Vibe:

SGP is relatively expensive compared to its lack of big name headliners, so the creative set-up attracts a slightly more mature, (secretly) middle-class, hippy crowd than Boomtown's raving reprobates.

As with most festivals, but possibly even more so here, there's a feeling that for these four days everybody is free. Crazy dress is the norm, everybody's glittery and don't be surprised if you accidentally find yourself in the middle of choreographed forest dance. The enchanted woodland, flowing river and mirror-surfaced lakes, especially the massive one pictured below, give an air of calm which is unusual for somewhere with such a high concentration of people.

Highlights:

Excitement levels rise into hysteria for Saturday night's Spectacular. Fire dancers entrance the crowds around the lake, matching their swirling reflections and ensuring our full attention is taken before the fireworks erupt into a crescendo.



Though marginally less dramatic, keep half an ear and an eye out for the paint fight. So far I keep missing it for work, but the streaky, colourful grins that appear later in the afternoon have always made me jealous.

Seemingly rising out of the water itself, a different sculpture each year creates an island you can row out to until it goes up in flames on Saturday night. Home to a secret stage, the theoretically life-sized kraken, dragging down a staggeringly intricate pirate ship was my favourite so far...