Climbing Moss

Last year we attended the first Amazon Pet Fest in Haggerston Park, an odd location for the event, but overall it wasn’t bad, so when the 2nd event was announced we got our tickets and went along, here’s what we found…

Pet Fest 2025 was not back to the rat infested location of last year, but an even more obscure park in-between Whitechapel and Bethnal Green. It’s one of those green spaces that is half hidden behind and old pub, a patch of 2nd world war waste ground, that got covered in grass and called a park. In all it’s an odd location for the biggest consumer company in the world to pick, not near either station and just a large windswept dreary bit of ground.

At first the sky was clear but quickly it was replaced with ominous black clouds overhead – the weather apps all said would be clear skies. So we got a train to Whitechapel and proceeded to get lost!

After a 15 minute walk we finally found Weaver’s Park and entered through welcome tents, had our tickets scanned and collected the goody bag – a tote bag with some info sheets and a couple of bits and pieces (treats and the like), but a place to store all the freebies we aimed to collect. Last year’s event had us leaving weighed down with bags of kibble and treats for the pooches. This year though, the big sellers on Amazon were quite clearly missing. Core – one of the better pet food companies was absent, so were Yu-Move and Pedigree. Even Amazon’s own Basics range wasn’t on show, that turned out to be a revelation of last years event, their basic dog food is better than most of the much more expensive brands, but unfortunately there was no stand for them.

In all the park was mostly empty, a row of tents with the usual suspects at any of these kind of things, The RSPCA begging for money and doing little for it, Mars – A Fish Food Company, Frontline promoting Flee and Worming Tablets.

There were the ‘We don’t want to be here’ tents Webbox – who were downright rude once again and Catit. Lily’s Kitchen made an effort with a free ‘You and your Dog’ Portrait photo and a free bag of stuff ( a bag of treats and some poo bags, which giving their prices wasn’t bad at all!)

Protexin – Teeth cleaning, Probiotics and Joint Supplements – were really nice, having a full chat asking a whole bunch of relevant questions before handing us some samples of all of their range catered to your answers.
Adaptil gave us a few calming treats for the hyperactive Cappy but nothing for a ball obsessed Solo.

Benebone was by far the best stall for the puppies with a whole range of super tough chews – great for the little destruction monsters – They happily let us take a number of different flavors to let our dogs try. Unfortunately Solo – who is prone to breaking teeth – could not partake in the samples.

Good Boy had a massive tent with a couple of games to win a Dog Toy and some treats they shared a tent with Furminator which was showing you their range of deshedding brushes but that was it.

James Wellbeloved were eager to give out some samples as many as you wanted but given the nutritional values of their food we had to pass.

The large stage with the deck chairs all around had a pet trainer and psychologist talking and doing a pretty good job with instructions and training tips for the tired and bored wanderers. It was shame the guy searching for questions from the sparse audience was either blind or just didn’t like the look of us, because we tried asking questions but were bypassed in favour of anyone else.

So we gave up on that idea and went to find coffee AND THERE WAS NO COFFEE – WTF if that doesn’t say it all then nothing does, the dogs got a free puppiccuno, which was a tiny thimble of single cream and you could give a donation of £3 for a ‘Free’ cup of coffee, but only if you wanted an Americano or Flat White in equally tiny cups!

The main space of the park was filled with an Agility course, a show ground, where dogs could show off their tricks and pretend to be at Crufts and a Sensory Park, where the poochies could sniff and smell plants, treats and other interesting smells, our canine overlords were not interested, There was a paddling pool too, but given the weather it seemed pointless except to wash the mud off of paws!

The stamp collection that resulted in cute toy plushies last year was a let down too, this year for running back and forth to collect a stamp from each stand, you got… a magnetic wrist band – wooo! (Sarcasm). Overall a real let down after the first year’s event. clearly it did not pay.

When the black clouds opened we decided to leave and walk all the way back to Whitechapel Station in the rain with our few meagre freebies and call it quits on Amazon Pet Fest 2025

---

Did you attend Pet Fest this year or last year, what did you think, leave comments, or subscribe and come back next time for another dose of KPop, KBeauty or Kulture!