HW: Summerfest 2003

[M Holmes]

Rik Rx writes:

> + +   + + +   +STAR WARRIORS + +++   +  +
>
> Greetings and best wishes to all from Hawkwind for 2003
>
> The band wondered if people would be interested in another Hawkfest this
> year.
> If there is enough interest, then we will have to begin organising it pretty
> soon.

If you build it I will come. Definitely. I worked over xmas to save the
leave for it.

> Our main question is:
> If it happens, would people still want it to be kept to passport holders
> only this time?

There's something to be said for making it mainly for the the fans.
Certainly I wouldn't want to see it as commercial as Glastonbury has
become nor as awfully rock'n'burgers as Reading.  The Hawkwind fan
community by and large know each other and are a community in the real
sense and diluting that too far in a festival would make it lose
something special.

That said, clearly we need enough people so that the bands can be paid
and the stallholders make a living. That amounts to more than last time.
I'm sure that with one success behind us we can attract more of the
dedicated fans. However the net will probably have to go at least a
little further than that. Certainly let's extend it to family and
friends of passport holders and those Hawkwind fans who aren't yet
passport holders. It'd also be reasonable to get in folks from the rest
of the spacerock community.

I think just opening it right up to a public festival would risk
diluting it too far. That can be mitigated by choice of bands being kept
to Hawkwind related and spacerock but while we should extend the
attendee base, I think we should think carefully about how to do that
rather than just advertise to the general public. I know from experience
that the wrong crowd can pretty easily break a festival and the band
have more than enough similar experience with the likes of the Brew Crew.

I know that there was an issue between keeping it to a similar remit to
last time or going in with a more general festival. I'm very much for
the former. Keep it Hawk-related, but yes, let's extend the fanbase.
Moving it geographically closer to Bristol than Exeter might encourage
more folks to travel. Beer was a great area of the country, but not
exactly easy to get to for those far from the South.

Could we have comment from the bands and organisers about how many we
need to make this work without anyone losing their shirts? Then take
into account having enough loos etc for that number and recalculate?

Once we have a ballpark figure for that, we know how much further we
need to extend it.

>From my own long experience of rock festivals, once you get past 5000 you
lose the sense of community and it becomes something else. Hopefully
we're not talking that kind of number?

And thanks to all concerned for the last one and for being prepared to
host this rabble again ;-)

FoFP