First Camp™ 2026
This is what a good weekend looks like. This weekend on the Llŷn Peninsula, the Outsiders returned to Bert’s Kitchen Garden alongside Snow Peak for the fifth edition of First Camp™ - and from where we were standing, it looked like something that has fully found its rhythm. A spring gathering that, year by year, has settled into its own unhurried shape. Not a festival in the conventional sense. Not performance-driven or over-programmed. Something closer to a collective exhale. A chance to slow down in good company, in a good place, and remember what the simple things are supposed to feel like. Across three days, a curated programme unfolded across the site, with the weekend largely belonging to the makers. Workshops ran in parallel, but nobody required to do everything. That, perhaps, is the point. You chose your morning, drink another drip coffee from Siop Tech, watch someone learn something new and decide to join in. A beachside sauna. An opening ceremony as the light faded. Evenings given over to food, conversation and fire. Yoga at first light. Block printing with Salomon. Natural bag dyeing with Purple Mountain Observatory. Hand embroidery with Gramicci. An Altogether Otherwise sports day. A fifth birthday celebration that rolled into the night. Music throughout. A KEEN trail run followed by a KEEN pick ’n’ mix. A laverbread cooking demonstration. Wallet customisation with Danner. Out-of-doors and under canvas. What Outsiders Store and Snow Peak UK have built over five editions is the kind of thing the outdoor industry often talks about wanting, but rarely succeeds in creating: a real community. One that returns not because it has been marketed to, but because last year felt special - and the year before that did too. Because the Llŷn Peninsula in mid-May is, it turns out, a very difficult thing to say no to. And because Bert’s Kitchen Garden holds it all together with the quiet grace only truly special places possess.
First Camp returns May 2027. Sign up for early access.
Images: @outsiders.store @snowpeak_uk @bertskg @samfarrant_ @jonmhayward
