I’ll let you into a secret if you promise not to tell anyone.
Every year in small part of a Surrey village a music festival takes place and it’s best described as the Waitrose of Festivals.
Compared to Glastonbury with a capacity of 210,000, Weyfest is minuscule with just 6,000 people attending but it's largely due to this that the festival is so great and lives up to the buzz of the poshest festival around.
And that’s because the posh loos and showers normally reserved for the VIPs are for everyone, because everyone at this festival is treated like a VIP.
The organisers who are currently in their 16th year have created a unique family friendly festival where all egos are left at the main gate for the three-day event.
Even the artist backstage area is a sea of calm with tea and coffee and orange squash on offer with not a beer in sight!
With four stages to choose from, musical tastes across all genres are catered for over the three-day festival which takes place at the Rural Life Museum in Tilford.
The festival attracts top names - many giving punters a trip down memory Lane.
This year’s headliners included 10cc, Billy Ocean and brilliant Friday night band Del Amitri who played numbers from their newest album Fatal Mistakes mixed in with their greatest hits including Kiss This Thing Goodbye, Roll To Me and Nothing Ever Happens.
Saturday afternoon was well and truly owned by Scouting For Girls, who are a fan favourite and regulars on the Weyfest line-up with lead singer Roy Stride describing the tiny festival as "half Glastonbury, half school fete".
You can't help but have a massive smile on your face throughout a SFG set.
And with the sun blazing down on the Beekeepers Stage lead singer Roy led the band on to the Superman theme before bursting into the infectious Heartbeat.
Throughout the gig the crowd were reminded they were the fifth member of SFG and definitely didn't disappoint, helping Roy and the guys to belt out hit after hit including I Wish I Was James Bond, Posh Girls , Elvis Ain't Dead, This Ain't A Love Song and She's So Lovely.
A brilliant cover of Wings' Live and Let Die proved to guitarist Nick Tsang that the crowd could definitely rock before Roy reflected on the Covid pandemic and how it decimated live music.
"In 2020 we had two gigs - one in a car park and one on Zoom to a software company. So we started recording an album of 90s covers. You wanna dance?"
It takes a brave band to cover Whitney Houston but the band's catchy take on I Wanna Dance With Somebody was met with cheers, dancing and lots of singing.
At Weyfest there's a whole lot more going on than just the music.
Not your typical festival site, the Rural Life Museum keeps its museums and buildings open for music lovers to explore while they’re on site. You can even hop aboard the museum’s train which runs around the perimeter of the festival.
Kids can meet Doctor Who and The Daleks in the Sci-Fi Zone where weird and wonderful characters roam or they can join one of the many activities being run throughout the weekend including music workshops, a climbing wall or make dream catchers or festival top hats.
Just like the Germans and their beach towels Weyfest punters arrive early to secure their spot with their foldable camp seats where they set up base camp for the day, but there are no ‘camp seat wars’ here because everyone is so friendly.
One of the directors, Ali Edwards, explains how Weyfest was born and why people keep retuning year after year.
He said: "The festival started off in different pubs dotted around the River Wey. They were charity gigs and three of the directors were in a band and we'd get other musos to play for nothing.
"In the end we decided to turn it into something proper and our first named band was Dr Feelgood with 200 people."
Fast forward several years and the festival now takes place annually at the Rural Life Museum and has a capacity of 6,000.
Ali continues: "Our licence is for more but we want to keep it comfortable. We don't want to ram people in.
"It's not a festival aimed at 18 year olds who don't mind a bit of discomfort.
"It's aimed at older people and they want their comfort. They want their posh loos. They want good quality food and drink and that's what we provide and that is what has been successful for us.
"People are now switching on to the fact that this is a great festival. It's not the cheapest festival out there but you get quality when you come.
"There are no real queues for anything. A lot of other festivals charge you for a ticket to the posh loo section or VIP section and you'll still have to queue at the bar or for the toilet. We treat everyone like a VIP."
Talking about the great names past and present on the Weyfest Roll of Honour Ali explains: "What we are finding is, and a lot of the artists who have played here a few times are saying this, they were a band who were big may be in the 80s but the fans out the front have got their children with them now and they love this music that they've not heard before."
But just what is the secret to Weyfest's great atmosphere and vibe?
Ali explains: "If you look around you'll see the smiles on people's faces, you'll see the children. You'll see the dogs, we've got a 102-year-old lady who has come every year for the past 6 years, lots of elderly people, four week old babies and everything in between, we've even got a cat in a campervan!"
Shhhhhhh! Just don't tell anyone I told you!
Next year's Weyfest takes place August 18-20. For more information visit here
