Louise Glyde takes a look at The Woolfire Festival at Woodmancott

Festival season has well and truly kicked off and Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are perhaps more blessed than some.

The revived, legendary Isle of Wight Festival has come and gone and last week we reported on Blissfields at Bradley near Basingstoke.

Just down the road is the Woolfire Festival, an event of a similar ilk.

It's very low-key and is a platform for young local bands who want somewhere to play, and for music lovers who just want to chill out and not miss one of their favourite acts because they are queuing for the loo for hours.

Student Charlie Albin, 21, is the organiser, and his parents have let him host the festival on their land at Vicarage Farm, Woodmancott, near Micheldever, from Friday July 13 until 2am on Sunday July 15.

Charlie said: "This is the first time we have done the festival as an official event. For the last couple of years we have run private parties for friends, getting friends' bands to play. It went pretty well and we thought we would take a next step and get it licensed. It looks promising so far, we have three stages booked doing a massive selection of different music.

"I'm in a few bands and one of them, Indigo Adara, is playing the festival and I'm also doing my own acoustic set as well, called Rustleaf.

Charlie continued: "I am a student at the moment up at Liverpool doing a sound engineering degree, hence we've had a good contact basis to get the festival going. We are trying to use it for my friends at Uni who will come and engineer the thing and have practise doing it on a professional scale. Also the bands will have experience of playing a festival.

"If it goes well the plan is to definitely take it a bit further and look at doing it again. It's a good project and everyone who is involved is enjoying it."

For more information visit www.woolfirefestival.co.uk or www.myspace.com/woolfire