MUSIC aside for a moment, this year’s fantasy theme at Bestival gave revellers carte blanche to dress up to their heart’s desire.

And “dress” is a term used loosely. In fact, many people preferred to use colourful paints or to stitch and pin themselves into impossible off-the-wall outfits, while some clothed themselves in hardly anything at all.

So it was that the Isle of Wight’s Bestival 2010, at Robin Hill Adventure Park, was peopled with colourful film, cartoon, book and comic book characters, elves, animals, pirates and even cereal boxes, parts of the anatomy and board games. There were a surprising number dressed as everyone’s favourite party game Twister.

The sartorial efforts of my plus one and I – in purple fairy wings and wands – were pitiful in comparison.

But on to the bands. Far from detracting from the music, some of the acts relished joining in with the fancy dress frenzy, such as Mumford and Sons, who strutted on to Saturday’s main stage clothed as four musketeers.

Frontman, Marcus Mumford, gushed to his eager crowd: “I’ve always wanted the chance to dress as a musketeer!”

It has been a great year for the nu-folk foursome, who could easily have headlined the night by the crowd they pulled.

The beauty of Bestival is its size. With hundreds of acts in over a dozen venues, there’s a little bit of everything, and you can just about make it round and catch all your unmissables.

Friday had several of those. Main stage acts culminated with the geeky but somehow cool Hot Chip and headliner Dizzee Rascal.

The Rascal knows how to get a crowd going – his version of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit had them a-moshing – and with Bonkers as his encore, the air was electric by the end.

Earlier in the day, the Big Top was rammed for The xx. Having just scooped the 2010 Mercury Prize, their fame preceded them, with bodies spilling out of the sides of the huge open marquee.

Saturday’s main stage had a real mix of music, with Rolf Harris, The Wailers and the lovely, almost annoyingly nice, Ellie Goulding.

The debonair Bryan Ferry still has it and put on a great set with his Roxy Music bandmates before headliners, The Flaming Lips, took to the stage.

Also looking dapper were up-and-coming Hurts in their trademark suits, playing the Big Top, and the fantastic US indie rockers, White Rabbits. What a great live band and a pleasure to catch them on a small stage.

As if on purpose, the sun came out for the final day of Rob da Bank’s swansong festival of the summer, shining on the likes The Cuban Brothers, Echo & The Bunnymen and Marc Almond – if you like that sort of thing – before drum and bass mayhem from Chase & Status.

The whole of Bestival, it seems, squeezed into what was suddenly a small space for a spectacular set from the festival’s final headline ravers, The Prodigy, and the music was (almost) over.

It was impossible not to notice Bestival is filled with very attractive young men and women, even when sporting scraped back, unwashed hair and traipsing around in mud-spattered wellies.

And, what is more, it is an astoundingly friendly event.

Perhaps it’s because everyone is making light of the communal gloom that the four-day Island romp is the last extended outdoor party of the summer.

Roll on Bestival 2011!