On the October 22nd, I went for the first time to the VegFestUk in Olympia, London (accompanied by our fabulous photo director, Mun Ling). I didn’t quite know what to expect — especially since I’ve been to another vegan festival at Olympia before and I didn’t like it very much. However, I was delighted to find what I would call the true face of veganism.
Let me explain myself.
The Venue
Let’s be honest, it’s never a happy moment when you enter the place where you take your exams, as the Olympia Centre is for every King’s College student. The whole place is a constant flashback to exams — the anxiety, the cold sweat and the frenetic checking all your notes. So — as I’m sure you can imagine — it was a bit unnerving to be there outside exam period. Luckily, I got quickly captivated by all the vegan stands and the food hall.
The Stalls
Almost every single vegan brand in UK was at the festival: Inspiral, MsCupcake (where you can find the best cookie sandwiches!), Bute Island Foods, Follow Your Heart, Koko Dairy Free and so many more. But what really impressed me was the amount of charities and different stall holders also present. There were the Animal Aid, Hillside Animal Sanctuary, Fitvelove, Doctors Without Borders, Population Matters, just to name a few. And a question came naturally: what does this tell us about the vegan community? Why would a charity like Breast Cancer UK would be at a vegan festival? I talked about this with Mun Ling and we had a really good conversation about what the vegan movement was actually about.
The True Face of Veganism
So here we come to explain the title of this article. Simply put, veganism is so much more than just not eating animal products. I realised at the festival more than ever how much it actually is about compassion and love. Not only for the animals, but for the whole planet — including us humans.
Being vegan is not only about food. It’s about ethical values, environmentalism and human rights. And this is why there was such a variety in the people present that weekend.
The whole venue was filled with fun, love and passionate people sharing their views and perspective on the world. Everyone was supporting each other — more than once I had recommendations from vendors to check out different stalls. It was all about leaning on one another, sharing experiences and getting the best out of ourselves and our time on this planet.
My experience was an eye-opener — even for someone raised as a vegetarian (as I was). And I invite everyone, especially non-vegans, to visit a vegan festival if they have the chance to. I am aware that many people have a somewhat negative opinion on vegans, thinking they feel superior to everyone else because of their ethical views. But believe me, most of us are simply passionate humans and we’d love to share our passion with anyone – mostly by feeding you delicious vegan food (like these burgers from Pomodoro E Basilico!)
