I love festivals, but I'm rarely someone who shows up with an immaculate itinerary of set times. Besides one or two non-negotiables, I’m perfectly happy outsourcing that responsibility to my more musically literate friends – bopping about wherever they lead while I smile and pretend the first time I’d heard the DJ’s name wasn’t exactly 10 seconds earlier.
At the UK’s We Out Here festival, this relaxed approach feels particularly safe to adopt. Curated by legendary DJ and broadcaster Gilles Peterson, it's one of my favourites for a reason: you can trust that wherever you rock up, there’ll be something worth sticking around for. So, when securing my ticket for this summer, I barely gave the bill a second thought. Instead, another line-up caught my attention: the food.
Most festivals have come a long way from the days serving up limp burgers and soggy wraps. But at We Out Here, I was impressed to discover that the food programme was afforded the same level of care as the music; its thoughtful assembly of independent traders, chefs, local producers and social enterprises a schedule I could, for once, easily decipher.
There were plenty of names I recognised. From London food-scene darlings Rahel Stephanie and Suzie Bakos, who featured as part of on-site supper club On Rotation to Beat Hotel’s pop-up with Acme Taco, each addition felt like a thoughtful counterpart to the festival’s wider spirit of discovery.
Jen Hacking – the woman responsible for the curation – is working to build a culture where festival food is seen as more than just fuel. Throughout the year, she and her team visit markets and food events, seeking out those with a genuine connection to what they serve. “I try to bring traders who have a strong rooted heritage in the food that they’re offering,” she explains. “When the dishes being served carry a sense of home and family history, it gives people a different kind of connection to what they’re eating.”
In treating food as more than just an operational necessity, the festival creates space for meaningful cultural exchange. Sam and Tian Olorunfemi of Jollof Mama speak to the importance of authentic Nigerian food being on the line-up, particularly in an industry where food cultures like theirs haven’t always had that visibility. “For us it’s about representation. To come to a festival like this that wants to showcase a wide representation of food cultures, that means so much,” they tell me.
For refugee entrepreneurs like Nour Jarrouj, founder of London-based supper club and social enterprise Baytna 4 Refugees, the festival offers a chance not only to trade, but challenge perceptions of her community – a mission supported through We Out Here’s ongoing partnership with TERN (the Entrepreneurial Refugee Network).
Nour is the person responsible for the zingy, garlic-drenched Syrian burgers I’ve been craving for weeks since. I sat down with her expecting a quick chat; an hour and a half later I left with a new friend and an invite to dinner. Her warmth was matched by a fierce sense of purpose: “I’m not here just to share our food. I’m here to change our system,” she affirms. It might be her fragrant patties that draw you in – but the real impact lies in the conversations they spark, giving Nour the chance to share more about her “hometown, culture and stories”.
That's what makes We Out Here's food programme so valuable – it doesn't simply feed thousands of people, it puts community at its heart. I arrived expecting to eat delicious food. What I didn’t bank on was for it to be my weekend’s central catalyst for connection.
On the coach there, I found myself smiling as two strangers bonded enthusiastically over harissa. The next morning, my bean-and-cheese-laden breakfast became an unlikely social lubricant when my friend’s crush, actor Asa Butterfield, stopped to compliment it – a sentence I’m still not sure she’ll forgive me for being able to write.
Across the site, affordable meals are made a priority, food traders support and mentor each other, and communal dining experiences give strangers a reason to sit down together. Everywhere I went, I overheard people swapping recs for the best food stalls. I even happened upon a couple who met in a food queue the previous year (if that’s not amore, I don’t know what is).
It got me thinking back to other festivals I’ve been to, and I was surprised to realise how rarely my memories of them revolved around the music. The clearest moments have always been connected to food. Not because I care more about what’s on my plate than what’s on stage, but because food gives us a reason to stop, sit down, and talk. Even a shared packet of sweets in the crowd can turn strangers into friends, transforming fleeting festival encounters into something that lasts long after you’ve packed down your tent.
Before the festival, when Jen described food to me as one of the “great building blocks of community”, I understood the idea but could only grasp it in a figurative sense. After four days of making friends over food in a field full of new faces, I’m more attuned than ever to the role it plays in bringing people together. As Carly Wan from Hunan street food stall Homeland puts it: “Food is never just nourishment – it’s a language of family, heritage and togetherness.”
