Is Field Maneuvers the most fun time ever? Yes probably

Now that we’re in the afterglow of summer, I’m looking back with a little more clarity on what makes Field Maneuvers such a special festival. Cheese alert, but it’s a reminder of how deadly important having a silly time with your mates and meeting new people really is. It’s so easy to forget this during winter, and then take it for granted when summer rolls around. 

It began with a biblical amount of rain when it was time to set up camp on Friday afternoon. I thought, ​“Surely no one is going to be able to come back from this monumental vibe killer? Is this game over? RIP?” Well, in fact, the downpour united everyone through shared trauma and the achievement of having all got through it. Quickly whip some hay down on the mud swamp (you know who you are, Hay Throwing Qween) and power on regardless. It’s proof that, with the right people, any dire situation can be flipped into a good time. Thankfully, though, the rain passed and Saturday and Sunday were stunningly sunny. 

One of the most notable things about the festival is how small it is, hosting around 1,600 attendees, which is refreshing. It’s not overwhelming. It’s just a few little skips and a strut between your tent, the stages, the food and the loos. It’s easy. But the most important thing is the crowd. In trying to escape the rain, we found ourselves immediately greeted in the Sputnik. Everyone wanted to chat and share downpour trauma, but at the same time dance like nothing’s happened. Trying to work out why this festival attracts a crowd that feels like one big, friendly, slightly insane family, I’ve concluded that it’s largely down to the amazing collectives who play such a huge part in the organisation and programming of the event. These collectives bring with them the people who go to their events back home. It feels like one giant fancy-dress house party, made up of dozens of smaller ones, where somehow everyone seems to know everyone. The collectives, including can you feel the sun, Heras, Sports Banger, Harmony Rec, X Step Ball Chain, Music To Watch Seeds Grow By, Syphen, Dalston Superstore, low end dreams, Dialled In, DTMF!, ZeoZone, o•rbyss, Pingers and, last but not least, Uhaul Dyke Rescue, bring with them a wondrous array of people from different scenes. 

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Comparatively, it feels like a lot of electronic music festivals are organised by some suits sat high up in offices who aren’t actively engaged in the scenes, parties and events they’re trying to promote. Field Maneuvers is different. It feels like it’s been organised organically over many years by a collective of people who know exactly what they want to experience at a festival, and who they want to share it with, with the simple objective of having-a-great-time.

It could easily become cliquey, but the diversity of collectives is exactly why it doesn’t. There’s a mix of people from different scenes and backgrounds who aren’t necessarily bound by their existing identities or social circles. Proof of this was the hugely popular, super cute Pears speed dating on Saturday.

There were a few teething problems, with some hefty queues on the Saturday for some of these acts. But even that didn’t seem to affect the energy too much. Soon enough, the queues subsided, dancing resumed and happiness was restored.

I spoke to Ali Wagner and Lucy Nurnberg of Uhaul Dyke Rescue – a brilliant FLINTA collective synonymous with Field Maneuvers – whose presence could be felt everywhere across the festival. The list is large, but they re-fitted the famous The Packet Inn pub, helped create the new Function Room stage, have their mobile Dyke Bar and championed accessibility on the dancefloor by promoting safer, more inclusive spaces in nightlife. They also bring arm wrestling! We talked about the role a collective can play in helping to organise and define the culture and crowd of one of the friendliest, silliest and most fun festivals there is.

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Tell us a little bit about Uhaul Dyke Rescue and how you usually get involved with Field Maneuvers.

Lucy: Uhaul Dyke Rescue is a collective created to make space for the dyke and extended FLINTA community in festivals and nightlife. Three years ago we built The Mobile Dyke Bar, our pop-up venue inside a rented Luton van, that we’ve been bringing to festivals like Hoopla, Glastonbury and Body Movements. We also run a club night at Distillery N17 in Tottenham, the Uhaul Dyke Raves. Uhaul is made up of a huge squad who take part in our pop ups and takeovers: DJs and go-gos, the handy dykes who work crew and create things for our events, MCs-slash-hosts for our arm wrestling tournaments and other entertainment, photographers and videographers, whatever you need to make a good party – we’ve got it covered!

