VERVE Festival | A conversation with co-founder Anna Hayward
“Wellness can be whatever makes you feel better.”
We talk to Anna Hayward, the co-founder of VERVE Festival— a weekend wellness reset located in the heart of the Wiltshire countryside — about why you don’t need to be a wellness warrior to attend and how we can all shape a practice that reflects who we are, rather than who we think we need to be.
Where once there were music festivals, literary festivals, and ideas festivals, it now feels like there’s a movement toward wellness festivals. Why do you think we are now drawn to them?
I think that’s true although there are still only a handful of wellness festivals.
It feeds into our current moment. I know from feedback how much people appreciate just having a real me-day and not everyone these days wants to go out to a festival and drink till 4 am. We’re all starting to care a bit more about our health and well-being.
We celebrate healthy hedonism; we still have a bar, we still have cocktails, and we’ve got DJs in the evening, but it’s more of a balance.
Do you think the perception of wellness has shifted? We’re noticing how wellness has become something of an unachievable goal, ironically given its intention.
I feel like the version of wellness that you offer is more accessible; that it’s ok to be messy about it (wellness doesn’t have to be this pristine thing anymore – it’s ok to fit it in when your kids are crawling on you).
I think so too. I think the idea of wellness is for everybody and it’s for all shapes and sizes and ages and it doesn’t matter. We get all kinds of people at VERVE Festival – we had a man in his seventies and older ladies with grey hair and bigger girls and skinny girls and everything in between and that’s what it should be. It shouldn’t have ego; it shouldn’t be about anything other than just trying to be better to yourself.
Wellness is different for everyone. It can just be about having a big burger and a glass of wine (that’s what makes me happy). That’s just as good for you, isn’t it? Wellness can be whatever makes you feel better.
What do you hope people experience with the festival?
It’s different for everybody. People were coming up to me at the end of the last festival – complete strangers – hugging me and saying what an amazing time they’d had. Many people said: “I can’t believe I’ve never done this before. I’m going to go home and carry on with it.” And quite a lot of people said they were going to make changes. They’d listened to a talk, or something had happened during the day, and it was going to be a little catalyst for change in their lives.
The timetable allows people to do their own thing and most things are free once you are at the festival, so people just drift around and everyone has their own way of approaching the day.
We enable people to try some things that are different, that they may never have thought of doing in a million years. While some people literally want a day away from their children, or to sit with their friends and drink cocktails and listen to some music. That’s great too.
There’s been a huge surge of interest in nature since you started, but you built that in from the beginning.
Yes, the whole idea is health, wellness, and nature. We live in an area of natural beauty, a dark skies reserve, and the farm we hosted on the first year was so beautiful. We realized that’s our Unique Selling Point. There are other wellness festivals, but no one has got this natural space, this greenery and this beauty quite frankly. We’ve done star gazing, we once got the AONB to come along with their astronomers, we had runs along the farm, we offered forest bathing, and everything was just to celebrate being outside and being in nature.
Even a few years ago, when we held our first festival, no one really talked about nature but obviously, with the pandemic — when people were going out walking and that’s the only thing they could do in a way — people realized how important it is to their lives.
What advice do you have for someone starting a wellness practice wherever they are?
Do what makes you happy. I’m lucky I’m a glass-half-full person, but my advice would be don’t force yourself to do something if you are not going to enjoy it because whatever you do it’s got to make you happy.
Don’t do something because you think you should or someone else is doing it. Do something that is true to you. Which is what we’re doing with Verve.
We’re excited be participating in VERVE Festival this year. Find out more here.
