Press Release :

LOCAL NEWSPAPER TABLOID 'RAVE' HYSTERIA LEADS TO BIG CHILL GALA RESCHEDULING...

. First Tribal Gathering, now unbelievably The Big Chill. The summer of discontent continues. We have been forced to reschedule the date and location of our three day Gala scheduled for East Anglian farmland on August 2-4 as a result of objections from local residents. Hysteria had been created locally since the weekly Diss Express newspaper splashed a banner headline 'Is This Festival Rave?' over its front page at the beginning of July, at a time when no major objections were being placed by local council or police officials.

Widespread support has already ensured that virtually all of the original line-up are available for the rescheduled date, planned for the weekend of August 30, 31, September 1st at another site, the location of which will be revealed to existing ticket holders.

The problems started when the Eastern Daily Press picked up on an NME news item written by Jody Thompson, a new assistant news editor (who used to work for the East Anglian paper) describing the Gala as "one of the year's biggest dance music festivals" which seemed to kick start more than a little 'rave' panic in the local area.

The EDP's right-leaning tabloid style of reporting which dubbed The Big Chill as "The Big Mistake", concentrated solely on local concerns without one quote of support from other neighbours, some of whom had already booked their tickets.......

Although it was not e-mailed to them, a copy reached the NME. Jody Thompson called me claiming that it was "libellous". She eventually put me onto news editor Tommy Udo, who was fuming, telling me "I'm going to make it my f*cking mission in life to make sure your festival never goes ahead." I pointed out that we'd not accused NME of anything, other than saying that their story had sparked the local press hysteria. He calmed down a little when I promised him that I'd fax a draft for his approval. The following weeks story was, for the most part, a little more balanced, which was more than could be said for Udo's temper on this occasion.

Down, but not out, we resolved to find another site. Obviously, the early August date could not possibly be met, so we had to ring round all our artists (over 100), our contractors, our staff, quite a major task in itself. We looked at the Bank Holiday but many were unavailable. Maybe later in September, but school was starting again, and the weather would be risky. We plumped for August 30, 31, September 1st. Amazingly, virtually everyone - including headliner LTJ Bukem - could make the new date.

Back to finding a site. What had taken months during the winter had to be done in days - hours even. Much soul searching, desperate conversations on the phone, blind alleys, red herrings. Three days later, it looked probable that we would be applying for a site just outside a village near Huntingdon. The owner was an ex bank robber, but seemed a nice guy. If we didn't find somewhere quick, we'd lose thousands of pounds.

Then, out of the blue, a man called Ashe Windham called one morning from a town we'd never heard of - a small town west of Norwich called Hingham. A well spoken retired gent who had done service with the Foreign Office, Ashe had read about our plight in the local paper and was convinced that we could help each other. He reckoned that Hingham could at very least provide a warmer welcome than Diss and find benefits for itself and its local community. It was a dying town - a village in size and spirit - that the railways had by-passed. Wymondham and Attleborough had been lucky and the transport systems had provided the network and the infrastructure for growth and (relative) prosperity. Hingham was a different story. Shops and businesses had closed down. More were scheduled to close. People came there to die. The only alternative seemed to be building modern housing estates, or taking the festival route which had the potential to stimulate local trade. He rang off, saying that he'd make a couple of calls. He rang back hours later. Ashe had already found us around 30 acres of land, and had arranged a meeting for us with police and district council - for the very next day.

With no time to lose, we drove up to Hingham on Tuesday July 23rd, myself flu ridden, to inspect the land. The meeting started in Ashe's living room with seats already allocated, then proceeded to the proposed site. I don't think I'd be over doing it if I said that both police and council seemed pretty enthusiastic about the site. All the problems of Diss seemed to pale into insignificance as Tony Burgess from South Norfolk Council surveyed the fields, imagining what could go where. Inspector Martin Wynn, so critical at that first meeting in Long Stratton, was fast emerging as one of our real allies in the area, without ever stating his support outright. The land owner, John Peacock, later admitted that it was Wynn's approval of the site that persuaded him to hire us his land.

