Review By John Rawstron

here’s something wonderfully refreshing about a festival that manages to feel genuinely welcoming without sacrificing the excitement of a big live-music event — and this year’s festival at The Food Museum in Stowmarket, Suffolk, delivered exactly that.

Set across an impressive 80 acres of festival grounds, the event brought together nearly 3,000 music fans for a packed day of live music, great food, family entertainment and plenty of reasons to stick around from the first note to the final encore. The whole site had a fantastic energy: busy enough to feel like a proper festival, but intimate enough that it never became overwhelming.

A Fantastic Festival Setting

The Food Museum proved to be an inspired choice of venue. The combination of open green space, the historic surroundings of the museum and the various entertainment areas created a festival site with plenty of character.

The layout was particularly well thought out. With two main music stages, an acoustic performance area by the bridge, a funfair and a selection of local food and drink stalls, there was always something happening — yet getting from one part of the site to another was remarkably straightforward.  

The Ravertots Takeover

Accoustic Performances

Luke Askew

Harriet Cree

Ava Lee

The Stocks Fun Fair was a particularly fun addition, with discounted early-bird rides giving families and festival-goers another reason to arrive early and make a full day of it. The funfair also added plenty of colour and movement to the site, creating that unmistakable festival atmosphere. One of the big surprises was Grapevine’s local legend Hayley Clapperton, handing the organisers of FOMO Fest a well deserved best festival award.

A Line-Up That Packed a Punch

Musically, the festival really came into its own.

The main stage featured an impressive collection of established names, with Example bringing his trademark dance-pop energy to the party, while grime heavyweight Devlin provided a very different but equally compelling edge.

For fans of indie and alternative music, The Ordinary Boys were a major highlight, delivering the kind of energetic performance that had people singing along and soaking up the nostalgia. Then there were punk-rock favourites Republica, whose appearance added another welcome dose of attitude and live-wire energy to an already varied

Main Stage – Review

John Peel Stage Review