Deer Shed Festival 8 - The Wilderwild

There is a place, on the fringes of Baldersby Park, that is wild. A place where nature has been left to its own devices for many, many years. We thought it might be nice if we let you explore it, build dens, learn about its diverse plants and trees and essentially get away from it all.

But there are parts of this wild space that are not so hospitable, that are home to all sorts of creatures. The locals talk of a witch, but we've never seen her.

Welcome to The Wilderwild, our theme for 2017, tread carefully.

Reviews

Some nice reviews of DSF7.

"This is a very big statement to make but I think that Deer Shed Festival could quite possibly be the best family festival in the UK."
Festivals For All read full review.

"Deer Shed: The Ultimate Family Festival. A bold statement in the title, but one richly deserved and let me explain why"
Subba Cultcha read full review.

"Deer Shed isn't just a marvellous festival, but THE one to attend for families and people of all ages, sitting several notches above its northern festival counterparts."
Efestivals read full review.

"Right. Let’s get something straight right from the start. Deer Shed 2016 was essentially perfect: a wondrous box of delights for young, middle and old alike."
There Goes The Fear read full review.

"Just like an old friend, Deer Shed still remains reassuringly familiar, rewarding and an absolute pleasure to be around."
God Is In The TV read full review.

And most importantly what you guys thought.

Tickets

How to buy tickets for Deer Shed Festival 8

Deer Shed tickets are only available through this site, head over to our tickets page for all the ticketing info and to purchase. See you in July!!

News

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Rest of the 2017 line-up coming soon!!

Our music line-up for 2017 is now complete, take a look at it here.

Over the next few months we will be announcing comedy, shows, theatre, workshops, spoken word, food and loads, loads more...

Come for free? Join our Love Deer Shed Ambassador Scheme!!

If you already rave about Deer Shed to your friends and family why not be rewarded for your enthusiasm and join our ambassador scheme!

In a nutshell, for every 8 adult tickets you sell on our behalf we will give you a FREE adult ticket plus there are all sorts of other rewards to earn!

And if you have your ticket already or if you are keen to volunteer you can still benefit by gifting your FREE ticket to a friend.

Check out our Ambassador page for all the detail!!

Line-up

Announcements coming thick and fast over the next few months...

Click here for 2017 music.

The best contemporary music from the UK and beyond. Discover your new fave band.

Click here for 2017 comedy.

Booking great PG rated comedy is hard, but we get it right most of the time!

Click here for 2017 shows.

We drag our kids round the best shows from Edinburgh Festival, so you don't have to!

Click here for 2017 sporty stuff.

BMXing, slacklining, tree climbing, footie, swingball, wild running, wrong pong...

Coming soon for 2017!!

Take stuff to bits, forensics, soldering, music production with emphasis on FUN! (2016 science here)

Coming soon for 2017!!

The Guardian's Dave Simpson chats to the great and the good of the music world and beyond. (2016 spoken word here)

Coming soon for 2017!!

Curated by Katherine Stanton, our own book club, but without the cheesy nibbles. (2016 literary here)

Coming soon for 2017!!

From Arthouse to sing-along-a-Tangled, your chance to downshift and relax. (2016 cinema here)

Coming soon for 2017!!

Making stuff, learning stuff and performing stuff. Last year we ran over 80 workshops. Phew. (2016 workshops here)

Coming soon for 2017!!

Ways in which we look after and entertain your under 5s!

Coming soon for 2017!!

Some people come to festivals just for the food, this we understand and invite the best of the best.

Our take on the family friendly music festival thing.

We might rant on a bit here, sorry.

If you go and watch a Pixar movie with your children, everyone has a great time. Not just your kids, EVERYBODY!!! We strive for this holy-grail every year.

We don't have kid's areas as such, they're not zoo animals! The whole site is accessible to everyone and we will welcome you as though you were our house guests, which you essentially are.

But we are a cultural event too and you will be exposed to many new things. We like new things. You might be challenged by some of them, but we want every family member to leave Baldersby Park inspired, if that's ok.

And finally, our music line-up, hitting you through extremely high fidelity PA systems will be as thrilling and contemporary as you will find at any UK festival in 2017 - it's just that you can share that thrill with your kids and feel perfectly safe at the same time.

Oh, and if you don't have kids to bring, that's fine too xx

Gallery

Click on the current image to see next, there is no going back!

Other gubbins

Baldersby Park is a lovely place to camp and making sure that you have plenty of space is always a top priority, even if it means shuffling things about a bit.

Bring your own tent, bring your campervan or caravan or choose from one of ourglamping options.

Volunteer for 8 hours over the festival weekend and get an adult ticket for FREE!! Find out all the details on our volunteeringpage.

Monster VS Machines

If you come to DSF7 you will know that we shot a movie. It went well, phew, and many of our audience took starring roles. Monsters VS Machines is now in post-production and we will of course keep you up to informed of its progress!

But in the meantime here is Peter Black, CEO of Open Mind, to set the scene.

What to expect

A few ways that Deer Shed differs from other festival formats.

What happened to the long goodbye?

Deer Shed started, way back when as a one day festival. The Wedding Present played, you went to sleep and then pottered home. Because we didn't screw up that first edition too badly we have over the years grown in size and duration.

These days you can arrive onsite from 10am on Friday morning onwards and there is plenty on to entertain you all until the arena really gets going around 4pm. Then you sleep, Saturday is mad frantic, you sleep again and then Sunday at Deer Shed is a little different from other festivals...

Our Sunday main stage headliner plays around 4pm and for many of our audience especially those with small kids this is the perfect festival length. This is how Deer Shed was for many years, we called it the 'long goodbye' (which sounds a bit pompous now!). Then some of you didn't want to leave so we introduced an optional Sunday night camping over ticket. SO if you want to stay over until Monday morning you can for a modest fee.

Sunday night is a hoot, especially for all the Deer Shed staff who tend to cut loose in the capable hands of Andy Kershaw and his African, Caribbean & Latin Dance Night - a party to end all parties and you are welcome to join us :)

Our history

Various themes and lineups from over the years. The theme for DSF1 was 'OMG we're having a festival' and consequently we can't find the artwork :)

Our friends

Folks that we are proud to be associated with.

The Association Of Independent Festivals is essentially a trade body for the best of the UK's independent festival sector as well as the source of most excellent gossip.

Candlelighters is a charity bringing light and hope to the families of children suffering from cancer. They are our festival charity with over £2500 of donations in 2016.

Attitude is Everythingimproves Deaf and disabled people's access to live music by working in partnership with audiences, artists and the music industry. We work closely with them to improve our accessibility.

Our charity for 2017, SASHprevents young people from becoming homeless by offering them a room in the home of a volunteer. Their ambition is that those we help never have to experience homelessness again and are able to lead successful, independent lives.

We are once again offering the Arts Award in conjunction with CAPE UKwhich acts as the Arts Council England Bridge role in Yorkshire and the Humber which focuses on increasing access to the Arts and Culture for Children and Young People, working in a not-for-profit capacity.