Festival Fun in the English Sun

I firmly subscribe to the philosophy that you should try everything once, within reason, and I'm in no rush to try Morris Dancing.?

And until last week I’d never camped out at a weekend music festival. I’ve said this before, back in February, when I booked the tickets for a summer of fun, that the simple bucolic English pleasure of music and the countryside has somehow passed me by.

My first experience last weekend was at Kite Festival in rural Oxfordshire. It was billed as a festival of music and ideas, with high-brow talks during the day, some comedy and cabaret, and full-blown gigs in the evening.

It's the heady mix of ideas and discussion that prompted us to launch the Discuss debates in 2013 and has touched my whole approach to live events I've produced over the years. I'm as much intrigued by how event hosts operate, as I am the people being interviewed. Watching Andrew Neil, Emily Benn and Miranda Sawyer up close was great.

But my personal musical highspot was an especially mind-blowing performance by Grace Jones, 74, who showed the gymnastic dexterity of a woman 50 years younger. The crescendo of the show being a powerful delivery of Slave to the Rhythm while hula hooping throughout.?

Always one of music’s great innovators, she drew heavily from her long career to keep the crowd moving throughout.?

I’ve seen enough of Glastonbury on TV over the years to know that these are the moments that festival memories are made of.?

Already I’m now looking forward to Blue Dot in July, at the atmospheric location of Jodrell Bank in nearby Cheshire.

I’m sure the headliners like Bjork and Mogwai will go down well, but I’m probably going to plan my day a bit better and leave a bit of time to explore, and have that great experience when you stumble onto a smaller stage and discover an artist you’ve never heard before.?

We were blown away by Confidence Man, an Australian electro pop act with boundless energy.??

We had a fantastic time. A real treat and an important part of our ‘say yes to everything tour’ which we signed up to after a couple of years of lockdown.

But it wasn’t cheap. Even with early bird ticket offers, campervan hire, fuel, and pricey meals, it could well end up costing us more than the city break in Portugal we have to look forward to next.?

It was no surprise that a few festivals have been cancelled due to poorer-than-expected ticket sales. Summertime at Blackburn Rovers football ground was knocked on the head when less than half the tickets had been sold with a few weeks to go. Same with Brainchild and another one called This is Tomorrow.?

Costs have crept up, there are labour shortages due to Brexit, artists haven’t been able to tour and so demand has been intense for the best artists.

I spotted a couple of the headliners for Kite Festival dropping off the roster and some fairly sustained marketing to push tickets as the date got nearer. I had a nagging feeling in the back of my mind that it might be struggling.?

The decent weather and the fact it’s only an hour away from London meant there was a steady stream of day trippers over the weekend.

In the end it worked out OK, and I’ve seen some great reviews that seemed to reflect our euphoria for a cool weekend with lots of other old people. We've already booked for next year.

But right now my fingers and toes are crossed for Blue Dot in July, for the weather, and for the people of the North West to give it a go.