So, what’s the big idea with the ABR Festival? Well, it’s like this… We’d been hosting small ABR Rallies in random fields near Stratford upon Avon for many a year. At most, we’d have a hundred riders and on too many occasions we ended up cooking burgers for everyone who attended when the catering van decided he had somewhere better to be. Those early festivals were great times and essentially just a bunch of like-minded bikers and friends getting together for a weekend of riding, kicking tyres, and having a good time. It didn’t matter what bike you had, no one cared if you were a novice or expert or if your adventures had been in the UK or on the Mongolian Steppe. The only requirement was that you enjoyed the weekend. Over time, the ABR Festival grew organically to the point where we had 500 people turning up. In festival terms, 500 is the magic number as, once you go above that, it gets serious and all manner of local authority rules, regulations, and laws apply. In other words, that’s desks full of paperwork, legal meetings, council committees, and… I’m sure you get the message. To highlight and put a fine point on the level of change, just the toilet bill for the 2024 Festival was £110,000. But you know what, we still can’t think of anything else we’d rather do. Anyway, if we were to go big then we were determined to carry on with the ‘bunch of mates in a field’ spirit but also to host a festival which would celebrate the passion for motorcycles that binds us together and also pay respect to you, the rider. With that in mind, we decided that the founding three pillars of the ABR Festival would be: Venue, Toilets, Value. And the result? The ABR Festival is now the biggest adventure motorcycle festival in the world. https://www.instagram.com/p/DG0Y12osL1z