| Farmer Phil's Festival | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Rock, ska, reggae, cover bands |
| Dates | August |
| Location(s) | Near Gatten Farm, Ratlinghope, Shropshire, England |
| Years active | 1998–present |
| Website | http://www.farmerphilsfestival.com |
Farmer Phil's Festival is a music festival that takes place in early August at Gatten Farm, near Ratlinghope, Shropshire. The festival was founded by, and is managed by the eponymous Philip Harding and was first held in 1998.
Early festivals were simply a marquee in a corner of one of the farm's fields. The festival has since grown to its current capacity of around 2,000, and expanded from a two to three-day festival in 2009. [1] [2] The festival properly takes place from Friday to Sunday, although the festival is unusual in that it allows festival-goers to camp for the entire week before, from Monday onwards, with occasional musical acts events during that time. [3]
The festival previously featured a number of musical styles. Notable acts up to 2017 included rock (The Quireboys, Dr. Feelgood, The Blockheads), folk punk (Ferocious Dog), ska (The Selecter), folk rock (Wille and the Bandits, Gaz Brookfield, Mad Dog Mcrea, Rusty Shackle), blues (The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band), dance (Dreadzone, The Orb), world music (3 Daft Monkeys) and singer-songwriters (Les Carter, John Otway). [4] [5] [6] [7]
Since 2018, the festival has mainly concentrated on a few retro headliners (Doctor and the Medics and Aswad in 2018, [8] Lindisfarne and The Neville Staple Band in 2019), [9] with a large number of local and cover bands.
Originally a single stage event, a second stage (The Russhuntel Stage, mainly catering for acoustic and solo acts) was added in 2007. A comedy/cabaret marquee was also added shortly afterwards. [1]
Farmer Phil's Festival targets itself as a family-friendly one, and has won Festival Kidz "Best Tiny Festival" award twice, in 2015 and 2017. [10] [11]
The Reading and Leeds Festivals are a pair of annual music festivals that take place in Reading and Leeds in England. The events take place simultaneously on the Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the August bank holiday weekend. The Reading Festival is held at Little John's Farm on Richfield Avenue in central Reading, near Caversham Bridge. The Leeds event is held in Bramham Park, near Wetherby, the grounds of a historic house. Headliners and most supporting acts typically play at both sites, with Reading's Friday line up becoming Leeds' Saturday line-up, Reading's Saturday line-up playing at Leeds on Sunday, and Leeds' Friday line-up attending Reading on Sunday. Campsites are available at both sites and weekend tickets include camping. Day tickets are also sold.
Rock Werchter is an annual music festival held in the village of Werchter, near Leuven, Belgium, since 1976 and is a large sized rock music festival. The 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2012 and 2014 festivals received the Arthur award for best festival in the world at the International Live Music Conference (ILMC). It can host 88,000 guests daily, of which 67,500 combine all four days, to add up to a total maximum of 149,500 different attendees.
The Cambridge Folk Festival is an annual music festival, established in 1965, held on the site of Cherry Hinton Hall in Cherry Hinton, one of the villages subsumed by the city of Cambridge, England. The festival is known for its eclectic mix of music and a wide definition of what might be considered folk. It occurs over a long weekend in summer at Cherry Hinton Hall. Until 2008 it was sponsored by BBC Radio 2, who broadcast it live, with highlights were recorded and shown later and occasionally live on digital television channel BBC Four from 2002 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2012 on Sky Arts.
Towersey Festival is an annual festival of folk, world music and traditional dance, previously held in the village of Towersey, relocated to neighbouring Thame in Oxfordshire, England through 2019. It moved to the Claydon Estate Middle Claydon in Buckinghamshire from 2020. It has taken place every August bank holiday weekend since its founding in 1965.
Fuji Rock Festival is an annual rock festival held in Naeba Ski Resort, in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The three-day event, organized by Smash Japan, features more than 200 Japanese and international musicians, making it the largest outdoor music event in Japan. In 2005, more than 100,000 people attended the festival.
Truck Festival is an annual independent music festival in Oxfordshire, England. Truck Festival started in 1998, founded by the Bennett family. The Bennett family decided that mainstream festivals such as Glastonbury had become too commercial and predictable. Trunk Festival is held in July at Hill Farm in Steventon, which lies between Abingdon, Didcot and Wantage. The festival also gave birth to the Truck Records label in 1999.
BunkFest, a small but growing end-of–summer folk music festival, takes place in Wallingford, Oxfordshire, UK and combines a broad range of folk music, dance displays, a beer festival and the local (Bunk) steam railway. BunkFest is a not-for-profit festival and is run entirely by volunteers. BunkFest was started in 2002 by a small group of local folk music enthusiasts.
Glastonbury Festival is a greenfield music and performing arts festival on farm land near Pilton, England. It was first held in 1970 and has been held in the majority of years since then in the summer. Its line-up is diverse, including music, comedy, circus and theatre, taking place on many different stages and performance areas.
Music festivals have a long and chequered history in New Zealand. The first large outdoor rock music festivals were Redwood 70 in 1970 and the Great Ngaruawahia Music Festival in 1973. The largest was the 1979 Nambassa festival, one of several Nambassa festivals held around that time, in Golden Valley, just north of Waihi.
