Once In A Blue Moon

08/04/2024

Check out where we’ll be popping up this summer! Let us know which ones you’ll be at!

07/03/2024

Hi everyone - we’re hiring! If you'd like to join the Once In A Blue Moon Cafe Crew as an Assistant Manager at festivals and events during Summer 2024 then look no further :)

Our season runs from the end of May until the end of August this year, and we’ll be popping up at How The Light Gets In, Glastonbury, Noisily, Starry Village, Green Gathering, We Out Here and Shambala! We’re looking for someone to join our team with lots of hospitality experience, who loves the festival lifestyle and is (ideally) available for the whole season.

You would need to have your own van (MWB or larger), and be up for helping to transporting stock and equipment, assist with setting up / taking down our marquee and festival venue, and working as a cafe supervisor during busy food & drink services. We would also require you to help on select half days between festivals for Bristol-based event preparation.

If you're interested, please email [email protected] or drop us a DM and we'll take it from there, forward to hearing from you!

30/01/2024

Our beautiful Indian canvas tents are available to hire!

15 x 9m (seats up to 120)
12 x 6 m (seats up to 75)

Please share with your friends and family if they have a special occasion coming up.

05/12/2023

CHRISTMAS SALE!!

We are gifting a free enamel mug with every purchase on our online shop until the end of the year. Simply add the mug to your cart and apply the code FREEMUG at the checkout.

Our 10oz mugs are PERFECT for those who love festivals, camping or simply reducing their single use waste. They are light weight and can be easily clipped on to your bag or belt with a carabiner.

These are a great little stocking filler!

Shop online - www.onceinabluemooncafe.com/shop

20/09/2023

04/09/2023

Yes Summer 2023!!! We're blessed to have been part of so many inspirational events across the UK this year :)

Despite a lot of torrential rain, heavy wind and a noticeable lack of sun, we made it from HowTheLightGetsIn Festival all the way to Anglesey for Gottwood Festival, spent 9 days on-site at the legendary Glastonbury Festivals, ran a 24 hour venue at Noisily Festival of Music and Arts, celebrated 10 years in existence at our own Midsummer Gathering, returned to The Secret Garden Party, set up our big marquee and catered at a wonderful Wedding, went solar powered at Green Gathering, hosted an amazing lineup of talented DJs at We Out Here Festival and last but not least had an absolute blast as always at Shambala Festival...THANK YOU to all of our hardworking crew, lovely customers, DJs/Performers, workshop holders and everyone else we met along the way for all of the positivity and good vibes X

And for those who aren't quite done with festivals yet...come and mark the end of the season with us at Equinox Festival weekend after next ;)

14/08/2023

This is our fave stage at Green Gathering, please support these guys!!

Help save the Triban stage! 💚

Did you enjoy the BEAUTIFUL space that was the Triban stage this year at Green Gathering? Then help us save it!

Triban is a non-commercial not for profit collective of creatives who are passionate about music, the arts and the environment, who have been running their Solar powered festival stage since 2006. We’ve all had a lot of wonderful memories together playing, dancing and listening to music on this magical stage!

This year they sadly had two beautiful marquees (including their main stage venue), a substantial amount of essential equipment, and a trailer stolen before the Green Gathering. Without this Triban is struggling to continue. With lots of help they managed to be here this year with a borrowed marquee - please help them BUY it!

You can donate to their crowdfunder here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/triban-solar-stage-fundraiser

And please also share this post! Thank you!

29/07/2023

Our resident DJ PXM put together a special mix for our 10th birthday - get the sound of the cafe in your ears now and have a little dance wherever you may be :)

Live on - 12-1pm 10/07/23. A selection of records we put together for OIABM Cafe's 10th birthday, some of which I also spun on the decks at our lovely Midsummer Gathering event to celebrate a couple of weeks ago :) Tracklist: Steel An' Skin - Gadzo Drumming Lokonon Andre & Les Volcans -....

17/07/2023

Well that was fun!

We are buzzing after such a wonderful gathering of beautiful souls at our 10th birthday party.

We had an eclectic mix of guests including childhood friends, musicians who jammed in our tent many moons back, people who met and fell in love under our starry ceiling, friends and family who have supported us with endless toastie making at festivals across the UK and skilled workshop holders who we have met along the way.

Gatherings are so important for our wellbeing and we are happy to contribute our little space and continue to be part of this flourishing festival community.

