HALLOWEEN TOWN FESTIVAL © Haze Photography
Spooky business Bedford played host to LPH Concerts’ inaugural Halloween Town Festival. Greg Costa, senior project manager, reveals all
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ombie ticket collectors, ghoulish ghosts and killer clowns were just some of the characters greeting festivalgoers at LPH Concerts and Events’ latest new venture when Halloween Town Festival took over The Great Meadow, Bedford, in October. Craig David presents TS5 headlined the opening night of Halloween Town Festival (October 29-31), a new threeday event for 2021, which also saw David Rodigan, Shy FX, The Levellers, and Peter Hook and The Light play to 5,000-strong audiences. All the acts took to a custom-built, three-story stage with a giant 40ft LED screen, flanked by Halloween-themed performers and walkabouts. It was the first time that Halloween Town Festival had graced the town; it was a brave move to launch an event in a year where there has been so much event uncertainty. However, LPH Concerts’ Greg Costa, Halloween Town Festival’s senior project manager, was certain that the time of year – Halloween – was the right time for a new event: “I’ve
NOT YOUR AVERAGE NIGHT OUT
© Haze Photography
been toying with the idea for about seven years,” Costa said. “I come from a club promoter background, and I was finding that Halloween was busier than any bank holiday or New Year’s Eve. Sometimes, I’d have two or three Halloween events going off at the same time because of their popularity.” He continued: “The event needed to be indoors because of the time of year and the weather but I wanted the event to have a festival feel. I almost produced an event in Milton Keynes in 2018 but couldn’t get the licence sorted in time.” Costa partnered with Mark Harrison, managing director of LPH Concerts and Events.
Harrison found The Great Meadow in Bedford. The venue was eery with plenty of space for multiple stages. “We applied for a licence in May 2020. We thought COVID would have blown over by then, but it became more apparent that it wasn’t going to happen. Then we applied again for our licence, and it was granted in January. But we still gave it another month. Every month, we’d ask the question: ‘do we put our balls on the line and risk it, or wait?’ “It was now or never. Halloween comes only once a year, so I booked the acts for Friday and Saturday and Mark booked the Sunday.”
In April, Costa and the LPH team started to promote the show, which was scaled down slightly because of COVID. “We originally planned for more than one stage with a 10,000 capacity,” explained Costa. “We took the advice of the council and planned for one stage and 4,000 people. For year one, in a small town like Bedford, and considering what we were up against, we were happy with that. “But when we went on sale, ticket sales were not as quick as we would have liked. We sat down and basically said ‘would you buy a Christmas hamper in April?’. Consumer confidence was low, we were still in a pandemic, it was a new event – we did not panic but changed our marketing strategy to focus on Halloween and the artists. From August, we saw consistent sales.” Costa described the event as probably one of the most stressful that he has organised, but it was worthwhile.
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