Sonisphere UK cancelled

The British leg of Sonisphere is off, and the news was broken yesterday by headliners Queen, who told their fans “it is with very heavy hearts and much regret that we announce the cancellation of Sonisphere Knebworth 2012″. The cancellation was confirmed by promoters Kilimanjaro who said “Putting the festival together in what is proving to be a very challenging year was more difficult than we anticipated and we have spent the last few months fighting hard to keep Sonisphere in the calendar. Unfortunately circumstances have dictated that we would be unable to run the festival to a standard that both the artists and Sonisphere’s audience would rightly expect”. Ticket holders will automatically receive a full refund direct from their ticket agents”. Rumours of the cancellation began to circulate in the agent community earlier this week and some are said to be very disappointed with the cancellation after agreeing exclusive UK terms with Kilimanjaro. The Darkness, Faith No More and Kiss were also confirmed as headliners, but rumours persisted of poor ticket sales.

RECORD NUMBER OF EVENTS EARN THE GREENER FESTIVAL AWARD

Twenty three UK and European festivals have been awarded our prestigious Greener Festival Award 2010, joining the nine Australian Festivals who were named at the beginning of the year. A final list of recipients of the Award, including additional UK, European and North American winners will be made at the beginning of October after the festival season ends.

A record number of UK Festivals have joined the growing ranks of holders of the prestigious Greener Festival Award and the fourteen winners are the Isle of Wight Festival, The Big Session in Leicester, Wood Festival (Oxfordshire), Lounge on The Farm in Canterbury, Sonisphere at Knebworth, The Glastonbury Festival, Wireless Festival (Hyde Park), Splendour Festival (Nottingham), The Bristol Harbour Festival, The Sunrise Celebration, The City of London Festival, Standon Calling (Hertfordshire), The Summer Sundae Weekender (Leicester) and the Croissant Neuf Summer Party (Monmouthshire).

In addition the nine European mainland festivals are  SOS 4.8 (Spain), OpenAir St Gallen (Switzerland), The Oya Festival (Norway), Malmo Festivalen (Sweden), Grassroots (Jersey), Rock For People (Czech Republic), Open Air Festival (Czech Republic), Hadra Trance Festival (France) and Rototom Reggae Sunsplash (Spain). 

They join the nine Australian festivals who have already received the Greener Festival Award in 2010 - Bluesfest, The Falls Festival (on two sites) WOMADelaide, Southbound, Fairbridge, Island Vibe, Blues n Roots and Peats Ridge Festival.

All of the festivals have signed up to support environmentally good practices wherever possible and work with their audiences to reduce the festival’s carbon footprint, particularly from audience travel which often constitutes in excess of 70% of greenhouse gas emissions from rural sites. Festival organisers also have to complete a fifty three question assessment covering travel policies, CO2 emissions, waste and recycling policies, water use, noise pollution, environmental impact and green office policies. Festivals also have to undergo an independent environmental audit by an assessor sent by A Greener Festival. 

The final list of the 2010 Greener Festival Awards, which will include additional UK and US  festivals which have taken place in August and September, will be made at the beginning of October.

Ben Challis, co-founder of A Greener Festival said “We have had a record number of entries in 2010 and we are on track to make a record breaking 50 plus Awards this year (up from 37 festivals in 2009, 32 festivals in 2008 and 16 festivals in 2007 when the Awards scheme began). This is particularly impressive, not least because of the economic downturn but also because year on year we have raised the bar and made our Awards scheme more and more focussed on a meaningful and practical responses to climate change and pollution. We are also delighted that we have had more European and Australian festivals entering, new entrants in the UK and growing interest in the USA, and also that a number of festivals are entering into other schemes such as the 10:10 campaign as well as using established and proven tools from Julies Bicycle to measure and then reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The UK Awards will be presented at the UK Festival Awards which will be held on Thursday November 18th at the O2 in London where the overall ‘Greenest Festival’ Award will be made. European Awards will hopefully be presented before the European Festival Awards scheduled for January 2011 in Groningen, Netherland, where winners from European festivals organisation Yourope’s parallel ‘Green n Scheme’  will also be acknowledged.

Having created an Award trophy out of recycled plastic bottles, CDs and remoulded Wellington Boots in 2009, this year’s award is made out of a recycled wine bottles specially re-labelled by the Award organisers. The Awards scheme is very generously sponsored by specialist music industry insurance brokers Robertson Taylor.

