Ashton Court in Financial Trouble

[bus]

According to their website, Ashton Cour Festival is in fairly deep financial mire. Their sponsorship deal with Orange has expired, and they're taslking about winding up early next year

When I lived in brizzle, it was a pretty regular festival for me, and though I've not been for a while I really hope it survives..

 

[kalidarkone]

I heard about this and thought 'I dont care' as over the last few years it has become increasingly shite, the highlight of it was the u75 meet up anyway...and losing 2 sheds

However if it could go back about 10 yeras that would be fantastic.... Ive gone to the last 18 or so and I dont hink I will be going to next years.....

 

[Crispy]

They just can't do the festival like they used to - the licensing and regs mean that there's a garunteed outlay you have to make, that they just can't cover with donations, I huess A shame, but as kali says, it's not been proper ashton court for at least 6 years.

 

[William of Walworth]

I heard about this and thought 'I dont care' as over the last few years it has become increasingly shite, the highlight of it was the u75 meet up anyway...and losing 2 sheds

I wonder if there is already a thread on the Bristol forum about this? Will check.

I think it would be a real shame if kali's widely shared and highly understandable attitude left a lot of Urbanites indifferent to Ashton Court's fate.

I'd rather it survived but with (big) changes, than died. I speak as someone who's far from a fan of the Orange sponsorship, the higher ticket prices, etc.

They are now appealing for money!!

Bristol's Ashton Court Festival, which has been running for 32 years, has announced it is in financial crisis, and it needs help to survive.

Following a disappointing turnout this year, plus increased costs of running the event, the organisation urgently needs your support if it is to continue to offer the Bristol community such an important event for local performers right on its doorstep at a bargain price (£7 a day in 2006), and is today launching a public appeal.

The organisers are asking people to donate whatever they can towards a public appeal fund, with the aim of putting the event back on a secure footing. If 5,000 people each donate £20, it will enable the festival to pay off its current debts of around £100,000 and will help ensure an event in 2007.

Having overcome difficulties in dealing with the new licensing act and SIA security regulations to put on the 2006 event, and despite a very successful Saturday, the figures on Sunday were around 10,000 down on what was expected and therefore the festival is facing a financial loss. Without immediate help, the festival will have to be wound up, which after 32 years would be an immense loss to the city and to all of the artists it works to support.

"The festival has become a kind of institution and people seem to take it for granted that it will always exist", said Neil Barlow, who has been on the Bristol Community Festival (BCF) Management Committee for 10 years. "However, it really is crunch time and we desperately need the support of the community to carry on. If we do not act now, by January it will be too late to turn the situation around and 32 years of heritage will be lost. Along with it will go one of the most important dates in the Bristol calendar and a major opportunity for local artists to perform. We are hopeful that the people of Bristol can come together and support the festival and we will do everything we can to ensure that it will live to see another year."

The organisation does not receive public funding and is entirely reliant on sponsorship and gate income to survive, so there is no margin for error. BCF have also appealed to the city council. Negotiations are ongoing but the council’s support alone will be unlikely to save the Festival.

On top of the losses from this year, for 2007 the festival is looking for a new title sponsor after the agreement with Orange concluded after five years, and Orange have decided change their sponsorship strategy.

If the festival manages to overcome its current crisis, the change in title sponsor will be just one of a number of changes to the event. "We have been working hard over the last few months to look objectively at the event and work at improving it for future years." said a spokesperson. "We are keen to introduce a few new areas and refresh the format, in order to provide more opportunities for local artists, community groups and organisations to get involved. The festival provides a platform for over 1,500 artists to perform each year, but we would like to increase this and introduce more opportunities for the kinds of groups that we currently cannot cater for."

To help keep the festival alive and to enable it to continue as an important date in the Bristol calendar, you can donate directly with a credit/debit card via the website www.ashtoncourtfestival.com. Alternatively, you can send a cheque made payable to “Bristol Community Festival” to 1 Ninetree Hill, Bristol, BS1 3SB.

eFestivals is pleased to be able to help, and is donating £500 towards the appeal.

The dates for 2007 are provisionally confirmed as Saturday 14th and Sunday 15th July.

 

[Sunspots]

Bugger, I thought I'd post about this in the Bristol forum, but I was so slow in writing out my OP that this thread sprung up in the meantime!

Oh well. Anyway, here's my bleary-eyed rant from elsewhere:

http://www.urban75.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=5429057&postcount=1

 

[Crispy]

Do you want them merged? (and where?)