Thanks to for hosting us on their beautiful farm.

16/07/2023

So wonderful to have sweetcornbread play at our party this weekend. We love our festival family

thank you very much to pat and helyn and the rest of the crew from the Once In A Blue Moon café for having us to play for them again this weekend at their tenth anniversary event and just generally looking after us all and our families for the umpteenth time in the last 8 years or so since we came across their tent at a little festival called Curious Yellow, and became the first "overly-boisterous" band to play in their usually quite chilled out little space.

since that day, the once in a blue moon café has become a place of late-night sanctuary and our go-to place for next level food at many many different festivals. it's always good to see their name on the list of traders when we're playing at a festival, (and it was an absolute no-brainer for one of our frontmen to get them in to do the catering for his wedding a few years ago, because the quality of their food is amazing, trust).

it was an absolute honour to be asked to be part of their anniversary celebrations and it's good to see them going from strength to strength, and to see how far they've come from their humble beginnings swapping cups of coffee for gifts (or tales if you had nothing) to becoming an always welcoming spot (for both punters who have come for the coffee or food and lost or befuddled late night stragglers that are looking for sanctuary out of the rain, alike) at multiple major festivals and some of our very favourite little ones.

anyway, everyone we told tales or spent time with this weekend, (without exception, new faces and old) were lovely to us (even after jim's impromptu s**t solo, in the middle of our set, ha).
we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and we hope to see you all again soon.
much love.

02/07/2023

We can’t wait to be part of the magic of Noisily next week!

28/06/2023

Thankyou so much Glastonbury Festival 2023 - what an absolute blast as always! We loved our new spot next to the amazing Woodsies stage, and it was a pleasure to serve wholesome meals, toasties, cakes and hot drinks to lovely folk all weekend :) Massive shout out to our awesome team too, pictured here towards the end of Monday's pack-down and very much looking forward to a shower and some rest :P We're back up and running at Noisily Festival of Music and Arts in just over a week though - come and say hello if you're there! X

21/06/2023

Happy Solstice! 10 years ago today, we embarked on our blue moon journey. To celebrate we are releasing a limited edition print.

We started by selling home-made cakes to the hippies, pagans and revellers who had gathered at the sacred circle and joined them as they danced through the night. We just about covered our cost to get to the stones and onwards to to set-up our first Guerilla cafe, up on the stone circle. We swapped stories and trinkets for a DIY cup of chai.

Today we celebrate summer solstice back at Glastonbury, now with our full cafe venue marquee. We are located in a brand new area for 2023, the WOODSIES. The sun will set at its highest azimuth in the North West right over this brand new area.

Pre-order your 10 year anniversary print on our website!

WWw.onceinabluemooncafe.com/shop

16/06/2023

Just one month until our 10 Year Party! Thank you so much to everyone who has bought a ticket, we’ll be sending the full program out shortly :)

If you’re up for coming and haven’t booked your spot yet, get on it! We have a limited number of spaces remaining before reaching capacity.

'Pay what you can afford’: www.onceinabluemooncafe.com/parties

14/06/2023

03/06/2023

We have some exciting new workshops happening at the cafe this year.

Pot Heads Pottery will be with us at The Secret Garden Party

Join the Pot Heads to have a play with some clay and learn to create your own, unique plant pot character. Take part in a fun and relaxing workshop where you will learn some simple pottery techniques and enjoy exploring the calming and therapeutic nature of pottery. The workshop is focussed around using creative play to aid wellbeing, and encouraging people of all ages and abilities to tap in to their playful side - first time potters are always encouraged and you can take your new creation away on the day, along with a plant ‘hairstyle’ of your choice!

24/05/2023

Summer update! We're about to dive into the 2023 festival season, woo hoo! First stop, HowTheLightGetsIn Festival this weekend. Who's going to be there?

Read our full update here: https://mailchi.mp/f927dda90a8a/summer-has-arrived

16/05/2023

We CAN’T WAIT to be part of this new area at Glastonbury Festival 2023

‘In 2023, the summer solstice falls on the opening Wednesday of Glastonbury Festival and the sun will set at its highest azimuth in the North West right over this brand new area, which makes a new home in the spaces previously occupied by the John Peel Stage and The Woods’

Formerly known as the John Peel Stage, Woodsies is Glastonbury's new "vibrant & verdant area in the NW Corner. For visceral live music, convivial campfires and enchanting treetop escapes."

