Financial Times Weekend Festival Review

Another September means another Financial Times Weekend Festival. I had a blast last year so was excited to return to this one day festival which is filled with talks, wine tasting and celeb spotting.

This one-day festival took place on Saturday 6th September in the grounds of Kenwood House. Once through security, I got my bearings and worked out which tents I needed to be in at what time- after all, I couldn’t miss chocolate tasting, wine tasting and whiskey tasting could I? The tents are themed: finance, literature and life, tech, travel, arts, food and drink, house and home as well as the Big Ideas and FT future tents. Similar to last year approach was to try to do the activities, as I knew I could always listen to the talks online for up to 90 days after the event.

My day started with chocolate tasting at 11am- what a way to start the day. We were taken in a taste journey from Sweden to Suffolk, from Ecuador to Guatemala. At 1pm I went to the always popular wine tasting. Here the FT’s Wine Columnist and Master of Wine Janice Robinson took us on a tour of Germany. The table I was at was so fun, we were smiling and laughing all the way through, and I even convinced one to come to whiskey tasting with me at 3! This time we had a journey through Canada with FT writers Tim Hayward and Alice Lascelles.

One of the reasons I was so excited this year was to see Jack Thorne. He is known for writing ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’, as well as the acclaimed TV series ‘Adolescence’. Jack spoke about writing for film, television and theatre and answered fan questions. Jack explained that his hope with Adolescence was to get people talking, so when I had the chance to meet him I explained that as a social worker we definately had talks about the themes and issues raised and that training had been organised about Incels, which he was amazed to hear. As a Harry Potter fan, of course I had to ask him about if he continued the journey of Cursed Child where would he see the characters, but he said he feels the story is told and wouldn’t continue it. However, he will be watching the new HBO Harry Potter series along with his son.

Seeing Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert, was also great. He only had 45minutes to talk but he was so engaging and I could easily listen to him for longer. Please bring him back next year FT Weekend! To finish of the evening, I enjoyed listening to the Jay Rayner Sextet.

There’s a variety of food trucks serving up pizza, burgers, Thai, ice cream, pancakes, sweet treats and of course, much needed coffee. I opened for a lobster cheese toastie- something I haven’t tried before.