Friends Fest 2017 | The One Where It Was Okay

Last weekend, a friend and I travelled up to London to check out Friends Fest! We’d had the tickets booked since March, so I was super excited. Well, I was, after a coffee and a Bagelman (sausage, mushroom and cheese!)

We got a train to East Croydon and changed for there London Victoria. It was only a few tube stops to Finsbury Park, and, as the weather was pretty lovely, we walked the 20 minutes to Clissord Park, where Friends Fest was being held.

If you’re not familiar with Friends Fest, it’s exactly as it sounds. It’s a festival celebrating all things Friends, with mock-ups of the apartments you can book tours for and other Friends locations you can wander round and hang out in 😀 When we got to the gate, the area was pretty large, but didn’t seem to have a huge amount going on. I hoped that there was more to it than met the eye.

The first thing we saw was the chapel of love where Mr Rachel and Mrs Ross got married in (from The One In Vegas, Part One). There were several wedding dresses and centurion outfits so you could recreate the scene yourselves!

Next to that was the prom, where you could dress up in Rachel or Monica’s hideous prom dresses from The One With The Prom Video (“Some girl ate Monica!!”) There were also a few wigs to try on, as well as Ross’s cool tuxedo and curly hair 😀 Although this looked fun, the idea of trying of clothes that loads of other people had also been wearing didn’t seem that appealing, and I definitely didn’t want to wear a wig that hundreds of other people had worn!!

We then spotted Central Perk so we headed over to check it out! Once inside, I was really confused because none of the interiors looked quite right and I had to Google it to see what it was meant to like. We did get photo of us sat at the sofa but all the photos were incredibly blurry and the lighting was awful!!

There were three food stalls at the event; The Moondance Diner where Monica waited tables on rollerskates, My Sandwich where you could actually buy Ross’s sandwich and a Mockolate stall, selling waffles and crêpes (thankfully no fishtashios in sight!)

There was also a massive screen playing Friends episodes where you could chill out on deckchairs and watch, Phoebe’s cab, a little ice cream stall, a gift shop and the iconic sofa complete with umbrellas so you could recreate the title sequence! Again, the lighting was absolutely awful.

Once we’d wandered round for a while, we went to queue up for our apartment tour. We hoped that this bit would be worth the price and the journey up! I sent J a message about how it wasn’t quite what we were expecting and he messaged straight back about those awful Winter Wonderland scams you see every year in the papers!! Although it wasn’t quite that bad, I could kind of see his point.

We finally got into the tent and the beginning was pretty cool, there were loads of costumes and props from the show (something they apparently didn’t have last year) and we had 10 mins to walk around and check them all out! I loved the holiday armadillo costume that Ross wore!! They also had the Gellar cup, “Phoebe’s” porn video and Rachel’s letter where she’d rambled on for 18 pages. FRONT AND BACK!

Once we’d had a good look round, we got to go and hang out in Joey and Chandler’s apartment! I sat in the lazyboy chair and we had the chance to sit in the canoe as well!!

It was pretty cool seeing everything, although there were about 30 or so people in our tour, so it got a bit crowded at times. We spent about 10 minutes in the apartment and the tour guide asked everyone to vacate so we could all take photos of it looking empty 😀

We then moved on to Monica and Rachel’s with the iconic frame around the eye-hole, the infamous recipe book that got stuck together so Rachel made a trifle with meat and peas, the table everyone used to sit round and the living room.

Once we’d finished the tour, it was about 12:30 and I decided to get a Mocklate crêpe; luckily it was just Nutella 😀 We watched a couple of the staff teaching people Monica and Ross’s New Year’s Eve dance to some of the audience, which was pretty funny, then decided to call it a day. It was only 12:50. We’d been there an hour and 20 minutes and we’d run out of things to do.

Overall, I’m glad I went, but I’d definitely never bother going again. It just wasn’t worth it for the price of the ticket or the cost of getting up there and back. We spent more time travelling than we did at Friends Fest.

Have you been to Friends Fest before? What did you think? Let me know in the comments below 🙂 x

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9 Comments

  1. I’ve been a huge fan since I was 7 and was far too young to understand some of the jokes but I never understood the point in Friends fest. I’d like to see some of the props used throughout the show but for me personally, Friends Fest seems like a new way to make money off of a show that ended 13 years (has it really been 13 years?!) ago.
    That being said, I love the fact they had food stands based on some of the things on the show. I wonder how many people yelled “you ate my sandwich, my sandwich” when standing in line at the My Sandwich stand.

    1. Seems crazy that it ended 13 years ago!! I’m really into props and behind the scenes, I wish there was a Buffy one to be honest lol. IF I’d have gone for a sandwich, I’d definitely have shouted it 😀 x

  2. As someone who had posters covering her room, had a Friends themed 15th birthday party and hosted a Series Finale party I loved this post! I don’t think it’s something I could manage to get to very easily myself so this may be the closest I get. I would really like to try the sandwich with the moist maker in though I must say and get some of my own Friends style photos! X

    ~ katiekirkloves.com ~

    1. Omg, that’s dedication!! I wish I’d tried the sandwich, but I wasn’t hungry enough to make buying one worthwhile 🙁 xx

  3. These photos are amazing! I am a true friends fan, with the DVDs, books and a signed photo in my room. I’d have loved to have gone to the Friends Fest, looks like you had a great time, despite the cost of the ticket and travel 🙂

    Sharon xx

  4. I agree with you on this one! I had a really good time while I was there but for the price of the ticket I did hope for a little bit more… The main reason we spent an whole afternoon there was because the weather was amazing so we just got some beers and watched countless Friends episodes on the deckchairs!

    Also the lighting was terrible! Especially in the create the titles part. It’s a shame so many people were on the studio tours because I couldn’t ever get any good photos.

    Either way it was a good day out, just wish it hadn’t cost as much as it did!

    1. Yeah, it was fun in parts and I’m glad I went, but a lot of money for what was there, especially when you factor in travelling as well! xx

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