Ali: We’ve been coming to Field Maneuvers since 2024, when they first invited us to bring the Mobile Dyke Bar, and we’ve brought it every year since, upgrading it slightly each time, always with programming like arm wrestling or sock wrestling held by Uhaul Dyke Rescue service members. The collaboration has gotten bigger every year: in 2025 we did a music takeover in the pub on the Saturday night, and in 2026 we not only did a Uhaul takeover on the Saturday night, we also reconceptualised and redesigned the Packet Inn, inspired by old British boozers, and created the new stage install, the Function Room, which is inspired by traditional working men’s clubs.

What was different for Uhaul at this year’s Field Maneuvers? Were there any new ideas that you were especially excited to bring to the festival?

A: This year was extra special because the scale of what we were trusted with jumped up. We were asked to both design and rebuild the existing Packet Inn from the ground up, as well as conceptualise the new Function Room. Getting to shape two spaces instead of just showing up with the Mobile Dyke Bar was a first for us, and it meant we could really put our stamp on the physical feel of the festival, not just the programming.

L: It’s been so nice that each year we’ve been asked to contribute more and more. Last year we ran the first Uhaul takeover in the original Packet Inn which was a fever dream with all of our friends and Uhaul family dancing with us on and behind the decks. This year we did the Mobile Dyke Bar as usual, a b5b takeover, and got the dream job of designing and building the new look Packet Inn and the Function Room. 

The pub is such an iconic part of Field Maneuvers. I think it originally came about as an excuse for [festival co-founder] Henry Morris to buy fruit machines, but it’s somewhere people love and deeply associate with the festival. We were excited to help the organisers fulfil a big vision for the space after years of pulling it together on the fly. We separated out the dancefloor into a working mens’ style function room and then filled the pub tent with loads of seating and pub decorations to do it justice as a proper boozer.

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How did you two split things between you this year? What parts of Uhaul’s presence at Field Maneuvers did each of you end up looking after?

Ali: We work mostly together, but we do split on certain tasks. Lucy is a gun at doing our SketchUp models and finding amazing pop references to print out and hang in the pub. Ali designed the new pub sign and some pub tables, which she then hand painted, and she loves trawling Facebook Marketplace and Gumtree for goodies to kit the spaces out with.

Lucy: For the pub redesign we also worked very closely with Ele from FM, who had a clear vision from the start. For a whole year ​‚we were sharing references and car boot and Facebook Marketplace finds. The amazing red velvet banquette corner seating and matching tables and chairs came from a working men’s club in west Wales (where she lives) that sadly closed down. Thanks to Ele we get to keep a little bit of its history for years to come. 

The biggest thing I took away from Field Maneuvers was the people. It was honestly, honestly one of the warmest, most welcoming and fun festival crowds I’ve ever experienced. I left with so many new friends, and everyone felt genuinely like-minded, friendly and open. Why do you think Field Maneuvers attracts that kind of community? And do you think collectives like Uhaul help shape that atmosphere by building a community that follows you from event to event?

A: It definitely starts with the people who run FM and work there, and their ethos. They know the ingredients to throwing a good party. People at FM are down to get silly, get a bit weird, and no one is taking themselves too seriously, which is beautiful. You feel this in everything, from the music to the interactions with strangers, to the costumes people rep. FM has been pivotal in our Uhaul family friendship circle, it’s really the one event every year we all gather for. It’s the one at the end of the summer that brings us together. We share a campsite, we share tears, love, often romances, and lots and lots of laughs. It’s the festival I feel the most connected to my dyke family at. Even though FM is not specifically a ​“queer” festival, the safety we feel there to be ourselves, and to be the weirdos we are, really allows us to feel very free and silly. FM is the best crowd at any festival we’ve seen, and this all comes down to the DIY nature and the pure love that is poured into it from everyone who works hard to bring it to life.

L: I think friendship is truly the heart of Field Maneuvers. It started as a rave put on by a group of friends for each other and as it’s grown they’ve worked hard to keep that feeling of an extended friend group.

