Making festivals accessible: Chase Park Festival, Gateshead – Alistair McDonald

Chase Park Festival is one of the UK’s most inclusive festivals and is one of very few to have been awarded Gold for accessibility by Attitude Is Everything. This week’s blog post by the festival’s organiser, Alistair McDonald, gives some background to the festival, lays out some ideas for best practice around accessibility, and offers some more general advice to …  

Thinking About Gender And Festival Bookings – Chris T-T

This week’s blog post is by Brighton-based musician, Chris T-T, and was originally published on his website. In it, he examines the ongoing issue of the lack of diversity in festival line-ups and recommends looking further down the bill to better assess the future ‘direction of travel’ for gender diversity at festivals. Note that the original article was originally posted …  

From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury: The Impact of British Music Festivals – Emma Webster and George McKay

A new report, written by Emma Webster and George McKay and published online last week, highlights the impact of British music festivals and shows that festivals are now at the heart of the British music industry, forming an essential part of the worlds of rock, classical, folk and jazz. Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s (AHRC) Connected Communities programme, the report is based on a critical literature review of more than 170 books, papers and reports.  

The Signs of Festival – Emma Webster

In anticipation of the EFG London Jazz Festival, Emma Webster’s blog post considers the signs of festival – how we know a festival is on its way before it begins.  

Changing horses: on track with the Riderless contract – Ben Challis

Ben Challis, barrister and General Counsel for Glastonbury Festivals Limited among other things, writes about the European festival association Yourope’s Standard Terms for festivals booking artists and performers for live performances, the aim of which is to protect promoters from signing contracts which force them to provide services/Riders which the promoter does not see until after the contract has been signed.