This year we were invited to attend Lollibop, the festival for children, which took place in Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. We were really looking forward to it, but at the last minute we were unable to travel down to London. I hadn't told our children, so they weren't disappointed. I have to admit that I was though. Luckily for me, a friend from my first ever job stepped in and went with his daughter and nephew, who are the same age as our children.
Here is what he had to say about Lollibop: On Friday it was not that busy, the boy easily got to the front of main stage to watch his favourite acts. I was impressed that there was minimal queuing time for the meet and greets with the cartoon characters and also the face-painters. It is hard to keep two young children entertained in a queue, so I was very glad that we didn't have to wait long. I understand that the weekend was a lot busier, so I am pleased we were there on the Friday. We were there from about 12pm - 6pm and managed to get round everything we wanted to do, with minimal waiting times.
The live shows were engaging and entertaining enough for adults to enjoy as well as the children. The sound quality was good and there were lots of well-known songs, mixed with some I hadn't heard before. It is a shame that some of the acts performing on the Saturday and Sunday were not there on the Friday, for example, Justin Fletcher who it would have been great to see.
Meeting Peppa Pig was one of the highlights of my daughter's day! In fact, she was so excited by the whole event that she wasn't even interested in ice cream when we offered it to her! This never happens, so you can rest assured that she had a wonderful time. The range of characters available to meet and greet were fantastic, from Postman Pat to the Cloud Babies. It is great that it covers different children's programmes from varying channels, showing that children don't just watch one channel.
The activities available to keep the children entertained in between performances were fantastic and there were no queues to take part in these. I loved the idea behind imagination stations and the science zones. It really was an educational event, whilst being incredibly good fun for the children. It was also great that they could have a break from watching shows and have somewhere just to sit down and be calm and creative.
Both my daughter and my nephew had a great time at Lollibop, it was a good mix of live shows, meet and greet and educational tents with obviously a few companies flogging their wares.
My personal favourites were Rastamouse and the free sweets being handed out by Haribo.
It sounds like it was a fantastic festival, and I was very glad that my friend could go and enjoy it when we couldn't. I have heard mixed reviews from the rest of the weekend from other bloggers and I think that the other days were rather busier, but the Friday was brilliant by all accounts! Fingers crossed we will get to go next year!
Disclosure: We were provided with a family ticket for one day at Lollibop festival in return for a review of the festival. This had no impact on the review, which is honest and fair.
