London Viva! Vegan Festival Review

We headed out to London this weekend for the Viva! Vegan Festival, which was held in the Drum at Wembley. It’s a huge venue and it was packed full of various vegan stalls, which was just amazing to see. There was so much variety, as you can see in our video here:

We loved just walking around and absorbing it all – this event was about the whole vegan lifestyle, not just food. Vegan clothing, including customised jackets which I had to tear myself away from, vegan jewellery, vegan beauty products, and vegan activism – it was all there.

 

 

But you know what we were really there for: the food! Let us tell you, the food was just magnificent.

Actually, we ate so much and sampled so much that we’ve decided to split the product-specific reviews into a second post, coming next Wednesday. You can look out for that, along with our reveal of the VIP goody bag and all it contained!

Meanwhile, back to the festival itself: it was presented beautifully and we could easily have stayed for a lot longer than we did. I was booked for press tickets at a few LFW shows and I actually skipped one to make sure I could cover everything at Viva! – there was that much going on! Other than the stalls themselves, there was also live music – we stopped to eat some of our goodies while listening to a few songs from one of the singers. There were also talks and cookery demonstrations going on – we only managed to get to one of those but it was probably the best choice.

Billed as ‘mystery guest’ in the programme, we weren’t sure who to expect. We were pretty surprised to learn that it was Heather Mills! She gave a fantastic talk which was mostly Q&A rather than anything else. She has a lot of information to give about veganism and wants to make sure that everyone knows the right ways to go about it – to look after their bodies, to transition gradually, and to learn from their own physical experiences what their bodies need.

She also had a lot to say about the dairy and meat industries and how they fight dirty against vegan activism, especially in the press. It was a really eye-opening experience, not least in terms of understanding more about Heather herself. We both agreed we have a newfound respect for her after hearing her talk with honesty, passion, and wisdom on a subject that she is an expert in.

This was such a great event to attend and we had a really good time. Aside from nearly overdosing on sugar (more on that next time!), we left satisfied and could have stayed for a few more hours just relaxing in the vegan atmosphere. We can’t wait for the Brighton event – stay tuned, as we’ll be giving away tickets for that later this week!