I was also thinking there’s something really special about how the DJs and performers get so involved as audiences. It’s so small and there’s not a VIP lounge – imagine! – or anything that creates an us and them vibe: it’s just people who love music in a field. Watching Lois (the DJ Lo-Low) and Genny (Team Uhaul and a cabaret / festival legend) giving it everything as the unofficial hype squad at Cheza Lucina and Ivicore’s b2b set on Sunday was the perfect example of that. Lois and Genny were throwing it down on the stage, blowing whistles, even crowdsurfing – they loved it so much. As people who work in the industry, it’s so fun when we get time off together to let loose.

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I was really happy to see a queer-driven space that felt diverse and much more FLINTA-inclusive than a lot of other events (who promise a diverse range of attendees) which can often be predominantly made up of gay men. Do you think more festivals need FLINTA collectives to help create spaces that attract and welcome a more diverse range of queer attendees?

A: Yes! We see this at every festival we’re a part of. Having a dedicated space for FLINTA does help. It’s not only an act of protest through taking up space, it’s a place that celebrates us. We saw it at WHOLE festival this year too, where we built a dedicated FLINTA space. What’s important about our presence at FM specifically is that we’re political at our core. Some feedback we had after our takeover in 2025 was from a cis-het group of guys who didn’t know who Uhaul Dyke Rescue were or what we are about, but ended up at our takeover on the Saturday at FM in 2025. They said that seeing all of us together, dancing in protest and love, dancing with signs about trans rights, was something they’d never seen or been part of before, and they learnt a lot that night. Yes, Uhaul is fun and silly, but we are also there to take up space, educate, and protest for our rights and visibility. Especially in a world like we are living in now, it’s crucial we bring these sorts of political messaging to the dancefloor.

L: This is literally why we call ourselves Uhaul Dyke Rescue. The nightlife and festival scene is still predominantly male especially behind the scenes, and we were fed up of feeling overlooked and being muscled off dancefloors – even queer ones. 

When we first launched this project, the huge response we got showed just how much dykes and FLINTA people were in need of dedicated physical spaces. But now I’m really noticing how much having collectives like ours year on year is changing the culture. Not only do we see more dykes and FLINTA people attending because they’re being catered to, but other peoples’ behaviour shifts too. As an example, the first year at Field Maneuvers it was driving me nuts that so many cis straight men were using the Mobile Dyke Bar to hang out and eat their meals, despite the giant sign that indicates who this space is for. One morning I had to yell at a group of men to take their feet off my furniture and clear up all the rubbish they’d left behind. Now I don’t think that would happen: people know what we’re about and know to respect the space. If we can make people think a little bit more about the space they take up in a context like this, the party will be better for everyone. 

One thing I loved about Field Maneuvers was that it never felt overly corporate, over-organised, too big, or like it was trying to force fun. It had such an intimate, community feel and felt like it was built by people, like yourselves, who actually love festivals and know what they want from them. Did it feel like that from your side too, and do you think that’s what makes Field Maneuvers so special?

A: Definitely. It’s one of those few gems left, to be honest. The organisers are very conscious not to become another one of those festivals that sold themselves to the devils, but honestly this can also be very tough, because it means they rely solely on ticket sales and bar spend, and a lot of their work probably goes underpaid. So that’s why we all need to support FM and buy your tickets and drinks at the bar bbs.

Finally, what was the highlight of this year’s Field Maneuvers for each of you?

A: Hmm, there are so many. Our takeover on the Saturday night was once again insane. We did a Uhaul family b5b (Angel Maze, Ali Wagner, Macy See, Marie Malarie, and Powertools Lucy) and we had all our friends with us. Another highlight was the sock wrestling, a new activity at the Mobile Dyke Bar. And then Sunday is always a highlight too, we’re always a big crew of dykes dancing at the front of the superstore outdoor stage takeover.

L: Obviously all of the Uhaul moments are highlights. We’ve been doing it three years but it’s still so special to see how much joy it brings and meet new audiences. But I agree with Ali: the Superstore takeover on Sunday is always magical and we purposefully schedule no Uhaul activities that day so we can all just enjoy it. This year at the outdoor stage, the Dalston Superstore lot were inviting different friendship groups – all dressed in themed costumes – to come up and dance in the scaffold of the stage: it felt like a tribute to friendship aka what FM is all about. For our part we were dressed as LinkedIn Lesbians, and spent literally the whole day dancing at the front in our business attire.

Sam White is Huck’s art director. Follow him on Instagram.

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