LauFest 2018

Guest Blog Post - Claire Fulton Ray (LauFest Team)

LauFest takes place in Wembury on the weekend of July 27th - 29th. 

LauFest is a home grown festival in Wembury celebrating the life of Laura Plane. It champions all of the things which were so important to her; family, friends, music, good food and of course (most importantly) having the very best time you can have whilst shining like a superstar.

Laura left this earth on May 27th 2017 (aged 37) after living with breast cancer for 8 years. During her time on this planet she not only showed everybody she met how to rock the hell out of life, but she did it with style, grace and a heart brimming over with love. 

In the wake of her passing, Laura’s husband Jon started a Twitter campaign to get the Foo Fighters to dedicate their wedding song ‘Everlong’ to Laura when the band headlined the Glastonbury festival. AND IT WORKED. Dave Grohl was enchanted by Laura’s story and blew everyone away when he said those now immortal words, “I’d like to dedicate this song to someone named Laura, who couldn’t be here tonight. But we should all dance this one for her”.

Jon vowed that he would continue to honour his wife every year in the best way he knew how – by holding a Glasto-style festival party to remember, laugh and celebrate the good times. LauFest was born…

During her life Laura Plane raised £70k for the breast cancer awareness charity CoppaFeel! - spreading their message by encouraging young people to check their boobs so that they might recognise symptoms early and get treated. Unfortunately, the message of CoppaFeel! was too late for Laura, but her campaigning has saved countless lives and continues to do so. The aim of LauFest is firstly to celebrate Laura and the stellar work she did for CoppaFeel!, a charity which meant so much to her, but also to celebrate the life our girl and the shining star she is. The inaugural LauFest in 2017 raised £8k for CoppaFeel!, and we hope to achieve all this and more in honour of our girl in 2018.

With an open-air cinema showing a cult classic surf movie on the Friday night (complete with popcorn and candyfloss), a whole day of live entertainment across two stages on the Saturday (with Rae Morris!), and a Sunday dedicated to jazz, soul and funk (all topped off with Jelly Jazz) you'd be crazy to miss it. All this as well as bouncy castles, urban zorbing, a silent disco each night, delicious food offerings, power ballad yoga (you have to see it) and so much more, we hope that you'll join us at the best little festival in the West country...Come with glitter, come with smiles, come with flamingos… LauFest wants you!