Tending the Fire: What Ten Years of Campout Has Taught Me About Ageing, Community and Belonging
What is Camp Out?
Camp Out songs around the fire
This summer, we’ll be returning to The Black Mountains the Welsh borders. It’s basically a couple of fields behind a pub in an idyllic setting not far from Hay on Wye.
On one level, it’s simply a lush and rather remote venue for Campout, our annual gathering of music, conversation, creativity and connection. On another, it feels like coming home.
The Bridge Inn, nestled beneath the Black Mountains near Hay-on-Wye, was where the first Campout took place almost ten years ago. Back then, none of us knew what might emerge from the experiment. We had a campfire, some tents, Brian Eno and Scilla Elworthy as keynote speakers, a passion for new politics and a sense that big change was coming. There were musicians, workshops and a shared belief that people were longing for something difficult to define but easy to recognise when it appeared: connection.
As we prepare to celebrate Campout’s tenth anniversary by returning to its birthplace, I find myself reflecting on what the gathering has come to mean, how it has evolved and, perhaps most importantly, what it has taught me about growing older.
Because while Campout has changed over the years, the deeper question at its heart has remained remarkably consistent: what happens when people gather around a fire?
It sounds almost absurdly simple. Yet after decades spent creating communities, festivals and gatherings, I’ve come to believe it may be one of the most important questions of our time. The fire, after all, is never really about the fire. It’s about what becomes possible in its presence.
This question feels especially resonant because this year’s gathering will also be the last Campout that I lead. After a decade of tending this community through much of each year, I find myself looking towards new horizons: releasing my long-awaited album This Is The Fire, finally publishing my memoir, and spending more time with family, friends and the people I love.
Pete DJing on Paros
I’m confident the right people will keep the flame burning. Communities like this are never about one person. They belong to everyone who contributes to them. Still, it feels like a moment to pause and reflect on a journey filled with memorable conversations, unexpected friendships, moments of transformation and countless experiences that will stay with me for the rest of my life.
The Long Road to Campout
Looking back, I can see a thread running through much of my life. From my early days playing in bands and stepping into the folk and world music orbit through founding Cooking Vinyl, conceiving the maverick idea that eventually became The Big Chill (launched in 1995 just ten miles from the Campout venue on the Welsh side of the Black Mountains) and later launching Campfire, I have always been fascinated by what happens when people gather.
Not simply to be entertained or consume experiences, but to connect, share stories and feel part of something larger than themselves.
For many years I thought I was creating events. Now I realise I was really creating meeting places — temporary villages where people could discover one another and perhaps rediscover parts of themselves.
I know of at least fifty marriages that emerged from The Big Chill. As recently as last month, the osteopath I visited in Wales told me he had met his wife there and started a family. Those stories still delight me because they remind me that the true legacy of a gathering is rarely the programme. It’s the human connections that continue long after the stages have been dismantled and the tents packed away.
Campout emerged from that same impulse.
By 2016, despite the rise of social media and constant connectivity, many of us were noticing something paradoxical. We were communicating more than ever, yet often feeling less connected. We could accumulate hundreds or thousands of online interactions and still struggle to find spaces where genuine conversation could flourish.
There seemed to be a growing hunger for community — not networking, not audiences, but real community.
The first Campout was our attempt to answer that hunger.
What if we created a gathering that felt more like a village of a couple of hundred than a festival for 25,000?
What if conversations mattered as much as performances, participation mattered more than spectatorship, and everyone brought something of value to contribute? What if we could co-create an experience that belonged to all of us?
The Unexpected Gift of Growing Older
One of the curious things about getting older is that people start assuming you have answers. I have lost count of the number of times someone has asked me whether I am a teacher. The honest answer is that I’ve never quite felt comfortable with that description.
Teachers have students. Gurus have followers. Neither role particularly appeals to me.
What I eventually realised is that I’ve always been more interested in hosting than teaching. Looking back across four decades of festivals, gatherings and communities, my role has rarely been to provide answers. Instead, it has been to create the conditions where good things might happen — to open the field.
A circle. A conversation. A held space. A stage. A campfire.
When I was younger, I thought leadership meant standing at the front. Now I think it often means sitting in the circle.
Ageing has taught me that certainty is overrated. Curiosity is far more useful. Emergence — allowing things to unfold rather than trying to control them — feels like a philosophy particularly suited to community gatherings. The older people I admire most are not those who claim to know everything. They are the ones who continue asking thoughtful questions.
What matters now? How shall we live together? What kind of future are we creating? Where does hope reside? How can we be truthful to ourselves and others? How can we best hone and channel our creative output?
It’s been a revelation for me to be able to unlock my creative juices over the last two years and pour my heart and soul into writing and recording ‘This Is The Fire’. As I approach seventy this is the album I always dreamed of making. The songs just flowed and I wonder how the lyrical ideas just presented themselves. I will say that reading ‘The Artists Way’ and Rick Rubin’s excellent book ‘The Creative Act’ have helped me be in the right space where my channels are open and ready to receive. The songs are born of the spirit of campfire, gathering round, setting intention, turning the light on hope and the common ground.
It all interweaves.
The Wisdom Hidden in Community
One of the surprises of Campout has been discovering just how much wisdom already exists within any group of people. Modern culture tends to place expertise on pedestals. We assume wisdom belongs to authors, speakers, influencers or recognised leaders. Yet some of the most profound insights I’ve witnessed over the years have emerged from conversations around a fire.
A retired nurse sharing lessons from a lifetime of caring. A young activist speaking passionately about the future. A musician reflecting on the creative process. A grandparent describing the joys and challenges of family life. Someone quietly admitting they feel lost. Someone else recognising themselves in that story.
