In the summer of 2007 our friend Alice wasn't able to go to any festivals... so we decided to throw one especially for her! Her dad owned a field near Wokingham, so that became the site of the first ever Wonderland Festival on September 15th-17th 2007. We built a stage, borrowed some tents, invited some bands and DJs and had three days of sunshine in Alice's Wonderland.
A year later, we did it all again... but bigger! With a bar and BBQ run by Planet Angel, more bands and DJs, swing dance lessons, bigger tents, loads more people... and a giant game of pass the parcel of course! In between, we'd started running small areas at other larger events - such as Planet Angel, Bloom Festival, Glade Festival, The Synergy Project and Sparkly Nutz, as well as two of our own small events in London... a Masquerade Ball and an Unbirthday party for New Year’s Eve 2007-08 at Bullet Bar in Kentish Town. We decided that all the money we raised would go to charity, and raised £3167.63 for Cancer Research UK during this time.
For New Years Eve 2008-09 we hosted the chill out room at Planet Angel's NYE party, where our Wonderland Cafe really came to life with amazing cakes from our White Rabbit. We went to town on decor too, including the first incarnation of our huge grandfather clock! Then on 9th April 2009 we were ready to throw our own proper big club night... "Road 2 Wonderland". This was our first club night at Crucifix Lane - then called Jacks - with two rooms of DJs, art, sculpture, performance, party games and bands, plus our Wonderland decor and cafe of course, all for a bargain £5! And it went so well that we decided we just had to do more!
2009 also saw our first trip to Leefest - then still in a school sports field. Our trusty Wendy House was on wheels in those days, attached to two bicycles for festival mobility (and having survived a trip to Latitude Festival by then!). We cycled the wendy house down the roads of Beckenham to Leefest where we face painted and had a mini Mad Hatters' Tea Party. It was the start of a great partnership, leading to the enormous games arena we now run for Leefest!
Towards the end of 2009 we began raising money for a charity that Amy from our crew had links to - Wonder Years Centre Of Excellence, a small charity working in The Gambia to provide free schooling for the kids in a small village there. This is the charity that we still support, and the crew have taken quite a few trips out to visit the charity over the years and raised tens of thousands of pounds which have paid for multiple school buildings as well as many other things.
After more, and increasingly successful parties at Crucifix Lane, on 26th Feb 2010 we joined forces with two other groups - ALAN and Acidic Records to host the legendary Elysian Project. Initially at Hidden in Vauxhall, we soon moved to a new venue we'd found - the wonderful Islington Metalworks in Angel. Three floors of DJs, art, bands and performances. Elysian project grew and was a massive success, spawning beach parties on The Thames and eventually two massive outdoor New Year's parties.
With our own club nights continuing (with our Fall Ball, Winter Wobbler, Spring Bounce and Summer Swagger!), throughout 2010 we hosted some more performance-based events - our 'Third Thursdays', with cabaret, circus performances and music. Elysian and Wonderland flourished in 2011 and in 2012 we took a Shakespeare theme with Wonderland's 12th Night, our Midsummer Night's Dream, Fall's Well That Ends Well and The Winter's Tail.
After inviting our new friends Rumpus to run an area at Elysian Project V on 23rd September 2011, on 7th December 2012 we were invited to run a room at Rumpus "Panto Vs Pirates", now also at Islington Metalworks - the start of another amazing partnership! Since then we've hosted a room more times than can be possible to count, and run our Wonderland Cafe at nearly every Rumpus. Through doing this Rumpus have helped us raise thousands of pounds for the charity.
2013 saw us up our game again with Wonderland's Neverneverland, Wizard Of Oz, A Galaxy Far, Far Away and The Lion The Witch And The Wonderland - with special decor created for each event and a host of big-name DJs and bands, and with our events selling out. We also hosted a venue takeover at Secret Garden Party (with a New Year's Eve countdown every 15 minutes!), began our collaboration with the new clubnight Carousel, upped our game at Leefest, hosting the first Wondersands Beach and we even took a trip down to The Bussey Building in Peckham for Wonderland's Ladies Night with an all-female DJ lineup.
We joined forces with our naughty friends at Imaginarium in 2014 for the first 'Wondernarium' crossover event, with an epic DJ battle between the two crews. 2014 also saw Wonderland go back to our roots at Crucifix Lane with a series of Alice In Wonderland focussed parties including Down The Rabbit Hole, A Mad Tea-Party and Advice From A Caterpillar with a giant purpose-built sculpture of a smoking caterpillar on stage. Then for Christmas we took a trip north of the river for "Who Stole The Tarts?".
7th March 2015 saw (sadly) our last ever party at Crucifix Lane, our home of six years, before the venue was shut down for the London Bridge station redevelopment. We went out with a bang with an incredible lineup including Cut La Roc, Jimi Needles, Voodoo Lynch Mob, Captain Flatcap, 7Suns. Wonderland Hearts Crucifix Lane...
But the story was far from over! We relocated to our new home in Brixton - POW at The Prince Of Wales, kicking things off with 'Wonderland's Looking Glass House' in May 2015, and the birth of Wonderland's infamous Golden Glitter Shower! We also began a new collaboration - with Chilled In A Field Festival, running games and silly things for them at their lovely family festival, continued to expand our Leefest Wondersands games arena and continued to work with Rumpus and Carousel.
This continued in 2016 with Wonderland's March Hare, Wunder The Sea, Wunder The Mistletoe and then we blasted into space in 2017 on our Wonderland Galactic spaceship with our Wunders Of The Universe! Also at the start of 2017 the crew returned to The Gambia to catch up with our friends there, open the new school block we'd funded and build a kids playground. Then it was time to start planning for our Ten Year Anniversary... going back to our roots with an outdoor festival... and here we are now celebrating an amazing ten years of fun, smiles, music, art, performance, charity and most of all... friends!