26/04/2023

Good times! Our last Midsummer party was back in 2016!! So lovely to see all those faces.. we hope you all can make it for our Once In A Blue Moon's Midsummer Gathering - 10 Year Anniversary!

In July 2016 for another of our bi-annual parties, we took over an quirky eco-campsite hidden away in central Bristol for a full day and night mini-festival....

25/04/2023

We are very lucky to have Festival Yogi joining our Midsummer Gathering 10 Year party in July.

Lucy specialises in festival yoga, focusing on and addressing all your mind and body’s needs you might otherwise forget when frolicking at your favourite festival.

She will be taking us on a journey through sounds and movement to help us keep rejuvenated through our festival weekend.

Tickets are still available for our event, and start at only £25!!

Www.onceinabluemooncafe.com/parties

19/04/2023

MIND BODY SOUL is now live!! 🙏

noisilyfestival.com/mind-body-soul

We are delighted to share with you our first wave of Mind Body Soul magic, now live on the Noisily website.

This year we land & evolve with a new theme, We are Love, honouring & celebrating the universal life forces that dances between us all & connects us to all life.

Weaving movement, breathwork & meditations; panel discussions, talks, rituals & ceremonies; creative workshops, immersive experiences, live music & spoken word; holistic therapies, a sweatlodge & a new Art Gallery brimming full of creative wonder; plus plenty of open, welcoming spaces to just come & be; all facilitated by an incredible community of gifted healers, wisdom keepers, artists & space holders..

We couldn’t be more excited to share all the magical threads we have gathering, with plenty more to come in the following weeks!

Together we remember We are Love. 💛

16/03/2023

Very happy to be returning to our most local festival, Green Gathering

We’ll be getting the solar panels out and going off grid!

New poster for Green Gathering 2023 out now! ✨

Want to help us spread the word about the Green Gathering? Email [email protected] with your postal address and how many you'd like, and we'll pop some of these gorgeous new flyers in the post for you.

Many thanks to the talented Joy Rooney for the artwork 🙏

03/03/2023

We’re going back :)

Here is the first Glastonbury Festival 2023 line-up poster, which includes our final two Pyramid Stage headliners: Arctic Monkeys (Friday) and Guns N' Roses (Saturday).

Many more acts and attractions still to be announced.

Enter our prize draw for tickets & experiences - all proceeds going to Oxfam / DEC's Turkey-Syria Earthquake appeal - at https://glas.to/oxfamdraw

17/02/2023

We would like to encourage everyone to bring a collaborative, community-led spirit to our Midsummer Gathering this July, and so we're reaching out to see who would like to be part of the party and help us celebrate 10 years in existence!

Check out how you can get involved in our Midsummer Gathering this July.

The first time we set up our starry marquee was in 2016 at a tiny event called Oxburn in our hometown of Oxford. The ethos behind it was similar to the infamous Burning Man in the USA, where everyone contributes what they can - a collaboration of likeminded souls. We loved the mutual exchange aspect...

20/12/2022

If you bought one of our mugs at Shambala Festival this year, you helped contribute to - we’re donating 100% of our profits from the sale of the mugs to a charity who are working to help people get access to clean and safe water across the world.

07/12/2022

We are absolutely over the moon to have been given the Inspirational Trader award by Shambala this year!

Shambala has been a huge inspiration to us throughout the years, we were so chuffed to be part of it for the first time last summer and are happy to announce we’ll be back in 2023.

Big up to shambala for celebrating its traders, and for cultivating a wonderful and supportive community. They really work hard to ensure we are all working as ethically and sustainable as possible, we would love to see this happen more throughout the festival industry.

Also a massive shout out to all of our crew, we really appreciate you and the support you’ve provided us along our journey.

We are so excited for 2023!!

01/12/2022

To celebrate our 10 year anniversary we’ll be throwing a big party at a beautiful farm in the welsh countryside next summer.

We want to gather all the wonderful people who have contributed and been part of our journey including everyone who has enjoyed our tent and drank a cuppa under our stars throughout the years.

Let’s gather and be merry!

Tickets: www.onceinabluemooncafe.com/parties

We also want to hear all your stories and memories of our space for an exciting project we’re working on. Maybe you met a new love or learnt a new thing which led you on a journey of discovery! DM us your anecdotes now!

