Were the road signs being ironic? At the A23 Lewes roundabout, signs in the same design as standard, national road signs, had a crisp diagram and a neat arrow, clearly stating that "Lost Vagueness" was straight ahead.

The extremely efficient signage was not at all vague and made getting lost difficult. But arriving at a field near Isfield, things quickly reverted to lost, if not abandoned, and vagueness to the point of wilful confusion.

The name of this three-day festival's name was "neo-burlesque". Not entirely sure what the original burlesque was, I soon got an idea.

From (a very long) distance, Lost Vagueness resembled a wholesome Fifties North American country fair. Divided into two sites, there were striped big tops, a merry-go-round, food stalls, music and dancing.

Gents wore suits and ties, dames wore dresses and hats and children ran about excitedly. It was as if Norman Rockwell had come to East Sussex and made his saccharine-sweet paintings come to life.

But zooming in to closer quarters, you realised it was a neo-burlesque mirage. The gents in suits weren't wearing shirts, were smoking Turkish cigarettes and had dreadlocks. The ladies in hats and dresses had laddered fishnets, smeared lipstick and were carrying a pint in each hand.

And the children running around were actually adults on their knees, howling at the moon. Well, not quite, but in my dictionary, neoburlesque should read "bonkers cool".

Although it was a kind of reduced Glastonbury, it had a super-sized helping of comedy and humour - extra refreshing now Glastonbury proper gets more and more fences and a corporate feel. And instead of being in Somerset, it was just outside Brighton. Perfect.

To help get in the mood, The Changing Room supplied dressing-up clothes.

Champagne cocktails, to help you get even more in the mood, came from a ritzy ballroom and - my favourite - The Slipped Disco Tent, which hosted DIY DJ dance-offs.

If you're used to getting hauled off the floor by a humourless bouncer and turfed out of a club which fails to appreciate your personal take on "robotic breakdancing", this experimental-dance-friendly venue was a revelation.