Already crowned ‘Best Pet Day Out in the UK’ award, New Forest dog festival Dogstival is now set to become one of the UK’s most sustainable festivals. Aiming to cut their CO2 emissions in half, Dogstival will employ a host of carbon pawprint reducing practices such as a single-use plastics ban on site – and for the first time ever, they are enlisting renewable technology to partially-power the event.

With protecting their much-loved New Forest National Park home and the wider planet very much in mind, Dogstival’s renewable technology will include a mix of solar and wind energy to charge large scale battery packs for a number of the arenas and stages. Back up generators will still be on site, but these will run on biofuel, which further reduce emissions by around 74%.

This environmentally exciting move adds to Dogstival’s targets to recycle 70% of all waste making this year’s event their most eco-friendly to date.

With their best efforts to deliver an event that's as sustainable as possible in hand and as the UK’s festival seasons goes into full swing, Dogstival will be focussed on delivering the time of their lives to the 10,000 plus dogs expected to attend, with their signature mad-cap fun, features, and food.

Staged in the beautiful Burley Park in the New Forest on Saturday 1st and Sunday 2ndJune, Dogstival 2024 leads the pack as having the most ‘have a go’ activities than any other doggy festival in the UK. From flyball, agility, a Scurry Village, Barkour and scent work, through to diving and splash pools, Dogstival will be bursting with all manner of dog sports for both newbies and seasoned veterans. From a spectator’s position, hounds and their humans will also be treated to displays of top canine tricks and games, as well as the ultimate challenge of scent work and agility from working dogs from the military, police, search and rescue, who will battle it out to be top dog.

Other highlights include the Dogfuriendly Muddy Paws Tavern, who will keep the good times flowing with dog beer, dog bingo, the Big Pup Quiz and a series of popular breed meets up. There’s also the Hound Dog Music Stage for live entertainment, the Canine MOT Centre for all the latest canine health and wellbeing know-how, and more than 130 stands bursting with goodies to treat a pooch. Food is also set to be a huge canine crowd-pleaser, with just some of the tempting canine goodies on offer including puppuccinos from Pop & Bark and meaty flavours at the Lickie Mat Café from the Raw Pet Food Pantry.

Dogstival Co-Founder Richard Nowell says: “With Dogstival held in the heart of the New Forest National Park and as residents, we are aware how important it is to deliver the festival as sustainably as possible. The events industry has been guilty of generating a lot of waste and inviting 10,000 people to a large field requires a lot of temporary power. So, we’ve put in place a range of initiatives to cut our carbon emissions and a robust process of recycling all waste, which goes through three layers of ‘sorting’ before any final non-recyclable waste goes to a ‘waste to energy’ plant. I believe this puts Dogstival towards the top bracket of the sustainable festivals in the UK.”

He adds: “As with every year, we hope to make this our most exciting, action-packed event to date, with heaps of canine-approved entertainment and of activities. This year our canine clientele can now have fun knowing they are also playing a key role in helping our environment for future human and dog generations.”

While the visiting dogs are the VIPs of the weekend, Dogstival also ensures that all the fun is paid-forward too, by helping showcase the work and raise funds for charities such as Pets As Therapy and Dogs Trust, who will have their Rehoming Village at the event.

Dogstival 2024 takes place on 1st and 2nd June 2023 a Burley Park, Burley, Hampshire, BH24 4BS. Tickets are priced from £18 adults, and from £10 for ages 6-16yrs, under 5’s go free. Weekend tickets also available. For more information and tickets, visit Dogstival.co.uk. Follow @dogstival on social for all the latest event updates.