FESTIVAL NEWS

Festival Insights reports that Volt Festival  in Hungary has launched a campaign to make the event more environmentally-friendly. Called GreenFestival, the scheme sees festival-goers given a GreenFestival bag when they get their FestiPay card, by giving a mandatory deposit of 500HUF. The ones who gather and return their waste will not only get back the deposit, but also receive a certificate of merit and a T-shirt coupon worth 500HUF. A spokesman said the aim of this campaign is to show the audience that they are the source of action when it comes to saving the environment. 


Crawl Promotions, the company behind North London's long-standing multi-venue music festival The Camden Crawl, has been put into liquidation by its organisers a week and a half after the event's 2014 edition and it  seems that many of the bands who performed this year will lose money. An official statement issued via the Camden Crawl website this morning reads: "Due to ticket sales falling far short of expectations for this year's event, Crawl Promotions Ltd, the Company which promotes the Camden Crawl, is unable to pay its debts in full to any suppliers, staff or the Company's directors and shareholders. As it stands the total debts substantially exceed the value of the assets of the Company. Because of this completely unanticipated situation and after nearly ten years of successfully promoting the Camden Crawl festival, it is with great regret and sadness that there has been no other option than to convene meetings for the purpose of placing the Company into Creditors' Voluntary Liquidation". An Insolvency Practitioner has been appointed and Meetings of Shareholders and Creditors are scheduled for the 11th July 2014.

Mike Weatherley MP, who has been particularly vocal on music business and intellectual property issues in his time in parliament, has announced he will not re-stand at next year's General Election. The member of parliament for Hove and Portslade since 2010, Weatherley worked in both the music and film industries before entering politics. He has been very involved in the All Party Parliamentary Groups on music and ticketing, and last year became IP Advisor to Prime Minister David Cameron as well as running the 'Rock The House' band competition which saw winners play live in the Speakers Rooms at the House of Commons in London. Having recently had a battle against cancer, Mike said: “This has been an exceptionally difficult decision to make. It has been a remarkable opportunity to represent the wonderful residents of Hove and Portslade in Parliament and I look forward to continuing to do this until the election near year.”

A heartless festival goer has left behind a DOG at the Glastonbury Festival. The white lurcher was found in one of the 5,000 tents abandoned after the iconic Somerset festival ended. The dog was renamed 'Dolly' after Glastonbury headliner Dolly Parton and Dolly is now recovering at the Happy Landings animal shelter in Pylle, Somerset - and rescue workers are looking for answers. A spokesperson said: "She is a sweet-natured older lurcher, and clearly very stressed to find herself in this predicament" adding "We had hoped that an owner would come forward but there has still been nothing" and  "How anyone could do such a thing is beyond me". Dolly was found by Wookey grandfather Colin Williams who found lonely Dolly in a stifling hot tent. Mr Williams had been let on the Glastonbury Festival site on Tuesday morning to collect an abandoned tent for his grandchildren to play in and he confirmed the dog had been left with some food and probably a small amount of water. The Glastonbury Festival does not allow dogs on site. 

On Wednesday 15th October 2014,  ADE and ID&T present the second edition of ADE Green which will take place at a brand new location; de Brakke Grond, Amsterdam. Expect an afternoon filled with interactive panels and discussions that will leave you full of new ideas, workshops on how to get your hands dirty to help create a more climate-friendly future for your event, as well as inspiring folks who will share their experiences, ideas and knowledge with you. ADE Green is accessible with an ADE 1-Day Ticket, or a 5-Day Conference Ticket or buy a ADE Green conference ticket. .ADE Green is a collaboration between ID&T and ADE, supported by EE MUSIC, GO Group which AGreenerFestival is part of, Germany's Green Music Initiative and Julie’s Bicycle. The first two confirmed speakers are music icon and entrepreneur, Michael Lang - best known for co-creating and producing the original 1969 Woodstock Festival - and top-chart dj Nicky Romero. They will be touching upon the role of the dance community in social change. 

Construction is underway on the Royal Opera House’s new Costume Centre at High House Production Park. Designed by Nicholas Hare architects, the Centre will join the Bob and Tamar Manoukian Production Workshop – where all the ROH’s sets and scenery are made – on the 14-acre site in Thurrock. The Costume Centre is a partnership between the Royal Opera House, South Essex College and Thurrock Borough Council with support from the East of England European Regional Development Programme and the Foyle Foundation. It will house all the costumes for opera and ballet productions currently in the repertory, which will enable the stock to be managed more efficiently, as well as reducing road mileage, transport costs and carbon footprint. The site will also house costumes obsolete productions so that designers may reuse or refashion costumes. The costumes will be kept in carefully controlled conditions to ensure they are properly conserved. The building itself will be of the highest environmental standards, set to achieve BREEAM excellent status, best practice in sustainable building design.

Festival Insights reports that for the third year in a row the Coachella Valley Music & Arts Festival at the Empire Polo Grounds in Indio has set an all-time Billboard Boxscore record for gross ticket sales. The festival is produced by Goldenvoice Presents, a division of AEG Live.
 The weekend following Coachella, Goldenvoice produced the Stagecoach country music festival, which drew 63,400 per day for a total attendance of 190,200. The total gross for Stagecoach was $18,615,000, with headliners Eric Church, Jason Aldean, Luke Brian, Brantley Gilbert, Hunter Hayes, and Florida Georgia Line. The combined three weekends at the Empire Polo Grounds saw a total of 769,000 paid, resulting in a gross of $96,947,000. In Denmark more guests than ever visited this year’s Roskilde Festival, where more than 100,000 people gathered for a week-long celebration of music, art, manifestations and creative kinship. Roskilde Festival’s spokeswoman, Christina Bilde says: “It will be a few months before we know the final economic result, but with more than 100,000 tickets sold and great numbers coming in from the drinks and food sales, we are very positive in our expectations. We expect to be able to donate approximately €2.5m to charity and cultural purposes after this year’s festival. And in Finland, Ruisrock attracted a new record number of visitors this weekend when 93,000 people attended the event over the weekend.

Tickets are now on sale for the 11th UK Festival Awards and Festival Conference, which returns to London’s Roundhouse for the fourth year running on the 1st December 2014. http://www.festivalawards.com/

Singer and broadcaster, Cerys Matthews, best known as the lead singer of Welsh rock band Catatonia is launching a new festival, due to take place in September. The Good Life Experience will be “dedicated to celebrating the great outdoors” with axe-throwing, archery, abseiling, wood-fires and rabbit skinning, among the activities on offer.

The Libertines' reunion show at London's Hyde Park was interrupted twice due to crowd surges and crushing.  During the second song of the set, a rendition of 'Boys In A Band', The Libertines had to halt their performance after security came on stage at the AEG promoted and Barclaycard presented British Summer Time event, attempting to stop the energetic crowd from being crushed at the barriers. 38 fans were injured and 8 treated in hospital. Singer Pete Doherty shouted to the crowd: "We can't carry on if you don't calm down a bit." Medical officers and security staff rushed to help people crushed at the front, and the photographer Leon Neal tweeted: "Chaos at the Libertines gig in Hyde Park. Many crushed with medics dragging people from the crowd." The Libertines have announced two more shows on 27th and 28th September at London's Alexandra Palace.