CBBC Summer Social Review

A few days ago we went to CBBC Summer Social in Croxteth Park, Liverpool. It was billed as a family festival, filled with talent from CBBC and CBeebies. We went on the final day, Sunday the 5th of August. We all had different acts that we were looking forward to seeing throughout the day, but I have to admit that Andy and he Oddsocks got the whole crowd dancing when they were up on stage. There was plenty of audience participation too, which was brilliant fun.

Andy and the Oddsocks

There was always something going on, from football coaching sessions, to immersive activity zones. The site was perfect for a festival. It was large and well laid out, with maps and signs around the park. There were different stage zones, which were far enough away from the other areas that you didn't hear noise from other areas. There were many activities which we were unable to sign up for on the day as they were already fully-booked. It would have been good if perhaps some spaces had been left for the day for people who had been unable to book in advance. We saw some of the cast members of The Worst Witch and thought that experience must have been really unforgettable.

Ricky Martin Art Ninja

 On the main stage throughout the day were a huge host of stars, including Kidz Bop, Johnny Orlando, Mackenzie Ziegler, The Next Step and Bars and Melody. The second stage had opera, and art demonstrations from the Art Ninja, to name but a few things we saw there. There was also a CBeebies stage, and plenty for younger children to do. Mr Tumble was even on the main stage, and the whole area was totally packed out!

Kidz Bop CBBC Summer social

The meet and greets were well organised and we got to meet both KidzBop and CBBC presenter Karim. The children in Kidz Bop were absolutely some of the nicest people ever and they went out of their way to make my children feel special. I was very impressed! We did queue for half an hour to meet Ricky from Art Ninja, but there were too many people in the the queue for everyone to be seen, so we went back to the main stage to enjoy the entertainment there.

The food was good and the queues were not long, which is always a bonus. I also thought that the fairground rides were reasonably priced. There were so many things that you didn't have to pay for, including the football coaching, so I thought the ticket price was good value. My son spent a lot of his time attempting to beat the Match of The Day Kickabout challenge!

The Next Step CBBC Summer social

The Next Step were definitely the act which brought the most screaming from excited fans. We were able to get close enough to the stage to see the performers, which is so much fun for children who are huge fans. One thing which would have been good was not to have adults in the front few rows so that more children stood a chance of seeing, but I understand why the parents would want to stay really close to their children.

Hacker CBBC Summer Social

The fact that a large portion of the day was being filmed and being transmitted live on to CBBC gave an added excitement element to the day. In fact, when we got home we watched it all again on iPlayer, to see if we had been filmed. My favourite part of the day was the CBBC presenters performing Shine by Take That on stage with Max and Harvey, it looked like they were all having a fantastic time.

Bars and Melody on Stage

We stayed right till the end of the very last act, which just happened to be the one my son had been looking forward to the most, Bars and Melody.

We had an absolutely amazing day, utterly exhausting, but incredible. Both children had fun seeing all their favourite acts. The atmosphere all day was really relaxed and chilled out. There were no huge queues for anything (other than the meet and greets, which is to be expected). I filmed a vlog of our day out, which is linked below. Keep your eye out for more information from CBBC about next year's event. If it's as good as this year's, then we will definitely be going again!


Disclosure: We were provided with a family ticket for the purpose of this review. All opinions are my own.