COULD BRISFEST FILL THE VOID LEFT BY BRISTOL ASHTON COURT FESTIVAL?
The organisers of BrisFest have launched a bid to see the festival take place at Ashton Court in 2012 – the site of the infamous Ashton Court festival. Obviously.
They say that if 10,000 people buy their advance ticket for £30 for the whole weekend before 31st Dec 2011, they will have the community festival at the Ashton Court estate in 2012. If there isn’t enough tickets sold, or for t doesn’t go ahead, they say they will refund everyone. They’re aiming for a capacity of 20,000 so will hopefully be able to release more tickets nearer the event too. The date will be mid September 2012 and the festival will feature all the stages and entertainment of BrisFest with a lively mix of local and national acts plus some crowd pleasing big names. There will be kids areas, food stalls, dance lessons, workshops, and a massive variety of music from ska and electronic to rock and folk! Everything you’d expect from a family orientated action packed festival! We’re aiming to revive the spirit of the old Ashton Court Festival, its friendly atmosphere and volunteer-led enthusiasm, but with a little BrisFest thrown in.
BrisFest (which takes place at Bristol harbourside on September 23rd-25th) and Stokes Croft Streetfest (which takes place on May 21st this year), came together in 2007 following the demise of Ashton Court Festival as we wanted to ensure the survival of a community festival for the city. They are a group of local volunteers (promoters, musicians, industry and members of the public) who felt it vital that the city retained a not for profit event, offering high profile exposure to local talent as well as an accessible, affordable festival for all that would be an asset to the city. When it became apparent that they couldn’t help save the previous festival they staged the first ‘Bristol Festival’ and have now held 3 annual festivals in the harbourside.
The spokesman added: “Unfortunately it’s impossible to stage a large festival for free these days, even with everyone working and performing for free. Licensing and health and safety laws have developed so that we now have to provide a basic level of infrastructure such as plenty of toilets, safety barriers, security personnel, ambulances etc and these all cost a lot of money. Even the ‘free’ events that currently happen are paid for by council taxes. But it’s not all bad; events are a lot safer than they used to be with better access, less environmental damage (from pee-ing in the woods for example) and we have all come to expect safety and protection should anything bad happen. The festival will cost around £600,000 to stage and as we don’t receive public funding we have to raise all of this ourselves through selling sponsorship, advertising, fundraising events, trade pitches, and tickets. But by keeping the profit in the festival and everyone volunteering we keep the ticket prices as low as possible. This is as cheap as it can be delivered for, but anyone that can’t afford it can lend a hand for free entry and kids are free.”
More info at www.brisfest.co.uk
