NEW SITE = NEW OPPORTUNITIES

A new site, new production partners, and sheep poo. Joe Heap, Towersey Festival’s festival director, discusses the realities of organising the 58th edition of the independent festival

Idon’t think I have ever discussed sheep poo on an event site, but they do say there’s a first for everything. Joe Heap, festival director of Towersey Festival, is showing StandOut around Claydon Estate in Buckinghamshire, Towersey Festival’s new home. The estate’s flock of sheep left the site eight weeks ago but the severe drought conditions – experienced by many organisers – have meant that not all the sheep poo has not been washed into the ground and filtered away. It’s an issue that Heap feels he may have to raise with his audience of loyal festivalgoers that are excited to be back at the muchloved event. It’s been three years since the festival took place, and this is just one of the challenges that Heap has had to face, alongside the many operational and production changes.

In 2019, Towersey Festival announced that it would be moving to a new site in 2020, but COVID hit. “We created a festival ready to go in 2020 and that was scrapped,” Heap explained. “Then we thought we’d relaunch in 2021 but that didn’t go ahead. Then, we looked at creating a scaled back, COVID-safe version of the event and so we created a site plan for that. That was scrapped too. The financial risk was too much. We made the decision to play it safe and cancelled the 2021 event.”

Heap described 2021’s cancellation as heart-breaking but necessary. So, how does it feel to be finally going ahead after three years of nothing? “I have mixed emotions,” Heap continued. “There’s excitement to be back, apprehension because it’s been so long, and exhaustion because it’s been a while since we’ve done an event, but we’re here and it’s good and it’s exciting.”

Towersey Festival’s new Buckinghamshire home – Claydon Estate, Steeple Claydon – is a country estate and venue with an historic courtyard. The estate’s many acres and picturesque setting appealed to Heap and the Towersey team. Heap commented: “We moved because the old site was not available in the longterm but more importantly, we wanted beautiful surroundings. The old site was pretty boring, and we had to create the atmosphere. At Claydon Estate, the site is stunning. At the old site, we had to piece many fields together. Here, we have a lovely open space, dotted with ancient woodland.”

The new site has enabled Heap to expand, create new areas, and offer festivalgoers the opportunity to experience new activities such as mindfulness and wellbeing workshops, forest schools, and Tai Chi.

“We’ve pulled out all the stops to try and deliver on all the things we said we’d deliver on, and we’ve done about 98 per cent of them,” Heap continued. “We’ve made a lot of changes, which has made for an enormous amount of work, but it will be worth it. There are new activities on site, new team members, and production partners and that’s a big change for us.”

Towersey Festival has bolstered its stage production and event management team. One Big Star has been a supplier of Towersey for several years but now manages stage production whilst Engine No 4 runs site operations.

“A lot of people on the outside might say that our reason for bringing in a production partner is expansion,” Heap added. “It’s more about restructuring and it’s mostly about me being able to have a bigger overview of the event rather than being so hands-on.

“We’re a tiny event in the grand scheme of things and we’re family-run with a small but dedicated team. There’s no danger in us expanding into a huge commercial enterprise, but I just needed support on the production side of things so that I could take a step back and focus on developing the event in the right way.”

Engine No.4’s Max Cairns is site manager and Louise Renn is operations manager. Andy Pinnock is responsible for the build and break, Edward Fisher is health and safety manager, and Mary Hodson, Heap’s younger sister, is the festival’s project manager. Together, they are working hard to pull out all the stops and deliver the festival, which at the time of writing is eight days away. So, what have this year’s challenges been?

“Supply chain issues have been everyone’s problem and have led to some serious extra hours to find what we needed,” Heap said. “Our site is on the HS2 and East West Rail patch and the hugely disruptive works that they are doing have caused us all manner of logistical and travel concerns. But the biggest issue of all is the increase in costs. These have far outstripped the price of the tickets, which we set over 18 months ago. This effectively means that for the first time in our history, we will be operating at a loss. Like everyone else, we will adjust next year, but rocketing, inflation-busting increases have made things very tricky.”

This year’s appointment of Engine No 4 means that Heap can step out from behind his desk, backstage, and check out the various elements of Towersey that he has worked on. Plus, he hopes to grab some time for Tai Chi and coffee so that he can think about this year’s achievements, and look ahead to 2023.

“There’s one massive debrief to come for sure,” he explained. “We’re not using HVO this year, but we are looking at alternative fuel sources and running certain areas on renewables in 2024 and then all areas by 2025. We are doing even more monitoring though, and plan to further reduce our fuel use.”

He added: “It’s been, without doubt, the toughest year on record. My focus is to develop our sustainability policy further. Having signed up to Vision: 2025, we would like to look at travel impacts and energy generation much more closely. I want to explore the balance between the carbon being saved because cars are parked on our site for four days against what those cars would have emitted. What would be the carbon impact if they were driven around town etc for four days? I want to compare that to being parked up on a festival site.”

Heap believes that ticket prices will have to go up by around 35 per cent for 2023. He does not see another way forward if cost increases are to be addressed and books balanced. He concluded: “Our hardcore audience will be OK with that I’m sure and will continue to support what we are trying to do here. Yes, we might sell fewer tickets, but at a higher price, and we must live with that if we want the festival to survive.

“In general, I think the festival model will change over the next few years because audience habits have changed and industry as it is at present is not sustainable. Costs are outstripping income at an alarming rate. I think festivals will have to really deliver quality to attract an audience prepared to pay for that. That might see a few more disappear sadly. But bring on the challenge, I say.”

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