Sonisphere moves up a gear

Sonisphere has got bigger – much bigger – and good news for organisers Kililive, the Sunday was a complete and utter sell out as metal fans flocked to Knebworth House in Hertfordshire for a feast of metal, rock, electro and punk.  With a stellar line up topped by Iron Maiden, Rammstein, Alice Cooper, Slayer, Placebo, Motley Crue, Gallows, Pendulum and Alice in Chains the weekend was blessed with remarkably good weather too (last year it rained!) continuing this bloggers run of good luck with festivals this summer – a baking Glastonbury, a roasting Lounge on the Farm and now a glorious sun drenched Sonisphere.

I got the train from London and the shuttle bus at Stevenage station couldn’t have been easier – a distinct improvement on last year when things were a bit more muddled – and well done to the organisers for making train travel so easy. There were big signs up at the station, directing festival goers to the shuttle bus, staff on hand to help and plenty of room for rucksacks and tents.  Its a quick ride over the motorway and then Sonisphere comes into view – with vastly more camping (and parking) this year.

The lovely Lucy showed me round the site just as Skunk Anansie came on stage – we had to stop and watch the end of their set by the way – they were on TOP form – a real eye opener – and Skin hasn’t changed AT ALL – I must get some of whatever she is taking – my picture in the attic is running out of time.  The site is remarkably litter free (for a Festival) and one new innovation at Sonisphere this year was a Coke sponsored recycling scheme where punters could ‘swap for swag’ – returning used plastic bottles to a big stand in the main arena where they could swap them for swag  – 10 bottles gets you a torch and lanyard, 15 bottles a cap and 20 bottles a T-shirt.  It works – when we got to the stand they were urgently trying to get hold of more stocks having completely run out – just as two of the sites most avid collectors returned with more recycling (see picture on the right) ! Sonisphere also now have a 10P deposit scheme on their paper and plastic beer glasses and again it just encourages people to return glasses to the bar for recycling.

We all know left behind tents remain a big problem.  Apart from  their ‘Simply The Fest’ campaign for recycling tents, Sonisphere have teamed up with The Better Festival Group (www.thebetterfestivalgroup.co.uk) to launch the Big Tent Recycle Campaign for 2010 to urge festival goers to recycle tents, sleeping bags and camping mats – it really is best to take all your gear home and reuse it, but knowing some people just won’t do this we really hope this scheme works.

Overall, a bigger, better and distinctly greener approach at Sonisphere this year. Hats (or recycled caps) off to them!

http://uk.sonispherefestivals.com/

You can read Phil Davies’ review on E-Festivals here http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/sonisphere/2010/review-day2.shtml and Scott Williams’ reviews here http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/sonisphere/2010/review-friday.shtml and here http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/sonisphere/2010/review-saturday.shtml and here http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/sonisphere/2010/review-overview.shtm and here’s Virtual Festival’s review http://www.virtualfestivals.com/festivals/reviews/8214/-/-Sonisphere-Festival-2010-Rated

We were at two other festivals this weekend – here’s a link to E-Festivals for what went on at KENDAL CALLING http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/kendalcalling/2010/review-overview.shtml here’s a link to a review of the CAMBRIDGE FOLK FESTIVAL http://www.efestivals.co.uk/festivals/cambridgefolk/2010/reviewpart3.shtml

Are Big Green Coach going your way?

Three festivals in one weekend!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it looked like a busy schedule – the Cambridge  Folk Festival on Friday, Sonisphere at Knebworth in Hertfordshire on Saturday and then Y-Not near Matlock in the Peak District on Sunday – and a busy schedule it was – it wasn’t quite Four seasons in one day but I did have wind, rain, mud and lovely sunshine too!

