“The Truly Detestable Summer Festival”
I knew I wasn’t going to get along with Latitude when I was clobbered round the head by a lily-pad made from tissue and withies within 10 minutes of being granted access to it’s artfully arranged playgrounds. Having painted the sheep, they were tastefully decorating the lake with ‘objets’ when the wind got up … and wallop …
I’ve wanted to to go Latitude for 3 years, but something else has always come up that has taken precedence … so when we were asked to contribute something to this years festival it was an opportunity not to be missed. I’d heard only good things about this festival, brilliant programming, like an outdoor Edinburgh, great art, music, theatre, plenty of loos and showers and the only downside that cropped up time and time again amongst my friends was that it was ‘posh’ and a ‘bit weird’ … it was described as ‘a festival for people that want to go to a festival but don’t like the idea of being amongst the great unwashed’ … win win as far as I’m concerned.
We set off with much excitement on Wednesday hoping to get there in time to set up and get the lay of the land before we had to run our music sessions … the journey was arduous, 9 hours from Ossett to Suffolk, delays caused by accidents and road closures and a total LACK of any kind of event signage or knowledge of how to find it … when we did finally arrive we were met by surly car park attendants who informed us that the site would not be opened until Thursday, not even for people working there … we tried for two hours to find the production office, none of the aforementioned surly carparkers seemed to know or care where it was and after a further two hours trying to find anyone who seemed higher up the organisational food chain we buggered off to Southwold for a walk along the pier and the odd jar of cider.
Thursday morning we returned as instructed at 10am, only to be told that the gates would not be opened until 3pm … it was at this point that we found we were not alone … a disgruntled actor, I recognised him off those Nationwide ads, a chap needing to get to the disabled access point and several families arrived in an equally dishevelled, disgruntled and disheartened mood … one dad got out of his car threw himself across the bonnet and started banging his head on the windscreen in dismay at the delays and lack of any apparent organisation.
It was at this point that we abandoned the van and decided to go for a walk about to see if we could find anyone that knew anything, even a map of the site might help us … we walked straight in, past the as yet unmanned security gates, into the main arena, onto the main stage, around all the food and drink areas and just meandered with not a wristband or ticket checked … We encountered several people we knew all looking around with a kind of post apocalyptic gaze, scratching their heads wondering what the hell was happening and who was in charge? at this point I was whacked on the head by the Lily-pad and retreated to the van for safety …
3 hours later, we had wristbands and were allowed to get in and make camp and start work … we never saw the actor again, he turned his van round and buggered off at ten to three, no doubt terrified that he’d miss his rehearsal … or maybe he just went back to London in disgust … the lovely family with exasperated dad camped next to us all week and the guy that needed disabled access was camped the other side of a wire fence all weekend and we could only communicate with him through the mesh … I am not sure what such segregation served to achieve but he wasn’t happy and neither were we. We were all penned into our respective areas and there we must stay.
It strikes me that people will behave according to how you treat them and if you let people roam and take responsibility for their own actions, then most people will behave intelligently and respectfully, but if you start segregating and penning people, then people feel confined and can become aggressive.
So Thursday night and the festival is in full swing … but this was not the festival I had been expecting … it was like being trapped in fresher’s week at the worst drama school you have ever been to … no one wanted to listen to the music or bands, everyone was just shrieking about their ‘Gap Yah’ or when mummy and daddy would be coming to the festival … I have never been to a festival before where I’ve needed to ask people to shut up cos I can’t hear the band but every bloody time we went to see someone we had to contend with people braying and hawing and shouting about where they were going for the summer … ‘just watch the effing show you knobheads’ ….
We retreated to the woods at about 10pm to get a spot to watch Tom Jones play his new album … by 10.45pm I’d been pushed and pulled and screamed at so much by passing lines of teenage Congas that we decided to go to bed and listen from the comfort of our van …
I have to say it was really confusing … the audience were MUCH younger than I’d expected and not remotely interested in anything other than getting shitfaced and screaming at their mates and certainly not interested in the artists.
Friday we did the first of our music sessions for kids … what a lovely and different atmosphere in the Angel Gardens. Willing and spirited participants indulged in Ukulele Karaoke and Kazoo playing and Ralph and I had a blast, we even had a few additional uke players to join us … the children’s area was great, families just having fun together, dad chilling out (ok recovering) mum nodding against a hay bale whilst the kids were entertained with crafts and music making and the sun shone and I thought, yes THIS is what festivals are supposed to be like … but in the evening we were back to running the gauntlet of teenagers behaving badly … and we were just left wondering whether we were too old and shouldn’t be there at all.
Saturday and Sunday more of the same , lovely children and lovely families all seeking refuge in Angel Gardens and scratching their heads in confusion about who Latitude was for …
We left the festival on Sunday afternoon and headed back to Southwold for a night of Cider and smoked fish, past the by now drooping car park attendant who was stood in the same place and position as on Thursday morning … had he moved? had he seen ANYTHING of the festival??? Had he learnt anymore about where ANYTHING was??? from the expression on his face I think he would have had trouble locating his feet.
We heard news of assaults on young women that made our spirits sink and had talked to enough Latitude regulars to begin to understand why we were so very disappointed. This year, they’d increased ticket sales by 30% and the music programming was targeted at 12 – 20 year olds alienating the existing customers and creating a terrible tension between arty types, families and teenagers who frankly should do their growing up out of sight of their parents or parents friends.
Melvin Benn needs to sort himself out, he needs to programme a festival based on love and passion and respect for his audience who might next year think twice about parting with several hundred pounds of their hard earned cash to be herded around for a weekend by his ill trained staff.
I doubt very much that I’ll go back to Latitude, there was though, as there always is, a light at the end of the tunnel, Angel Gardens was beautiful … and we met some tremendous young people, Meena and her dad on ukes were a more than adequate foil for our Morecambe and Wise … our campsite neighbours, Nick, Kath, Jake, Sam and Sally made it home for a week and I know we shall see more of them and Southwold in the future.