 

[Isambard]

I was thinking about Ashton Court purely by chance this morning and I'd kind of decided I didn't really plan on going next year anyway.

Getting searched under the eyes of Avon and Somerset's finest wasn't too brilliant and I found the cops were creating a pretty heavy atmosphere towards the end.
Also the shite about what drinks you could bring in.

It's maybe not possible to turn the clock back becasue of the liscensing laws and regulations etc. But.

Probably I couldn't do any better, but I see the bloke above has been on the management committee for 10 years or summat.
Seems they think that THEY are the institution that they would always be there.
THEY went down that road, now they've landed on their arses with a hard bump.

The best bit was lying in the field with mates off Urban anyway, we can still do "Mushie Festival" at a secret location.

 

[Sunspots]

I heard about this and thought 'I dont care' as over the last few years it has become increasingly shite

I think it would be a real shame if kali's widely shared and highly understandable attitude left a lot of Urbanites indifferent to Ashton Court's fate.

When I heard about it, I too felt the same way.

In fact, I feel really uncomfortable with myself, 'cos my feelings are bordering on actual glee (-most out of character for me! ) at seeing the mess the whole corporate gamble has ended up being.

Despite last July being a total scorcher, I didn't go to AC this year. Admittedly I went to a different and equally expensive festival on the same day instead, but for the first year ever, I looked at the price of AC (-factoring in all the other costs of the day like buses, food, etc) and looked the line up, and decided it just wasn't worth it. I went to Birmingham instead, saw an awesome line-up of international bands, and will probably make the same decision in 2007.

I just can't help feeling that AC is paying the price for it's Faustian pact.

 

[bus]

I'm curious. I've probably not been since maybe 97 or 98....what's changed to make people so anti?

 

[JTG]

corporate branding everywhere, rising admission prices every year (I remember when they didn't even have an admission price), changing demographics of people who go as a result, closure of the bridge making it harder to get on and off site, greater restrictions on what you can bring in, the loss of the club stage meaning that a large part of Bristol's music culture was excluded from the festival...

I could go on.

 

[kalidarkone]

I'm curious. I've probably not been since maybe 97 or 98....what's changed to make people so anti?

It has become incrediably corporate all ORANGE orientated, not any local bands anymore...the price to get in goes up every year, the bridge gets closed and the busses back are a nit of a nightmare, I mean if the bridge was oepned I would just walk..... (but the sheer volume of people deems it a risk) errrm......

I just remember about hehe 20 years ago or so when (laughs at self and how grumpy old lady she has become) it was really friendly and community focused and the fact ir was free was good. Also I used to do security and so I gt to camp there and hang out with the crazy mexican food stal people who gave me lots of drugs!!

Maybe I am just gettin on....

 

[gentlegreen]

I'm curious. I've probably not been since maybe 97 or 98....what's changed to make people so anti?

Seeing the "VIP tipi village" on the way out was the final nail in the coffin for me last year.

To be honest I haven't been that often over the years ... even though I live within cycling distance and must have been at one of the first ones.

 

[bus]

coo!


closing the bridge is a really bloody weird thing to do, and surely the local bands was kinda the point. they used to have a big (ish) headliner, but it was about being a brizzle festival.

Honestly! I leave my home town alone for 5 minutes and it all goes to shit

 

[jusali]

It's diconcerting that it's the legislation, insurance, licensing etc that has helped kill it. Surely our council/government/european parliaments can't be helping adding yet more legislation year on year.
Are people getting more stupid or is all this "legislation" etc justified

 

[Isambard]

Liscensing (liqour, music, public event) reglations have got stricter and stricter. Partly needed to protect the public but also needed to stop events getting sued to shite from somebody who cuts their finger on a broken glass.

But it ALSO commercialises a lot of things that used to be "free".

 

[Crispy]

coo!


closing the bridge is a really bloody weird thing to do, and surely the local bands was kinda the point. they used to have a big (ish) headliner, but it was about being a brizzle festival.

Honestly! I leave my home town alone for 5 minutes and it all goes to shit

There's still plenty of local bands, don't know what that's about. They have a national headliner or three, but the vast majority of the acts are local.

 

[two sheds]

the highlight of it was the u75 meet up anyway...and losing 2 sheds

yep but i found you again didn't i

i really enjoyed it and seeing peeps but was wondering whether to go again next year. Mind you if Orange aren't organising it next time .... (i liked the point where the guy from the orange marketing department who seemed to be mc'ing the bands on stage, after an excessively long and tedious period of throwing orange things at the audience, announced something like "So what do you want? Stupid people throwing marketing gadgets at you or MUUUUSSSSIIICCCC?' 'MMMUUUUUUSSSSIIICCCC' was the natural response and sure enough we got another tedious half hour of the marketing guy throwing orange things at the audience. Never thought i'd come away from somewhere hating a colour)

Beautiful Days was great though, loved the camping bit particularly

 

[kalidarkone]

yep but i found you again didn't i

Yes!

