Smaller festivals offer lesser known acts a chance to reach new audiences and give audiences a family-friendly local experience. Michael Hann looks at their role in the UK's music ecosystem.
'On a sweltering summer Saturday, Anna Davies sits on a bench in the shade at Black Deer festival, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. She is part of a group of friends who have come down from Cheshire with their young children. “Back in the day, we used to go to Reading and Glastonbury,” she says. “This is the kids’ first festival. She loves music” – she gestures to her five-year-old daughter, Molly, tucking into a portion of chips – “so this felt like the right kind of thing. It’s really nice and friendly.”
Black Deer is, indeed, nice and friendly. It’s a small festival, specialising in country and Americana – the Saturday-night headliners are Band of Horses – with a capacity of 15,000. The crowd doesn’t feel like the typical festival crowd. As well as the hardcore Americana devotees in their band T-shirts and sensible hats, there are family groups who look as if they have never been near a festival: dad in pastel polo shirt, mum in white linen (and wellies, just in case, despite the ground being bone dry).' ... Keep reading on The Guardian
'On a sweltering summer Saturday, Anna Davies sits on a bench in the shade at Black Deer festival, near Tunbridge Wells in Kent. She is part of a group of friends who have come down from Cheshire with their young children. “Back in the day, we used to go to Reading and Glastonbury,” she says. “This is the kids’ first festival. She loves music” – she gestures to her five-year-old daughter, Molly, tucking into a portion of chips – “so this felt like the right kind of thing. It’s really nice and friendly.”
Black Deer is, indeed, nice and friendly. It’s a small festival, specialising in country and Americana – the Saturday-night headliners are Band of Horses – with a capacity of 15,000. The crowd doesn’t feel like the typical festival crowd. As well as the hardcore Americana devotees in their band T-shirts and sensible hats, there are family groups who look as if they have never been near a festival: dad in pastel polo shirt, mum in white linen (and wellies, just in case, despite the ground being bone dry).' ... Keep reading on The Guardian