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Cornbury Festival a Success with Sound Advice
Sound Advice promoted its first major festival this July. The Cornbury Music Festival launched itself onto the annual event diary with thousands enjoying the sounds of Blondie, Will Young, and Jools Holland in the glorious setting of Cornbury Park.
The new festival was set in the grounds of Cornbury Park, with its stately home acting as a scenic backdrop for the stage, and was the first festival to be held on the site for over 150 years! More than 6,000 people of all ages enjoyed performances by a range of bands, headlined by Jools Holland on the Friday night, and Will Young and Blondie on the Saturday.
With over two decades of experience in the music and events industry, Sound Advice’s Hugh Phillimore and James Cobb decided to create a different kind of festival, bringing together their own concepts of what makes up a good event. The aim was to create an event for the people of Oxfordshire, attracting people who were not necessarily regular festivalgoers, and deliver an enjoyable experience for everyone.
Hugh focused on the artists’ side of the event, creating a line-up that offered a variety of music with wide appeal, and incorporating smaller unknown artists and cover bands ensuring there was an artist to suit everyone’s tastes. James and Hugh then focused on giving people a ‘different festival experience’, as Hugh explained: “We have been involved in all manner of events over the years and it struck us both that we wanted to create an event that gave the audience so much more than the bands. We created a festival membership scheme and gave them access to a VIP bar and restaurant, brought a high class funfair onto the site and then made sure there was a wide range of good food, drink and additional entertainment around the site for everyone to enjoy. I think Georgina the Mind Reading Giraffe would have to be my favourite!”
Although Sound Advice had never managed a festival’s operational requirements, the team drew on their experience and kept the production in-house, ensuring the original ethos of the festival was maintained. As production manager for the event, James brought in a range of expert suppliers, ensuring the key areas were well managed.
Serious installed an orbit-style stage, with LXCO designing and installing the lighting rig – comprised of a mix of MACs, pars and Molefays to suit the variety of artists over the two days. For the festival’s sound requirements, Canegreen managed a PA system tailored to ensure that the sound coverage did not spill outside the event site, using the Meyer Milo line array, M3Ds and UPAs, with the recently launched Meyer 700 sub woofer cabinets providing the bottom end. Pearce Hire provided a 250kVA twin pack generator for the stage power, and a further eight generators to provide power to the rest of the site including bar, concessions, guest area and campsites. The build began on Monday prior to the event and everything was ready for gates opening on Friday afternoon.
The life membership scheme Hugh and James developed proved very successful in including the local community in the festival and they hope it will create a tradition by turning the event into an annual gathering, not to be missed by a growing number of members. The member and guest area incorporated a bar and dining room in two separate marquees, serving real ales and a bespoke range of cuisine prepared by Chevalier Event Design. It was enjoyed by celebrities fitting to the event, such as Rowan Atkinson, Jeremy Clarkson, Ruby Wax and Emma Forbes. Meanwhile, the production crew and suppliers enjoyed the culinary delights of crew caterers Eat to the Beat across the build and show days, feeding crew and artists.
Hugh and James aimed to make the event interactive for the audience from start to finish, and brought in a range of attractions to make this happen. These thoughtful touches included the local drama group dressing as nymphs in the entrance grounds, the opening bands playing rocking 60s hits as people arrived at the festival, and a solo ‘Angel’ performing on stage as people departed each night.
Sound Advice’s Hugh Phillimore summed up: “I think we’ve started something here! We’ve learned a lot and we’re already talking about next year’s show, so we hope to develop the Cornbury Festival over the years to come. It has been humbling to receive the huge amount of support and help from everyone involved to make this first one a success. A huge thanks to them all.”
21st July 2004
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