 

[kalidarkone]

Liscensing (liqour, music, public event) reglations have got stricter and stricter. Partly needed to protect the public but also needed to stop events getting sued to shite from somebody who cuts their finger on a broken glass.

yes this is soo true.... I work with young parents and apparently I cant even organise a summer picnic for them with out doing a risk assesment of the picnic area and being insured The only way round it is to try and get one of the parents to organise it....which may not be a bad idea......hmmmm *thinks*

 

[Sunspots]

Partly needed to protect the public but also needed to stop events getting sued to shite from somebody who cuts their finger on a broken glass.

Was going to say the same thing myself. -They're terrified of getting sued!

But it ALSO commercialises a lot of things that used to be "free".

Yes, an important point IMO.

Financially, it inevitably ends up excluding people (-usually hitting the poorest the hardest).

It also (-in a kind of social/psychological way) contributes to changing how people perceive both open spaces and those that want to celebrate those spaces. It contributes to the idea that we can't enjoy open spaces unless there's a spectacular event put on for us.

It makes public space into private space. Which is what it feels like has happened since 'Bristol Community Festival' became 'The <insert sponsor's brand name> Ashton Court Festival'.

 

[Spandex]

Liscensing (liqour, music, public event) reglations have got stricter and stricter. Partly needed to protect the public but also needed to stop events getting sued to shite from somebody who cuts their finger on a broken glass.

But it ALSO commercialises a lot of things that used to be "free".

The amount of licensing and regulation is a hard one to get right.

I was (slightly) involved with planning for a few big events (not saying which ones ) and there is an amazing amount of planning required to make sure it will be safe - discussing crowd flows and potential crush points with the local council brought up points I wouldn't have even thought about. At the emergency service debrief after one big event everyone agreed that they had only just got away without a major crush disaster, although this wasn't minuted or made public for political reasons.

If you get the planning for an event wrong it can go really wrong - the Roskilde fesitval where 2 people were crushed to death, or the free Fatboy Slim beach party in Brighton where quarter of a million people turned up (doubling the population of the town for the day, putting a strain on the infrastructure that the town barely coped with).

But as others have said, all the risk avoidance measures do both cost a lot of money, often meaning organisers will turn to sponsorship to find the £££s, and can suck the life out of an event. The only way to keep an event with character is to keep it small, but that creates a catch 22 situation where small, good events become popular, grow and become victims of their own sucess.

I don't know if there is a solution really...

 

[tarannau]

Liscensing (liqour, music, public event) reglations have got stricter and stricter. Partly needed to protect the public but also needed to stop events getting sued to shite from somebody who cuts their finger on a broken glass.

But it ALSO commercialises a lot of things that used to be "free".

Sadly, I almost guarantee this is the reason why Ashton Court 'sold its soul' or made a 'faustian pact' as some of you are suggesting.

I was helping out a free festival in Lambeth a year or so back, the idea being that all the old party/festival crews would contribute their time and give something back to the community, with any profits going to Macmillan Cancer Care. Local sponsorship and some donation buckets theoretically should have just about made enough to cover the costs.

In reality it became a nightmare. The council insisted on a considerable fee to use Brockwell Park, a hefty number of security guards from a roster of accredited firms, onerous noise restrictions and equipment checks... And just for the added kick in the teeth, insisted on constructing a fence around a big section of Brockwell Park, keeping people from entering (erm!) this free festival.

The result? The organisers ended up spending countless hours in negotiations with the council, lost thousands out of their own pockets, the charity got nothing, the event got shelved the next year as they licked their wounds. If it ever does get off the ground again it'll be unlikely we'll be able to avoid fairly hefty suggested donations and resist more overt sponsorship...

 

[Isambard]

I don't doubt there was a lot of hassles about insurance and security and all the rest of it.

But I think it is a bit of a bloody cheek for the 10 year serving member of the committee to ask for more money when what has happenend is (to quote a bloke I know in Briztle) is EXACTLY what was predicted.

I'm a bit of a newbie on Bristol events so I can't say what it was like before, but there are plenty of voices of experiences above.
As it is now, it is worth saving? As I said above I'd already decided probably not to go in 2007 before I heard the news.

