Independent festivals have been having a tough time of it in the last few years, as increasingly restrictive security and licensing demands from councils and police have led to massive financial losses.

Big Green Gathering 2009 was forced to cancel its festival after the local authorities tried to impose several last-minute, prohibitively expensive security measures, which were perfectly timed so BGG were simply unable to meet them, as well as being unnecessarily harsh. Elsewhere, some of the nicest, most peaceful festivals such as Sunrise Celebration have been forced to hire unpleasant security staff whose sole intention seems to be to ruin the vibe. They would protest that they’re there to protect the festivalgoers, to which I would reply with one raised eyebrow and a hearty “bollocks”. At a festival like Sunrise, you’re probably more likely to be abused by a cretin in a red jacket than by someone who’s actually paid for a ticket. In my experience, someone who’s paid upwards of a hundred pounds to attend a festival is there to have fun, and even the people who break in have not gone to that amount of covert effort to go around beating people up. It’s too much force where it’s simply not wanted or needed.

This may all seem like irrelevant soapboxing – stop lecturing me and give me a bloody review, I hear you grumble – but it’s a huge part of how I see music festivals. As far as I’m concerned, a festival is not just an event in a field where you watch bands and drink loads. Festival literally means “a day or period appointed for celebration”, and for me, the summer festivals are such a magical time because they are a chance to take a break and attend a wondrous parallel universe for a few days; a chance to do, wear and say exactly what you like – within reason, obviously, before some pedant pipes up – with exactly who you like; a celebration, if you’ll momentarily indulge my cheesy side, of life, love, friendship, joy, silliness, creativity, watching bands and drinking loads. And having lumbering security oafs telling you to turn your music off, or taking the piss out of your fairy wings, or randomly accosting people because they’re bored and hate hippies, is not conducive to this atmosphere. Dear God, somebody might have been rolling a spliff at a festival! Call in the National Guard! Don’t worry everybody, your parents have been called and they’re on their way to take you home!

Anyway. I digress.

Shambala subscribes to this view of festivals. In the words of its own programme, “festivals should be an alternative vision of society… utopias, a place where interacting with fellow humans isn’t a hassle but a pleasure”, and it has done a fantastic job of preserving its principles in the face of widespread corporate sponsorship of festivals, and the aforementioned political bullshit. A happy, peaceful, fantastically creative and wonderfully diverse event in Northamptonshire, it provides more bang for your buck than any other festival I’ve been to, and to anyone who enjoys large amounts of clean, colourful fun, and some excellent music, attendance is pretty much compulsory.

The omens for 2010 were not good to start off with, as the week preceding the festival saw Britain suffer some of its legendary summer downpours. It may seem churlish to moan about a bit of rain after what’s been happening in Pakistan, but trust me, to a festivalgoer who knows they’re going to spend a large chunk of their weekend in wellies, caked in mud, and having to negotiate the dance-of-trying-to-get-your-wellies-off-and-get-into-your-tent-without-getting-mud-in-your-tent-but-also-not-get-your-socks-wet, it’s an environmental catastrophe unsurpassed by anything in human history. And when I got up bright and early on Thursday morning, ready to go, only to receive an official text saying they weren’t going to be opening the gates until Friday afternoon on account of the rain, I was more than a bit annoyed. But keenness won the day, and after some encouragement from a friend already on site, a bunch of us decided to brave the weather and head down anyway. We got in fine, and even though it was raining, we were set up. We were there. And the weather ended up behaving itself (mostly). Bargain.

So began a brilliant weekend. One of the dangers of being at a festival with lots of mates is that you end up bimbling around being silly and not watching very much, but knowing I was going to be writing this piece was a good incentive to catch as much as possible. I was not disappointed. Electro-swing outfit Kormac’s Big Band were a Friday night highlight, combining Irish DJ Kormac, a double bass player, a brass section, a live drummer and a barbershop quartet with a visual show that incorporated clips from “The Hurricanes” (a fondly-remembered football / action cartoon from my youth), library footage of pratfalls from the 1950s and an extremely blasphemous animation of Jesus cheerfully transporting his crucifix through a stylised cityscape. I also enjoyed Friendly Fire, a reggae band whose take on Nelly Furtardo’s “Maneater” ranked alongside a wonky hip-hop remix of “Oops I Did It Again” (sung by what sounded like a sex offender) as most enjoyable cover of the weekend.