I’ve often thought that one of the greatest gifts we can offer another human being is our attention. Not advice. Not solutions. Attention.
In a world increasingly filled with noise, being truly seen and listened to can be transformative. Again and again at Campout I’ve watched people arrive carrying invisible burdens — relationship difficulties, grief, illness, career changes, questions about purpose and uncertainty about what comes next. Nobody arrives wearing a sign saying, “I’m struggling.”
Yet given enough time around a campfire, something softens. The masks begin to slip. People start speaking more honestly.
And something remarkable happens.
Not because anyone fixes anyone else, but simply because they are witnessed.
One participant told me after an evening sharing circle, “I think that’s the first time I’ve said that out loud.”
I’ve heard variations of that sentence many times over the years. It remains one of the greatest privileges of creating these spaces.
The Elders We Need
At sixty-eight, I find myself increasingly interested in the idea of elderhood. Not as a status. Not as authority. But as a role.
Our culture often sends mixed messages about ageing. On one hand, we celebrate youth. On the other, we quietly hunger for wisdom, perspective and experience.
The elders I’ve valued most in my own life were rarely the loudest voices in the room. They listened, encouraged and asked the right questions. They knew when to step forward and when to step back.
Most importantly, they understood that wisdom isn’t something you possess. It’s something you continue cultivating throughout your life.
Campout has become blessed with many such people: writers, artists, yogis, teachers, activists, mature students, musicians, carers, parents and grandparents — people who have weathered storms and retained both their humanity and their humour.
Most would never describe themselves as elders.
Yet that is precisely what they are.
One of my favourite sights at Campout is watching conversations unfold across generations. A twenty-five-year-old and a seventy-five-year-old sitting together on a log, talking as equals. Both learning. Both teaching. Both bringing something valuable.
In a society that increasingly separates generations, those encounters feel precious and increasingly necessary.
How Campout Evolved
The first Campout was small enough that everyone quickly knew everyone else’s name.
Ten years on, it remains beautifully difficult to explain to anyone who hasn’t experienced it. It is part festival, part gathering, part family reunion, part village fete, part think tank and part campfire singalong.
Over the years the gathering has changed and moved around, though not in the way many events aspire to grow. It’s fair to say it has evolved with the times. The first gathering attracted a good number of activists and Jeremy Corbyn supporters. Today it feels less overtly political, although politics still runs through many conversations and we even stood an independent Trailblazer candidate at the last election.
Increasingly, the focus has shifted towards personal development and the belief that meaningful societal change begins with inner change.
We’ve never been interested in becoming bigger for the sake of it. What mattered was deepening rather than scaling, and what emerged frequently surprised me.
New best friends met. Creative collaborations began. People launched projects together. Some met future partners. Others found new directions in life.
Many discovered a sense of belonging they hadn’t realised they were missing.
Gradually Campout became part of something larger. Alongside the annual gathering emerged Campfire itself — an ongoing community built around connection, compassion, creativity and co-creation.
What started as a weekend became a year-round network of conversations, local gatherings, online discussions, retreats, creative circles and friendships. The lockdown Zoom meetings were especially vital for those who felt isolated or confused. That period also gave rise to our ambitious World Harmony online festival: three days, six stages and participants from sixty-three countries.
Today, many people who arrive at Campout are not simply attending an event.
They’re coming home to a community.
That feels very different.
And very special.
Returning to The Bridge
Which brings us back to this summer.
There is something beautifully circular about returning to The Bridge Inn after all these years. Some of the people attending this year’s gathering were present at the very beginning. Others have joined us along the way. Some will be experiencing Campout for the first time.
The field will be familiar. The campfire will burn. We might even see a shooting star overhead.
Yet none of us are the same people who first gathered there a decade ago.
We’ve all travelled our own paths since then. We’ve experienced joy and loss, success and disappointment, beginnings and endings. We’ve aged. Hopefully we’ve grown wiser too.
Perhaps that is one of the greatest gifts of community. It allows us to witness one another’s journeys. To celebrate together. To grieve together. To keep showing up for one another through the seasons of life.
Tending the Fire
If ten years of Campout has taught me anything, it is this:
Community is not something we consume. It is something we create together.
The older I get, the less interested I become in audiences and the more interested I become in circles. Less interested in performance and more interested in participation. Less interested in success and more interested in meaning.
Many people spend their lives asking, “What have I achieved?”
A question I find increasingly compelling is:
“What have I helped bring into being?”
The friendships. The songs. The conversations. The inspirations. The future collaborations. The communities, gatherings and reunions that continue long after we’ve stepped away.
As we prepare to return to The Bridge Inn this summer, I find myself thinking about all the people who have sat around those fires over the past decade. Some are still with us. Some have moved away. A few have sadly passed on.
Yet each of them added something to the flame.
That’s the thing about a campfire. No single person creates it. We all bring a little fuel — a story, a song, a spark, a festoon of light.
I also find myself celebrating a more personal gift that emerged from Campout. Lizi Sage and I first met there last summer. We came together around New Year and have been travelling this new chapter of life ever since. After spending decades helping create spaces where people connect, it has been a joyful surprise to find that the circle still had one more gift waiting for me. The Advantages of Sage, no less!
Pete and Lizi
Ten years on, I’m more convinced than ever that community is one of the great hidden treasures of ageing. Not because it makes us younger, but because it helps us become more fully ourselves.
The fire still burns.
These days, I am grateful simply to be one of its tenders.
https://campfireconvention.network
Campout is happening at The Bridge Inn, Michaelchurch Escley, Herefordshire. August 6-9th You can book your tickets at campout.live