FRONT ROW FOR FESTIVALS

As the world at large (outside of New Zealand), waits to see if we shall finally get our festivals back this summer, here in the UK we are still reeling from the loss of another Glastonbury and praying to any deity that will listen that we shall be gathered in a field (any field) before the year is up.  

Recently BBC Radio 4’s ‘Front Row’ program enlisted one of their producers Emily Dicks aka DJ and all round purveyor of Global sounds, Emily Dust, to chat to a number of festival folk with varying degrees of optimism about the situation: Sacha Lord, the northern night czar and one of the driving forces behind both the Warehouse Project and Parklife festival in Manchester, who outlined the need for a government backed insurance scheme and the devastating effect that another summer without festivals would have on grassroots festivals in particular, and the wider supply chain of contractors; Marina Blake from Brainchild, a small festival focussed on emerging creative talent in East Sussex, echoed some of the challenges they face and the blow that not being able to play live can have on up and coming musicians; Dan Rafferty, one of the founding directors and main music programmer for Shambala in Northamptonshire (one of my personal favourites), talks about how their team has been adapting their operations and logistics skills to help the local community, and some of the challenges they still face before going ahead; yours truly also says a few bits and pieces about the importance of festivals, whilst also confusing the listener with a potted history of my Boomtown “in world” character.

If that’s not too many spoilers then do take a listen, the report starts at 25 minutes in. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000r5ph