Lynton and Lynmouth Music Festival

Free music festivals, especially good free music festivals, are few and far between. Often you’ll find that either the venues are bad, the bands are bad, the location is bad or some combination of those three are bad.

Lynton and Lynmouth Music Festival, or Llama, bucks this trend, being a not-for-profit festival that is spread throughout two gorgeous towns situated in Exmoor National Park.

For a start, the views and scenery of the entire area are wonderful: forested hills that run down and swiftly become cliffs that then drop into the ocean. The towns themselves nestle in this area well, their architecture and atmosphere being exactly what you’d expect to find in an area like this.

Lynmouth plays host to the main stage, which is set up right by the water front. This means the audience face not just the bands, but the Bristol Channel. The town itself is worth exploring, but as the evening draws in, most festival-goers will move up to Lynton, either taking a steep, uphill walk, or by catching a lift on the water powered cliff railway, one of Lynton and Lynmouth’s other main attractions.

Once at the top, the music moves into the various pubs, though some set up outdoor areas for performance and expose the streets to the performers. Every pub will have a different style of music being performed, and one pub might see a variety of different styles through the night. Just wandering through the town means being exposed to sound from every direction; it is totally unavoidable.

Of course, the businesses in Lynton know that people are going to be up and about much later than normal, so lots of places will take advantage of that fact. At the pub I remained in for most of the night, there was a fish and chip shop open right up until I left, and I didn’t see it without a queue once.

As there are plenty of indoor performance, weather is less of an issue to the festival too, and it is well known enough that people and bands from all over the country are assured to turn up regardless. The locals are friendly enough to the newcomers, and you can be guaranteed of having a few extra friends for the evening.

Overall, a good festival, and free to boot.