 

[tarannau]

The fact that this sorry state of affairs was predicted doesn't necessarily mean that the organisers were negligent in choosing to go ahead.

Quite simply, there may have been no other way. We could predict the problems looming with our festival too, albeit not helped by constant changes and interference from the council, but the festival is far bigger than the group of organisers. There's all the contributors, the charities and long-term concessions to consider. It's also almost impossible to predict just how the council will react and what last minute restrictions/extra costs the council or police can throw in. All you can do past a certain point is hope.

I don't know enough about the background of Ashton Court to really comment, but I'd be wary of laying too much blame on the organisers. It's worth noting that councils vary wildly in their charges and attitudes to festivals - Lambeth were a fucker when we asked to use Brockwell Park, but neighbouring Southwark would have welcomed us free and with open arms. It's possible that the long term status of Ashton Court hasn't helped - the council may be counting it as a commercial entity and charging accordingly.

 

[Isambard]

If there was "no other way", at what point should people throw in the towell and walk away?

 

[Sunspots]

I don't know enough about the background of Ashton Court to really comment, but I'd be wary of laying too much blame on the organisers.

To be fair, this is true.

While I think that those in charge have surely got to take a sizeable chunk of responsibility for how things have ended up in such a precarious financial situation, there are obviously other factors at play that were out of their hands but which none the less impacted on the financial state of the festival.

I doubt the organisers necessarily could have foreseen a few years ago just how much more expensive/restrictive all these recent H&S/security rules would be.

Then there was the foot and mouth outbreak in 2001, which meant relocating from the (-quarantined) AC site to one in Hengrove. Loads of people stayed away that year, which by all accounts was what created the bulk of the debts that it's still saddled with, and necessitated the ongoing involvement of private sponsorship. I think, to be fair, that corporate sponsorship was probably not something that the organisers particularly wanted to do. It was just what they felt they had to do.

So yeah, I think the organisers have had to react to factors beyond their control. I just think it's sad that despite putting up the entrance fees, and despite getting corporate sponsorship for 5 years, they're still running at a huge loss.

Anyway... although it's clearly not in the best of health, the festival's not dead and buried just yet! It probably will find a new sponsor eventually, but what new compromises that might bring with it are another matter. I guess only time will tell...

Still, at least Bristol got to endure ... -er, sorry... enjoy the mighty Simple Minds, eh...

 

[Isambard]

Aye but Pendulum were fucking ace!

(apart from the police massing at the back of us up the hill and trying to drive a wedge through the crowd that was good natured. )

And dancing with a load of "bear cubs" to Doreen Doreen just as you come up is a definitive experience!

 

[fizzerbird]

Aye but Pendulum were fucking ace!

(apart from the police massing at the back of us up the hill and trying to drive a wedge through the crowd that was good natured. )

And dancing with a load of "bear cubs" to Doreen Doreen just as you come up is a definitive experience!

Hahaha!!

Pendulum were brilliant...but as you said earlier I wasn't planning to go nxt year, mainly for reasons already posted and the atmosphere was shit due to feking police lining up at the top of the hill and sending down 'markers' into the crowd. NOT everyone who attends the festival is a dealer or a user fek sake!!!

I agree with monkey boy...ooops soz Sunspots ( haven't called you that in a while) Lets rewind and scale it down to local up and coming bands that need the experience of playing in front of a crowd. Lets have some local vendors selling their wares...espesh the local cider and ales.

Mebbe I'm being nostaglic and I know that nostalia can sometimes be a bad thing as it often thwarts what things were really like BUT...when I were a wee lass growing up in this city, AC was a time of frolicking in the woods, listening to live people playing live music and getting tipsy on cider and love.


Ahhhhh, those were the days...

 

[ATOMIC SUPLEX]

Aw this would be a real shame if it ended, Ashton Court was the first festival I played at and I have fond memories of it.

Apart from a police search.

 

[free spirit]

doesn't sound good

I'd not realised ashton court was so big... does it really get 100,000 people over the weekend (ie 50,000 per day)?

if they're really 100k in the mire that sounds like it's going to need an appeal to the department of media culture sport at central government to sort out, no way the local councils gonna be able to make much of a dent in it (don't know about bristol, but newcastle council's entire budget for arts events was 70k this year to give some perspective).

Puts things into perspective like, we (newcastle green festival) lost 2k one year, and hit problems this year that meant we had to take action to stop us going into the red, but ending up 100k in the red is erm unlucky or something.

one thing though... simple minds... wtf?