Beautiful Days is a music festival that takes place in August at Escot Park, near Ottery St Mary, Devon. The festival was founded by, and is managed by the band The Levellers and was first held in 2003. The festival has no corporate sponsorship or branding, leading to Virtual Festivals proclaiming it "the festival that sells out ... by not selling out". In 2011 Beautiful Days was pronounced "Best Family Festival" by the UK Festival Awards, later winning the "Grass Roots Festival Award" in 2015, as well as the "Best Medium Festival" award from FestivalKidz the same year. Every festival from 2003 to 2021 sold out in advance; although the 2020 festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The current capacity is 17,500.
The Godiva Festival is a three-day music festival held each year in the War Memorial Park, Coventry, England, named after the city's famous former inhabitant Lady Godiva. It first appeared as a day-long event in 1997 and became a three-day event the following year in 1998. It is the largest family music festival in the UK, and is made up of two fields; a Main Field and a Family field, which each offer a different experience.
The music of Cardiff has been dominated mainly by rock music since the early 1990s with later trends developing towards more extreme styles of the genre such as heavy metal and metalcore music. It, along with the nearby music scene in Newport, has brought a number of musicians to perform or begin their careers in South Wales.
The Tramlines Festival is an annual music festival held in Sheffield, UK. The festival was originally free to attend, but now requires tickets. The line-up consists of national and local artists. The festival was curated and organised by a panel comprising local venue owners, promoters and volunteers. The name of the festival is inspired by the city's tram network. Tramlines held its first festival in 2009, which attracted 35,000 fans and was seen as a huge success, and 2010's event doubled that figure. The success of Tramlines Festival 2011 led to the event winning 'Best Metropolitan Festival' at the UK Festival Awards. Superstruct Entertainment, the live entertainment platform backed by Providence Equity Partners, owns the festival after it entered definitive agreement for the acquisition of several live music and entertainment festivals from Global Media & Entertainment and Broadwick Live.
Hop Farm Music Festival was an annual music festival at The Hop Farm Country Park in Paddock Wood, Kent, England, first created by John Vincent Power of Festival Republic. After its first year it was nominated at the UK Festival Awards with "Best New Festival".
Le Guess Who? is a Dutch music festival featuring different music genres: from avant-garde, jazz, hip hop, electronic, experimental, noise rock, indie rock, world music and others. This festival was founded by Bob van Heur and Johan Gijsen. It has been hosted in the city of Utrecht since 2007.
Lakefest is a festival, which began as a music and cider festival.
Bearded Theory's Spring Gathering, also known as Bearded Theory, is an independent music festival which has no sponsorship or branding that takes place every May on the South Derbyshire, West Midland and Staffordshire border in the National Forest in Britain. The festival is organised by Bearded Theory and was first held in 2008. The festival has nine stages which are the large supernova type Main Stage, The Pallet, The Woodland, Magical Sounds, Showcase Stage The Maui Waui Stage, The Ship, Convoy Cabaret, Something Else Stage, Rogues Hideout and the festival also hosts a Cinema, Craft Village, Healing Area, smaller DJ venues, several public real ale bars, several cocktail or gin bars, Festival School, Children's Village and a Victorian Funfair. The festival has several campsites and campervan fields, multiple arena areas and are all spread over 250 acres at Catton Park.
Ferocious Dog are an English folk punk band from Warsop, Nottinghamshire, England. The band has headlined tours of the UK and Europe, performed in Dubai, festivals such as Bearded Theory, Alchemy, Deerstock, Farmer Phil's Festival, Splendour and Beautiful Days, and toured in support of New Model Army, The Levellers and The Wonder Stuff. In 2015 the band played in the Field of Avalon at Glastonbury Festival, attracting the third largest crowd to the stage over the course of the weekend.
Wickham Festival is a four-day music event that takes place in the village of Wickham, Hampshire, England. Wickham hosts live music and comedy across four stages, as well as food stalls, craft stalls, real ale and cider bars and children's entertainers. It has been listed by The Guardian as a top 'Family Friendly Boutique Festival'. The 2015 Wickham Festival was named Best Festival at the Live UK Music Business Awards, and the 2018 event won Best Festival at The Guide Awards, with the 2019 event taking the title of Best Live Event.
The Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican are a British comedy folk and parody band from Barnsley, South Yorkshire. Formed in 2006, they claim to be the hardest working comedy band in the UK, having played over 1280 shows throughout the UK. They are best known on the UK's festival scene, having played at major festivals including Glastonbury Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, Beautiful Days, Bearded Theory, Rebellion Festival, Wychwood Festival, Kate Rusby's Underneath The Stars Festival, Towersey Festival, Wickham Festival, Shrewsbury Folk Festival and to an audience of 20,000 at Fairport's Cropredy Convention in August 2018, for their 900th show and again in 2022. Playing mainly acoustic folk instruments, they take popular songs and replace the lyrics with their own comedy reworkings, often on themes completely unrelated to the original song. They have independently released eleven studio albums, and a large number of live albums. Presenting themselves as the long-lost children of Irish entertainer Val Doonican, and claiming to be "on a mission to keep their late, great spiritual father's legacy alive", the various members of the band have adopted the singer's surname for their shows, and wear brightly coloured hand-knitted tank-tops in tribute to Doonican's traditional knitwear.