So, with that in mind, the very best festival was.... the one that YOU enjoyed the most!
Hang on a minute though ... there's lots more left to say!
Around one and half million people attended the top ten outdoor events (many more with the smaller festivals included). The UK music festivals scene grows each year, as people take advantage of the great value they offer. The weather this year helped a lot too, with just one rainy weekend all summer.
The success of one festival doesn't necessarily impact on others. Despite an amount of duplication, and a tendency of some events to sign-up nme's latest over-hyped favourites (many of whom fail to generate much excitement live), people are willing to travel as far as it takes for the line-up they want. The number of faces seen at more than just one event is growing too.
Notable successes included:
- the re-vamping of Homelands, to better reflect the evolution of dance music. - the expansion of the Isle of Wight Rock Festival to two days (and now three for 2004).
- a very successful Glastonbury 2003, leading to the easy granting of a licence for 2004.
- the first Beautiful Days festival (put together by The Levellers, after their failure to get a licence in 2002) had a great atmosphere, showing that determined efforts do eventually pay off.
- Leeds Festival moving to a new site, and managing to leave the trouble that has plagued it behind.
Less positive was:
- the failure of EDEN Festival to get a licence, and its subsequent cancellation. The UK festivals scene badly needs more larger events that aim to profit not just the organisers. We hope EDEN will try again.
- the well-regarded Canterbury Fayre was a serious financial failure, and sadly there's no plans for another.
Some events seemed to play things a bit too safe: the line-up for V Festival had a striking similarity to V2001. At Chelmsford, many bands (and not just the lesser known!) failed to enthuse what must have been the most apathetic crowd yet seen at a large event. Much of the crowd never moved away from the main stage, and the numbers arriving to see just the headline bands each evening shows that not everyone attends with the same enthusiasm for live music.
The controversial Clear Channel Entertainment are starting to move into the UK in a bigger way each year. This will impact on the music scene in all sorts of ways certainly not all positive if everything written about them is true. They brought us the new Download Festival, and a subsidiary are involved in the Isle of Wight Festival. Next year, they'll be involved in even more, so we're told.
A corner shop just can't compete with a supermarket, and this threat to European promoters shouldn't be underestimated; it was probably part of the thinking behind Mean Fiddler selling a stake to Ireland's MCD recently. Of course, ideally, each festival should be run completely independently of the others, giving each a unique identity. Even events that do have a unique flavour find it gets eroded a little more each year, as more regulation is imposed from above, and the financial pressures increase.
eFestivals hopes you had a great year, and we wish you the very best for 2004.
Also check out the bands review here.