Our reason for going to the Gower Peninsula was simple. We wanted to be around people who love running just as much as we do. Love Trails was the first festival we'd ever been part of, and from the minute we arrived it was clear this was going to be something different.
Fortunately, the weather played along. Warm and sunny for most of the weekend, without the unbearable heat that caught a few of us out last year. There was a blowy, cloudy spell too, the kind that took the Fractel tent clean off its pegs the night before the festival even started. Our hats are built to stay on your head through wind, rain and everything else the trails throw at you. Someone forgot to tell the tent. Either way, it just meant everyone spent the weekend wanting to be outside.
And what a place to be outside in. The Gower likes to keep you guessing. One minute you're on coastal trail, the next through woodland, then open fields, then clifftops with the sea rolling away beneath. Every run felt like a handful of different runs stitched into one. Just one catch, nearly every route ends with a proper kicker of a climb back up to the main stage. Character building, let's call it.
Our home base for the weekend
By the second day, our stand had turned into more of a meeting point than a shop. People stuck around all weekend, trying kit on, getting their caps customised at the Creator's Club, asking questions about Fractel, or just having a chat with whoever was behind the table. Our exclusive Love Trails headwear did well too. The bucket hat sold out first, the M-Series close behind, and both kept turning up all over the festival, including at the Jubel Beer Mile, where they became a bit of a fixture.
One of our favourite things we did all weekend was using a headwear deal as an excuse to introduce total strangers to each other, having them get to know eachother and team up before they could cash in on it together. One pair ended up signing each other's hats afterwards. Small thing, but it's the moment from the whole weekend we keep bringing up.
We also lost count of the people who came back two or three times, first alone, then with friends in tow to show off the kit or finally cash in on that deal. By Sunday we had faces we could pick out and cheer on in the races.
The Fractel Creator Club
The Creator's Club was new for us this year, our first go at anything like it, and it might be the thing we're proudest of from the whole weekend. Everyone started with a plain white Fractel cap and, over a 10km route, we stopped six times to build on it with a single fabric pen, drawing whatever caught their eye in the landscape, or whatever running meant to them in that moment.
After each stop we asked people to swap pens. That meant swapping with someone new and trading names in the process, and by the last couple of stops people were picking who to swap with based purely on what colour they wanted, not who they already knew. No two caps came out the same.
What we didn't plan for was how much people opened up. Stopping every couple of kilometres to draw, rather than just running through, gave people a reason to slow down, notice the view, sit with a thought, actually talk to the person next to them instead of just running alongside them. Conversations turned to first races, injuries, mental health, and what keeps people coming back to the trails. It's the kind of honest conversation that's genuinely hard to find, and we're already working out how to build on it next year.
See you next year, Gower
Some of the team lined up too. Mat took on the 27k, Ben the 10k, and the rest of us filled the gaps with live music, old friends from other brands and run clubs, and just soaking up the atmosphere. It's a strange, brilliant mix: the camaraderie of a race and the freedom of a festival.
This was our first UK activation, and we couldn't have picked a better place to land. Everyone there shows up wanting the same things: to run, to explore somewhere beautiful, to meet people. That's more or less why Fractel exists in the first place, taking our own experience and passion for adventure and putting it into gear for a community that just wants to get outside and run.
We didn't come away thinking about how many hats we'd sold. We came away thinking about the people we'd met. That's the whole point, really. We're not trying to be a faceless brand, just a decent one, out on the trails with everyone else.
Leave a comment