# Vegan Camp Out

Vegan Camp Out (also known simply as 'VCO') is an annual camping festival in the UK and the UK's biggest vegan event, featuring music, comedy, talks, health & wellbeing activities, and various workshops. Launched in 2016, Vegan Camp Out has been held at various different venues in the UK, and an additional festival weekend also ran in Australia in 2023.
The festival focuses on veganism, environmentalism and animal rights. Most performers are publicly vegan, typically including prominent influencers, activists, comedians, and musicians. A variety of all-vegan food vendors is a central feature to the event, the list of vendors usually being billed as a 'food line-up' which is promoted as the 'biggest selection of vegan food in UK history'. They also claim to be one of the very cheapest 4 day camping festivals in the country.

## History

The festival was founded in 2016 by Jordan Martin. Martin previously co-organised the festival with artist Kate Louise Powell from 2016 to 2019, then vegan influencer Claire Michalski in 2020, founder of the nonprofit Vegan Founded which certifies people and businesses (as opposed to individual products) as being 100 percent vegan and then with his sister Ellis Goodridge since 2021.
Vegan Camp Out Festival has received sponsorship from Viva! since 2017.
The festival has changed locations multiple times, due to a number of different reasons such as outgrowing their previous venue or difficulties in securing a venue which is not linked to industries which use or exploit animals which they have received backlash before for from some in the community.

### 2016

16–17 July 2016 – Riddings Wood Caravan and Camping Park, Derbyshire.
The first Vegan Camp Out event. Around 400 people attended. Entertainment was provided by a DJ, and one food vendor was present.

### 2017

7–9 July 2017 – National Watersports Centre, Nottingham.

### 2018

17–19 August – Newark Showground, Nottinghamshire.
Main acts included Simon Amstell, Jme, Macka B, Neal Barnard, Melanie Joy, and Heather Mills.

### 2019

30 August – 01 September – Newark Showground, Nottinghamshire.
Around 7,500 people attended.
Main acts included Earthling Ed, Matt Pritchard, Shikari Sound System, and Akala.

### 2020 (cancelled)
#### Main festival

Due to take place: 21–23 August 2020 – Newark Showground, Nottinghamshire.
Festival organisers initially held off from cancelling the 2020 festival despite the COVID-19 lockdown regulations, due to speculation within the events industry that restrictions may have been eased by the time the festival was due to take place. The event was eventually cancelled on 08 June 2020. A crowdfunding campaign was launched to help mitigate financial losses incurred by the cancellation of the 2020 event.
Most of the planned line-up was postponed to the next year.

#### 'Back to Basics'

Due to take place: 25–26 September 2020 – Riddings Wood Caravan and Camping Park Derbyshire
Following the cancellation of the main event, organisers announced they would be holding a smaller version of the festival, 'Back to Basics', with a lower attendance capacity of 1,000 and without stages for live entertainment. This followed updated restrictions which permitted licences to be granted for large organised gatherings under certain conditions, although social distancing regulations still applied and immediate groups were still limited to 'bubbles' of no more than 6 people. After coming under public scrutiny, the licence application was subsequently withdrawn under pressure after around 50 objections were raised by local residents of the Amber Valley area, including Derbyshire County Council's public health advisor. The council then used emergency powers to block from the application from being resubmitted.

### 2021

20–22 August 2021 – Newark Showground, Nottinghamshire.
Around 11,750 people attended.
Main acts included Russell Brand, Chris Packham, Benjamin Zephaniah, P Money.

### 2022

15–18 July 2022 – Stanford Hall, Leicestershire.
Around 12,000 people attended.
Main acts included Earthling Ed, Evanna Lynch, Simon Amstell, Lucy Watson, JME, Gaz Oakley, and Bimini Bon-Boulash.
The festival took place during a heatwave and a lack of water supply became an issue throughout the weekend, for which the organisers apologised on their official Facebook page.

### 2023 – UK

28–31 July 2023 – Bicester Heritage, Oxfordshire.
Over 13,000 people attended.
Main acts included Romesh Ranganathan, Bosh!, Joey Carbstrong, Sam Ryder, and Tash Peterson.
Some criticism was received after reports of vandalism in the local area - specifically, graffiti with the words 'go vegan' appearing in multiple places around Bicester.
Festival founder Jordan did his first talk at the event about 'Cancel Culture', his take on religion as an ex-Muslim, debunking misinformation about the event and the importance of critical thinking and being kind, which was mostly met with positive feedback, both at the talk and then online when it was posted a few months later.

### 2023 – Australia

24–26 November, Darkinjung / Glenworth Valley, New South Wales.
Main acts included Earthling Ed, Ali Tabrizi, Patrik Baboumian, Nimai Delgado, and Tash Peterson.

### 2024

26–29 July 2024 – Bicester Heritage, Oxfordshire.
Main acts included Chris Packham, Earthling Ed, Lee Mack, Michael Greger, Simon Amstell, Kate Nash.

### 2025

Organisers announced the event would take place the last weekend of August at Bygrave Woods, Hertfordshire. Organisers published several changes for the 9th edition of VCO, such as an extra day, a reduced capacity of 7,500 people, a new venue with trees/shade/woodland, later afterparties and brand new area 'The Jungle' which will host 39 different genre DJ sets which they claim will make it the 'Most varied genre DJ area of any UK event'.