What a weekend! What more could Edinburgh folk want than top artists playing live in the sunshine a short bus ride from home?

Connect Festival chose the perfect weekend to bring some big names to town. With a diverse range of music spread across a number of stages and venues at the Highland Showground, there was plenty to keep music lovers big and small entertained.

Although Connect is not billed as a family-friendly festival, we thought this was the perfect chance for our kids to try out their first music festival close to home. Aged 12, 10 and 7, we discovered that there was more than enough at Connect to keep the younger crowd happy. From the massive sounds of the Grand Parade stage to the intimate garden setting of the Tiny Changes x Gardeners Cottage, the kids could pick and choose the sounds to suit their mood. Not only were they blown away by seeing their music idols playing a few metres away, they also experienced the transformative joy of discovering a new band or musician through the power of an incredible live performance. There were too many of these moments to recount, but stand-out highlights for our kids were seeing Holly Humberstone, Little Simz, Moses Boyd, and Caribou perform fantastic live sets.

Outside of the music there was a great food scene including ice-cream vans and Pick n Mix, a huge hit with the kids! Hula-hooping performers on stilts kept us entertained in the sunshine between sets on Saturday. The hill below the Speakeasy was perfectly situated next to the Margarita van so that we could sip cocktails while the kids climbed trees and turned somersaults down the hillside. There was even a playground where they could swing to their hearts content whilst listening to the beats drifting over from the Untold Pleasures stage.

Our children could not have felt more welcome as the atmosphere was very chilled and the festival staff and festival-goers alike were friendly and considerate. If Connect are keen to attract more families to the festival then they may wish to consider a cheaper ticket for children, or even a family ticket price. Our kids would have loved to see more circus and street performers around the site too!

All in all, we all enjoyed this amazing music festival weekend. Can’t wait to come back next year!

(Written by Elika Aspinall )