Break-fest, a "Breakfast Festival" That Started With The Name And Worked Backwards

If you went to Brockwell Park on Saturday, you may have clocked what looked like a series of giant Weetabix biscuits arranged into the slogan “WOW NO COW”. If you were curious enough to want to find out why the fuck somebody had written a political slogan with wheat in the middle of Brixton, you would have experienced Break-fest, Europe’s first all-day breakfast festival organised by the Swedish drinks company, Oatly.

Nestled in the corner of the park that segues into Dulwich – an area of London that, due to its high concentration of yummy mummies, is pretty much a constant, all-day breakfast festival anyway, – Break-fest was a free event that promised an open buffet, a “variety of games” and Kyla La Grange, who was presumably there to justify the “festival” aspect of the event. Shout out to her management team for really working the headline slot angle of that phone call.

If you’ve never heard of Oatly, the most important thing you need to know is that they have taken it upon themselves to wage the New Age war on milk. Their slogan is “like milk, but made for humans” but after tasting a few shakes and smoothies I decided their slogan should be "it's like milk, but made for humans, but not quite as good as almond milk or hazelnut milk or any other kind of milk that isn't milk". I guess that's not as catchy, though. Essentially, it's like extra runny porridge so if you're vegan, lactose intolerant or a general health buff who prefers to take their meals through a straw then pay attention, because you are precisely the reason shit like this exists. I should probably mention at this point that I have never eaten meat in my life, relentlessly vet my friends' bathrooms for products that rely on animal testing, and regularly throw down £6 on a saladbox from a "health food" chain for lunch. I once got so excited about finding raw chocolate mousse in a Tesco that I called a friend mid-shop just to tell someone, so I'm exactly the kind of arsehole that would get mad hyped on something as bourgeois as oat milk. Even if it does look and taste like something that was rinsed out of a flannel at the end of a circle jerk.

The first thing that struck me when I arrived was the distinct lack of vertical bodies. Most people seemed to be taking advantage of all the beanbags, deck chairs, bales of hay and actual beds that had been carefully arranged around the area like life jackets on a Groupon cruise. Some people were definitely asleep, having basically exchanged their sofa for a public sitting area and Saturday Kitchen for a load of free shit. The whole thing took place in a pretty small self-contained area with the overall vibe landing somewhere along the lines of a village fête hosted by Mumford & Sons, targetted at people who “chillax”, go on walking holidays and source all their clothes from a catalogue called Perpetual Glastonbury. That was to be expected, though. Having to mingle with people who go off on one if their quinoa was mislabelled as organic is just one of the punishments capitalism deals you for siding with the environment.

There was no live music happening when I arrived, so the first thing I did was locate free breakfast, which was a choice between pancakes, something from a stand called the “banana muffin and granola boutique” and a fruit smoothie you could only have if you peddled a bike hooked up to a blender and made it yourself.

As any lazy vegan who has stood in the “free from” section of a supermarket in search of cake will know, the disappointment that ensues after remembering that “dairy free” does not equal “egg free” is absolutely crushing, so I was pretty butthurt when I realised I had no other choice than to get on that fucking bike. Perhaps it was naive of me to think this would be any different - apparently where we’re going we don’t need cows, but the chickens can go fuck themselves.

I started to have reservations that this all-day breakfast festival wouldn't be the paradise of cereals I had built it up to be. Like, I know this shit was free, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little disappointed. The word "banquet" had me anticipating a little more than free muffins for people who could definitely, definitely afford to buy a shit load of muffins.

Still, it was midday and I hadn't eaten anything because I was on my way to a bloody breakfast festival, so I took a seat on the bike blender. As I pushed the peddles, "Float On" by Modest Mouse wafting from the overheads, I asked myself how and when we, as a culture, got to the stage where we are inventing new technology to help undo the effects of the old technology that made us all so lazy and skilless we are now being encouraged to mix drinks with our legs.

So enamoured was I by the prospect of free breakfast that I had charged blindly past the activities corner, which was even more disconcerting than watching people gobbling down eggs whilst wearing t-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “We Are The Post-Milk Generation” like walking character sketches for a Chuck Palahniuk novel. Beside a crowd of people throwing bits of wood at other bits of wood in a game that looked a bit like Viking boules, there were six open-top cages containing various rabbits and hares. For the most part, their role was to be cuddled by excitable children and twenty-something’s on a comedown who just want to touch something soft. But there was also a separate pen for “Rabbit Jumping”, which is essentially horse racing on a miniature scale. Several notices claimed they were there to raise awareness of bunny welfare, but in doing so seemed to be exploiting the welfare of bunnies? I didn’t watch that.

I did watch Kyla La Grange, though, who is just as cute as a bunny and really got into the spirit of the event by performing barefoot. It was hard to sus out the crowd reaction when the crowd was doing a communal impression of things washed up on Brighton beach after a heavy weekend. There was clapping. A young man even stood up with enthusiasm at some point but when he turned around to face the crowd for validation he realised his mistake and promptly sat down again.

My favourite part of the event was that you could only sit on the beds if you tweeted a picture of yourself with the hashtag #wownocow. Cue lots of people with smart phones having a “tOATily amazing time!” while others sat on the floor nearby mumbling something about branding and integrity. Because the weirdest part of the whole thing was that, despite being free, the festival still attracted and catered to a very specific demographic of people, namely middle-class families and hungover humanities students. If you viewed the park from the Herne Hill entrance, you’d have Break-fest on your right, an amazingly haphazard pop-up fair intermittently blasting unlisenced music from Star Wars on your left and small pockets of teenagers and homeless people sitting on the grass in between necking tinnies. It was kind of like a Dulwich vs Brixton showdown with neither side giving much of a shit about the other. I actually joined them once I was done and, without getting too graphic, I can tell you that I tested oat milk as a potential stomach liner and it failed miserably.

Nevertheless, if Oatly wants to roll out another alternative to milk and market it in a way that appeals to people who can afford to buy it in bulk then I’m all for it, because I still don't understand why human beings in 2014 are still looking at cow's nipples and thinking "ah yes, that must be for me". Spoiler alert: it isn't. When was the last time you fed breast milk to your dog? Also it's hard to argue with the fact that the people who were in attendance had themselves a time they would later describe as “positively delightful” and I'm not about to take that away from them.

But of all the people there, the most enthusiastic attendee award definitely goes to this guy, who carried that plastic sheep around for the entire morning with more innocence and sincerity than an children's TV presenter at a birthday party.