The Chai Wallah stage always has some of the best music, and Shambala was no exception. On Saturday I saw Kate Tempest, a young firebrand MC whose charisma, presence and phenomenal lyrical abilities completely transcended her age; Yabba Funk, a groovy, uplifting African dub-funk band; and enjoyably grimy knees-up ska punk group Los Albertos. Elsewhere on the main stage, Bristol collective Smerin’s Antisocial Club, a festival favourite, were as bouncy and fun as ever (despite a few bizarre shifts into pantomime and self-indulgent prog funkery), and virtuoso bass player Shri, along with his stunning drummer, played an impressively varied – if at times impenetrable – set fusing drum’n'bass, breakbeat, funk and jazz. But my absolute favourite of the day, never having heard of him before, was Afrobeat pioneer Kanda Bongo Man, whose warm, soulful music and hugely talented band were perfect festival material. The sound on the main stage wasn’t always entirely up to scratch, but that was about the only fault to be found.

When Sunday rolled around there was still much to see, although we were all feeling the effects of the previous two days’ partying. Top of the list were MC Xander (the best of the many beat boxers I saw over the weekend), African jazz-funk band Helele, old favourite Gentleman’s Dub Club, and RSD & Joe Peng, whose intelligent, heavy dubstep and jungle set ranked among the best DJ performances I’ve seen. And later on, even when it got late and that night’s security teams – the most aggressive, intimidating and wholly unnecessary of the weekend – were trying to turn everything off, some enterprising folk commandeered a pedal-powered sound system (complete with attached pole and dancers) and whizzed around playing tunes. They quickly gathered a huge crowd who joined hands and danced around them to stop the unimpressed heavies from turning the system off, and even though we eventually lost the battle and our music, it was still highly satisfying showing Festival Insecurity just how futile they were. And before you protest that they were just doing their jobs, I’m not listening.

For me, two of Shambala’s main draws are a pair of amazing audio/visual experiments. The Recursive Function Immersive Dome, a huge silver pod from space, features awe-inspiring 360-degree laser visuals and the most cutting-edge electronic dance music you’ll find anywhere, and any time I ventured in felt like a short, mind-expanding trip to the future. Two DJs called Vilhelm and Munnski particularly stood out, although don’t ask me to classify the deliciously smooth, layered and whomping sounds they were playing, because I can’t. All I can say is that it was some of the most utterly jizzworthy techno I’ve ever encountered. Some of the stuff teetered on the brink of bizarre noise collage territory, but it was mostly quite scrumptious.

The Enchanted Woods, the festival’s other experiment, are an experience like no other, where intelligent, reactive lighting skitters through the trees and you wander through fluorescent, psychedelic sculptures as the latest in experimental, ambient electronica pulsates subtly from crystal clear speakers. This spine-chillingly atmospheric environment, courtesy of the Modulate Collective, Simon Meyers and Jules Newman, was a highlight for everybody, and ideal for a spangled trek at silly o’clock. Unfortunately the cargo nets hanging from the trees were so full every night that I didn’t get a chance to climb in them, but to be honest, just standing in this possessed woodland and taking it all in was enough for you to feel that you’d been transported somewhere else.

So. Brilliant music. Lush design. Lovely people. Hilarious, out-there fancy dress. Responsible, sustainable eco-friendly practises. Workshops covering everything from Standing Up to the Far Right to Mask Making via Growing Your Garden For Self Sufficiency. A rave dome from the future. Genuinely enchanted woods. Delicious food and local booze. The chance to bump into a giant in drag whistling the A-Team theme at 4am and not be scared, or to chase a quartet of silver-painted people in pants, boots, foil capes and Harry Hill Masks, or to witness a full-scale war between ten Star Wars characters and fifteen drunken Wombles. Ping-pong tournaments with drum’n'bass accompaniment. A roller disco. A 2am showing of RoboCop. Need I say any more to convince you that Shambala stands head and shoulders above most music festivals, and simply demands that you join in the fun? Are you sold?

No?

Well, then we’d probably rather you stayed at home.