Pop fests get a niche appeal

Published on Friday 21 March 2008 19:11

As line-ups become more samey, it's the added extras that count at this year's pop festivals.

ALREADY IT FEELS AS IF THE festival season is starting to pass us by, and it's only mid-March. The V Festival, T in the Park and the Isle of Wight Festival are all booked solid; the deadline to register for Glastonbury tickets passed last weekend.

If you're only pitching up for the bands, however, it doesn't really matter which festival you choose this summer. Two of Glastonbury's headliners, The Verve and Kings of Leon, are also playing at V, T in the Park and Ireland's Oxegen, and there's plenty of overlap lower down the bills as well.

Gigs are where the money is in today's music biz, with even the biggest bands so ubiquitous that if you miss them at a festival, you'll be able to catch them again in no time. So this year, choosing where to don the designer wellies is all about the extras.

You might fancy an event whose setting is more enticing than the usual swampy field. If so, there's the Green Man Festival in the heart of the Brecon Beacons; the Big Chill in Eastnor Castle Deer Park; the Secret Garden Party, sited by a Cambridgeshire lake; or Latitude in the beautifully rolling Henham estate in Suffolk.

Environmental concerns are more important to discerning festival-goers now, though it's not easy to make a festival eco-friendly. For a start, how do you stop Reading revellers burning toxic plastic rubbish on stinky bonfires?

Glastonbury organiser Michael Eavis, long a recycling champion, admits: "The greenest thing to do is not to run the event", and Radiohead have opted out of festivals altogether this year. However, most festivals are doing their bit and realising that it adds to their appeal.

Latitude sells reusable cups, Wychwood has a solar-powered cinema and T in the Park claims to be "the world's biggest carbon- neutral festival".

When Lily Allen pulled out of the Isle of Wight Festival earlier this month, promoter John Giddings said he'd rather spend her fee on improving the weekend's environmental credentials than on a replacement band.

A survey for campaigning website www.agreenerfestival.com has found that 48 per cent of people would pay more for a greener event. Accordingly, concert promoter Live Nation announced recently that it will give the option for music fans to add up to 50p to the price of their tickets to the Hard Rock Calling, Wireless or Download festivals, to offset their transport emissions.

Tellingly, though, the festival that's expanding fastest is the one whose USP is not music or greenness, but silliness.

Over five years, Bestival on the Isle of Wight has made a name for itself with an inflatable church, Women's Institute tea tent and a gigantic fancy dress contest. This year there'll be a second one, Camp Bestival in Dorset, promising a knitting tent, ballroom dancing and "the world's largest marching band". When you've seen all the headliners before, it's little things like this that make all the difference.