30/09/2022

Please help if you can, one of the best little parties around :)

“The love you gave me, nothing else can save me, S.O.S”

First of all, a massive thank you to everyone who joined us for FM2022. In many ways it was our best event ever: our best line-up, best sound, best location and best crowd. And many of you sweethearts have been in touch to say just that. So thank you. Without you, the party is nothing.

But sadly, we can’t cash in all this love, and so we find ourselves in a position where we are asking for your help to save FM.

Field Maneuvers started eight years ago when five of us put £50 in a pot, bought an incorrectly spelled domain name, and hoped for the best. Each year we've grown incrementally, releasing a few more tickets, improving the sound systems, booking bigger acts, always trying to throw the best party available within our means, never paying ourselves much more than expenses and stupidly or not, not taking any sponsorship (beyond a few kegs of beer). Call us plonkers but we've always done it for the love. FM2022 was our biggest party to date. But it has also ended up being the hardest.

We always knew our first event after a three year break for Covid was going to be tough, but it ended up more challenging than we ever could have imagined. The bottom line is we’ve lost a lot of money, and without your help we could end up in a crippling amount of debt. But we really believe FM has a future. And if you do too, we could do with your help.

How we got here...

Firstly, we sold most of our tickets in 2019, pre-pandemic, and have racked up three years’ of day-to-day costs before this event even started: licensing, storage, ongoing business administration, accountancy, all of which would normally be covered by the annual income from running the event.

Secondly, the cost-of-living crisis has affected us across the board. Brexit, the war in Ukraine and inflation have seen all of our contractor prices rocket by at least 30% - from diesel to marquees to plant hire to hay bales - everything cost more this year, so we found ourselves trying to make 2019 ticket prices match our 2022 costs.

Thirdly - and this is the biggie - since buying those tickets in 2019, life has changed for a lot of people. Wedding invitations got sent, people got new jobs, children happened, financial situations changed - and so despite selling 1500 tickets and budgeting for a party for 1500 people - only 1000 people turned up. 500 less punters buying drinks meant our bar projections were out and our take was down 35%. A devastating amount for a tiny, independent party.

How we save FM…

We could have *just* about survived with the 1000 people on site, but only if those 1000 had each spent an extra £40 at the bar to make up for the people who didn’t attend. Now we need £40,000 to cover our losses *gulp*. So…

If every single person who attended FM2022 copped a t-shirt or a jumper then we would be sorted…

Or if every single previous attendee from over the years copped a sticker pack & pen bundle we would be sorted…

And if you have ever been on our guestlist or hit us up for a few extra meal/drinks tokens, then now is a good time to return the love.

And if you ever met your BFF or significant other at FM then you know what to do ;)

To reiterate, we’re festival promoters by accident. We have our own full-time jobs, responsibilities, and children, despite which, we still focus almost entirely on this event for three months of the year, and beyond a few drink tokens and meal vouchers, we rarely pay ourselves. We don’t wanna be vibe assassins but it's a lot to shoulder, at times too much, but it still all feels worthwhile when we hear our favourite DJs play to a dancefloor full of beaming faces.

But, in probably the first sensible move we’ve ever made, we’re drawing the line at financially crippling ourselves to keep going! For Field Maneuvers to survive we really do need your help. We know times are tough and if you can’t afford it, please don’t even think about donating, but if you can chip in to this Save FM Crowdfunder, you’d make some exhausted and genuinely worried people very happy indeed.

So if you ever wanted to buy a T-shirt or a bomber jacket or get keys to your own luxury FM portaloo then now is the time
And who knows what the future holds. But if we can make it through this bump in the road, we promise to make it worth your while!

Love to you all. FMHQ.

The crowdfunder is here: https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-field-maneuvers

20/09/2022

Big shout to Equinox Festival and all the wonderful folk we met there last weekend for another epic finish to a festival season! Here's our crew after packing down and loading the vans up for the final time this year, 2022 has certainly been a busy summer! HowTheLightGetsIn Festival Eden Festival Glastonbury Festivals Noisily Festival of Music and Arts Bluedot Festival Green Gathering Boom Festival Official Warm Up Shambala Festival Field Maneuvers you were all amazing :) See you next year x

06/09/2022

So good to be back at Field Maneuvers last weekend, and to double up as the ambient / room 2 DJ tent for them once again! What a summer 2022 has been, we've just smashed 5 long festival weekenders in a row so all of our crew are very much looking forward to a couple days chillage for the first time in a while...then catch us at Equinox Festival weekend after next to finish the season off with a bang ;) x