Important Statement

Please share. Dear vegan community. We've seen some of you have expressed concerns about VCO 2025. It's important to us here in the VCO team that you feel confident in coming to our event, so we'd like to address these concerns to give you an insight into how festivals operate and why/where these claims originated.

Since VCO began, some individuals in the community have criticised the venues/land that VCO has been hosted at, claiming vegan events should only operate at places with no ties to non-vegan activities. We empathise with this wish, as we are all passionate vegans! But in the UK, the majority of land is owned by animal farmers. This is the unfortunate reality of living in a non-vegan world. All large outdoor venues either host, or have owners involved in, animal farming, shooting or hunting. This has been the case for every venue VCO has been at, and it's the case for other large outdoor vegan events (or music festivals), all vegan food brands sold in supermarkets and even a large portion of animal sanctuaries who have to rent land from such people. Despite this fact, almost all vegans support vegan food brands, events and animal sanctuaries, because we understand that this does not make them unethical. It falls within the very definition of veganism, 'as far as is possible and practicable'.

The task of finding a venue we feel is ethical enough is near impossible, and is then made exponentially harder by all the other factors festivals have to consider when seeking a venue, such as - calendar availability, the required acreage, camping permission, appropriate licences, facilities & access, affordability, and in our case - the willingness to work with a vegan event, which sadly isn't always the case. All of this (and more) always leaves just a couple of suitable venues to choose from, which are the venues VCO is always held at. The VCO team has spent roughly 4,000 hours researching, visiting and conversing with 250+ venues throughout our time hosting the festival. It is one of the most vital parts of our job and an area of immense expertise for our team.

𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐰𝐞'𝐫𝐞 𝐬𝐨 𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐮𝐧𝐚𝐭𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐞 𝐚𝐭 𝐚 𝐯𝐞𝐧𝐮𝐞 𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭:

1. 1. Doesn't farm animals or host hunting/shooting on-site

   
   

2. Is ran by our venue partner who is a lifelong vegetarian and strongly believes in the mission of our event (which is extremely rare to find)

Our rent money goes solely to our venue partner and is exclusively reinvested back into the venue to improve the facilities of all festivals held there (including VCO!). Our rent money has never (and won't ever) be used for activities that go against our ethics.

Despite our team working hard to provide this information on multiple occasions, sadly it appears that some in the community have taken an uncharitable stance towards our event, holding VCO to an impossibly high standard that no other vegan event or business is held to. Over the years, we have been subjected to vicious rumours and smear campaigns that aim to undermine our event and convince people to abandon VCO. These efforts are driven by misunderstandings and misinformation. This is disappointing, as we only ever do our best to create a vegan experience in a non-vegan world, as do all the other vegan events, food brands and sanctuaries, despite the actions of their landlords. The impact of these actions has been challenging not only for our team, but the broader vegan community too.

Vegan Camp Out was created by vegans, for vegans. Events like ours are so vital to create positive change for animals. VCO has earned over £5m for vegan businesses and another £500,000 for animal charities and sanctuaries specifically. Roughly 1000 people have either become vegan or became involved in the vegan community/outreach through the event, which equates to roughly 3 million animal's lives spared! So we ask the vegan community to continue supporting vegan businesses & events with the understanding that we don't live in a vegan world (yet), and we’re all doing our best! Please stand with us, together in our shared goal. We have enough to contend with in this world already without turning against each other.

We look forward to seeing you all in August for what will be the best VCO yet ❤