So we were in business again. Another epic drive with Katrina to Long Stratton the following day, with me still flu ridden and wrapped in a sweaty blanket on the back seat on one of the hottest days of the year, just to put my signature on the license application. Only ...... days until the Gala. We were beginning to get more than a little unsettled by the numbers of refund applications coming in. Holidays, people preparing to go back to college. Up until the postponement, our admittedly ambitious projections had proven to be uncannily correct. Suddenly, with the postponement, it seemed that confidence in us pulling it off had taken a dive.

Then a welcome boost. Katrina was once more Norfolk bound, this time for the crucial town council (as distinct from the all powerful district council - South Norfolk) meeting where the vote would be taken as to how welcome the Big Chill really was. An 11-0 victory was the final verdict - cut and dried. Or so we thought. Not that the town council's verdict would have necessarily been the ultimate arbiter. Just that it was comforting to know we were wanted. One of the prime movers in Hingham was a colourful character called Barry Flaxman, who owned the Army and Navy surplus stores which were located centrally on the High St. Here, the self appointed King of Hingham would sit inside his gloomy counting house observing every passing movement in Hingham (interestingly his shop looked out directly onto the post office, stronghold of the principle objector Pat Dore.) We quickly came to realise that Barry ruled the roost, and that one had to tread delicately and not bring up anything contentious. The locals were clearly in awe of him - “a man who has connections in the underworld, the overworld and just about every other world” was one such reference. We had been told about prison sentences and exposés in the News Of The World too but really didn’t want to go there in a hurry. We trusted that it would all work out - somehow. Flaxman was clearly a man with an eye on the main chance. "money talks" seemed to be his main motto. Any talk of artistic endeavour or creativity was met with an unnerving cross-eyed stare. We may as well have been talking a foreign language.

The dialogue with Ashe continued apace. Phone lines between London and Hingham were humming every day. I went up a week after the town council meeting to give a press conference at The White Hart, the only remaining pub in the village. Only one member of the press turned up. There were about a dozen local residents, mostly objectors led by Mr and Mrs Peters who had recently moved to the town to retire, the elderly but respected Maureen Watson and Dr Stickland. Meanwhile, the telephone companies were also coining it in as South Norfolk Council were throwing new and ever more demanding challenges at Katrina on a daily basis. They candidly admitted that we were being used as "guinea pigs" as they had never put on an event like this before, and were having to call more experienced festival councils like Mendip and Reading to get advice on most matters. We estimate that over 100 calls were made between Long Stratton and Finsbury Park ironing out the finer points of the licence conditions.

But now a new threat reared its head. We had made a point of visiting all the immediate neighbours in Hingham at the first opportunity after the painful lessons learned in Diss. Hingham did seem a less hostile place on first impressions, and to our relief no one that we visited seemed to have a particular problem with what we were doing. One such resident lived at the nearest house. Andy Hamilton, a micro brewer in his mid 30s who seemed so unconcerned that we were on our way in less than five minutes of ringing his doorbell, However, a different side of Andy Hamilton emerged within a days of the town council whitewash. He had appointed himself as figurehead of the official opposition, and someone somewhere had struck on the unfortunate tag of RAGE (Residents Against Gala Event). A particularly uncharismatic frontman, he nevertheless knocked the motley opposition into shape - a few immediate residents here, pensioners there. We had to admit that the speed and organisation with which the troops rallied was impressive, and The Big Chill became the biggest talking point in the village in many a year. Surely these people had something else to keep themselves busy?

We were caught in the midst of local politics in a way I had not experienced before. It seemed that the Gala itself was taking a back seat to the local bickering that had obviously been simmering for a while, and people were using the event for their own ends. We were in a cauldron of our own making.