I'm only here for the beer

Last year when we did the green audit at the Cambridge Folk Festival, both the train lines into Cambridge were out of action - making the use of public transport a tad difficult. Would it be better this year? Well, yes, it was fifty percent better, as the Kings Cross line was fine and dandy (and the express train is far far quicker than driving) but strike action had shut the other main line North from Liverpool Street and South from Ely so that wasn’t all good news for public transport. I arrived at Cambridge station in glorious sunshine (although I was told later that it had been raining) and rather than catch the bus, which runs every ten minutes to right outside the festival, I decided to walk.  I had a map – of sorts – and my usual self confidence in my own unerring sense of direction. Three miles later (ermm it should have been no more than two really) and with my clearly now erring sense of direction I was sort of regretting my impulsive behaviour although the walk through the nature reserve was nice. But despite the extra mile or so (no matter) suddenly the festival site was right there in front of me. And Cherry Hinton Hall was looking green, leafy and lovely too.  The one thing I have to say about the Cambridge Folk Festival right now is that it is just so dang friendly – everyone from the gate staff to the box office to security to the bar staff to catering staff to site crew are just so helpful.  And the first thing you notice is that Cambridge is really hot on recycling – there were bags and bins for recycling everywhere, none were overflowing and the souvenier beer glass scheme is a no brainer meaning that there are not thousands of plastic or paper cups lying around - in fact no litter at all. Cambridge, who won our Greener Festival Award in 2008, is also one of the festivals using the new Julie’s Bicycle tools to measure their carbon footprint and greenhouse  gas emissions in a move to minimise their impact on a year on year basis. For more information on this go to www.juliesbicycle.com. The audience at Cambridge seems to make a real effort to keep the festival looking lovely and everyone seemed to respect the site and recycle cans, paper, card and food - the place is literally spotless. With ten thousand people enjoying each day at  Cambridge it is just a perfect size and you can’t but help feel welcome – and its making a real effort to go green too. On top of this great music too, and highlights included the Zutons, Bellowhead, Eddi Reader, Edward II, Buffy Sainte Marie and the Saw Doctors. In the meantime I am off to enjoy my lovely chilled beer in my Cambridge Folk Festival souvenir cup.  “Refill not landfill” – it really is “Cool as folk” … Cheers Cambridge!

So then Saturday and it must be Sonisphere at Knebworth – where black T-shirts, long hair, metal and mayhem would almost certainly ensue. With Metallica, Nine Inch Nails and Linkin Park headlining along with Anthrax, Coheed & Cambria, Heaven & Hell, Machine Head, Lamb of God, Avenged Sevenfold, Bullet for My Valentine and Thunder, this  is a beast of  a music festival and  surely there wouldn’t be any room for green  - would there? Well, yes there would. We trained it up from London which was dead easy and the festival was running shuttles from Stevenage rail station right to the Festival site. And these were free – hooray! That’s a good start- as the biggest proportion of greenhouse gas emissions for an out of town festival come from audience travel – so the more  people who train, bus, walk or cycle the better. There had been a few teething problems on Saturday morning with the shuttles but by the afternoon the coaches and buses were running every 15 minutes and it’s a pretty quick journey from the station to the festival site. The site is Knebworth Park which is absolutely enormous (I know because I walked right round it) with plenty of room for camping – and you know what (wot then?) Sonisphere had paid some attention to green details. It was nice to a fairly tidy site with litter pickers everywhere and the transport solutions had been thought about. But boy oh boy just as the evening started and Airbourn came on, the heavens well and truly opened and the rain just poured down. The crew at Cambridge had said they were expecting heavy rain on Saturday and as the two festivals are just 30 miles apart it’s not surprising Stevenage and Knebworth got a downpour.  But for once I was prepared with a waterproof (although we found a handy set of trees which did a pretty good job for a while as nature’s own umbrella) and the rain didn’t last for ever ….. and anyway, what’s a bit of rain – Sonisphere ROCKED!

The Sonisphere V V VIP bar - invite only!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s Sunday so finally to the Y Not Festival – set in the beautiful Peak District near Matlock in Derbyshire.  This is a small 4000 capacity festival – and sold out to boot – so well done for that YNot! Having mentioned boots, I should continue and mention that wellingtons were a useful accessory – not that I had any – as the site was pretty muddy. The mud was not because the weather was bad – it was actually lovely and sunny on Sunday – but in the week running up to the festival the site had been rained on – heavily. But did it matter? Not at all – with some great acts performing over the weekend including The King Blues, Noah & The Whale, The Boxer Rebellion, Young Knives and Esser. And Y-not is another really friendly festival and co-organiser Alex took the time to come and meet me and show me round the site. Alex explained that the mud had scuppered plans to put recycling bins for paper, glass, plastics, food waste and cans around the site and instead all rubbish was being collected and sorted for recycling by volunteers. YNot’s big drive was to cut  the audience’s carbon emissions and from the vantage point of a scaffold tower (vertigo – what vertigo?) I could see that there were just two small car parks and really not many cars at all. Why? well YNot used shuttle free buses to collect the audience from two local rail stations (Buxton and Matlock), promoted and incentivised lift share and also installed a carbon calculator on their website so people could work out their carbon footprints to get to and from YNot. All good stuff and a lovely festival.

So three festivals, a veritable buffet of music including, folk, metal and indie, all lovely and many thanks to all three festivals for taking part in our Greener Festivals Award scheme and for making us so welcome.

No messin' with the good folkies of Cambridge