2015, the UK’s first ever festival of sport. It promised to be an action-packed three day festival for all the family spanning not just sport but dance and a whole host of other activities too. There was a choice of 50 types of sport to choose from as well as live music, entertainment and an array of sporting and celebrity appearances – Roger Black, Kevin Keegan, Steve Backley, Ian Waite and Natalie Lowe to name just a few.
GoFest prides itself on being an inclusive festival and there were activities on offer for all ages, genders and abilities. There were 15 zones to choose from – GoBat, GoBike, GoChill, GoCompete, GoCool, GoFit, GoFuel, GoKids, GoNetball, GoSpike, GoSplash, GoStrut, GoToddle, GoTry and GoTumble.
The sporting activities on offer included archery, athletics, badminton, basketball, canoeing/kayaking, cheerleading, climbing, cricket, dodgeball, football, gymnastics, hockey, judo, lacrosse, racketball, rugby, scuba diving, squash, swimming, taekwondo, tennis, trampolining, volleyball. Body Combat, Family Bollywood, FitSteps, Globe Fit Hoola and Street Funk were just some of the dances that took pace on the main stage.
The POD Father and I did a lot of sport at school so GoFest provided a great opportunity for us to pick up sports we’d not played recently. For our four year old daughter POD, the festival offered an amazing opportunity for her to try a number of sports she’d not tried before.
As well as loving the concept of GoFest 2015, we were thrilled it took place at Surrey Sports Park as it’s local to us in Guildford. It’s a world class elite training and fitness venue and one of Europe’s premier sites for sport, health, well-being and leisure. Their facilities include an Olympic swimming pool, 12ft climbing walls, dance and exercise studios, 3 indoor arenas, 8 squash courts, 3 artificial pitches, 8 tennis courts, 2 basketball courts and 2 netball courts.
Surrey Sports Park is the permanent training base for Harlequins RUFC, Netball Super League runners up Surrey Storm and National Badminton League team Surrey Smashers whose community teams led the coaching sessions at GoFest 2015.
The event was supported by a raft of the UK governing bodies of sport, professional clubs and businesses too including England Hockey, English Squash and Racketball, Volleyball England, Sport England, Flair Gymnastics, British Athletics, The FA, Surrey County Cricket Club, British Canoeing, Go Canoeing, the LTA, British Judo, Guildford Tennis Academy, Surrey TaeKwon-do, Surrey Spartans Hockey Club, Discover Archery, Go Ape and British Military Fitness.
We planned to pre-book the majority of our sports sessions in advance of the event but a last minute holiday meant we failed to do this. That said we arrived as soon as the gates opened and managed to secure almost all the activities we wanted to participate in. I suspect we were very lucky this time around so next year we’ll definitely look to book beforehand with our activities split over a two day period.
First on our agenda was hockey, both myself and the POD Father played at school but POD has never had the opportunity to try it. She was actually rather good and got some great coaching from one of the Surrey Smashers team. She’s not experienced such a fantastic surface before though so she did sneak in a couple of forward rolls!
After checking out the rugby, the Doves are huge fans, we headed indoors for a gymnastics session Flair were running. POD is a climber and has great balancing skills so she’s participated in gymnastics before. She did two terms a few months back before joining pre-school on a full-time basis. It took her a little while to get used to a different environment but the Flair Gymnastics team were excellent at instilling confidence and getting her involved. We did see a number of bunny hops and star jumps over the horse before we headed outdoors again.
One of the things we hadn’t taken into consideration, as we were so focused on all the sport, were the activities on the main stage. POD was utterly mesmerised watching Ian Waite dance and who can blame her, he’s awesome. We love Strictly Come Dancing so we were thrilled we got to have a chat to Ian and wave at Natalie Lowe. Both were just lovely and exactly how you imagined them to be. POD was rather taken by Goggles, the event mascot, and gave him at hug at every available opportunity. The Power Rangers went down very well too.
The weather was really varied while we were at GoFest and although that didn’t matter, it was fantastic when the sun shone. We were in the best venue with brilliant activities on offer and we got to catch up on the Wimbledon Finals in-between too. A big thumbs up for us as we’re massive tennis fans! We were amazed at how much there was to do at GoFest, it was absolutely the best environment for active families and anyone interested in sport.
POD managed to squeeze in time on a trampoline and a bouncy castle as well as covering her leg in stickers just before we headed to the pool for some swimming.
A few days before GoFest 2015, POD swam from the middle of a pool to the edge for the very first time. She was wearing armbands and although she didn’t swim far, it was a huge breakthrough given how fearful she’d been the week before. She wasn’t sure about the Olympic pool initially but once she got used to it there was no stopping her. She swam all by herself for quite some time and despite being rather tired at this point did brilliantly!
Another of the activities we’d signed up for was climbing. POD has always loved climbing and although she’s still a little too short to attempt a wall, she was desperate to give it a try. She did amazingly well in a group of people that were much older than her and it was at the back end of the day too. As we suspected she has another couple of inches to go before she’ll be able to scale a wall. She gave it a very good go though. As did Daddy who climbed to the top of the wall at great speed!
After success in the pool and on the climbing wall, we treated ourselves to some rather wonderful lollies and a sit down before Daddy played tennis. POD and I watched the action from outside court and enjoy the blistering sunshine.
Funnily enough since GoFest 2015 finished we’ve visited Surrey Sports Park on numerous occasions. POD has had a couple of trial sessions with Flair Gymnastics and joins their weekly class from September. The POD Father plays football at Surrey Sports Park and recently started playing hockey there after a twenty year absence (yes you did read that right!).
We’re absolutely loved GoFest and if you didn’t get to go this year, make sure you do in 2016. Paul Farris (GoFest Founder), his family and his team at Juice Communications did an incredible job, it was brilliant. If you’d like to see more, check out the photos on the GoFest Facebook page or have a look at the official video.
Disclaimer: We received GoFest 2015 tickets for the purpose of this review. Opinions are our own.
