Starting very soon on Thursday August 31, Ferry Meadows in Nene Park, Peterborough will see four days of classic rock, blues and progressive rock music under the banner of the Nene Valley Rock Festival (NVRF).
Not to be confused with metal festivals like Download or Bloodstock, this festival really is something different! It will give some local bands a rare opportunity to play alongside some of the true legends of the music scene.
For the local Peterborough bands, Austin Gold lead the way whilst the festival may well be the only one this millennium to feature two of the names that played at the original Woodstock to half a million people in 1969 – Ten Years After and Mountain. There’s even a local connection there because Ten Years After feature Peterborough’s own Colin Hodgkinson on bass guitar!
The NVRF organisers have taken a different approach to many other festivals and looked at everything from a fan’s perspective. Two stages will host the better known headline acts, and they will alternate so that fans can watch them all without having to choose between them.
Using two stages also means one is setting up whilst the other plays, meaning no lengthy gaps and the bands can play for much longer – up to an hour and a half in some cases so fans get the same as they would at a theatre rather than a drastically cut-down set. But if the music isn’t your cup-of-tea, there is always another, separate stage offering something different.
They’ve also noticed many festivals around the UK have many of the same bands and they wanted to give a platform to those that rarely get booked because they haven’t already 'made it' so don’t make money for the organisers. They also noticed even some of the classic rock legends were rarely playing festivals and they wanted to bring these to an audience older and younger.
It’s not just the music though. They’ve booked 'luxury loos' usually more associated with weddings rather than the typical blue plastic cubicles, arranged for campers to use the showers already at Nene Park rather than temporary ones, and will have track laid across some of the grass at the most heavily used points as protection against bad weather and to minimise the risk of cars getting stuck, protecting the site for future users.
Of course all this comes at a cost and everyone involved in running the festival is giving all their time for free – in some cases that’s nearly every day for the past 11 months!
None of those involved take any wages, salary or even expenses – as one of the Directors told ESP, “That’s the only way we could possibly hope to keep the costs down and even then we always assumed that this year we wouldn’t get back all of the money we’ve put in to make it happen. All we ask is that everyone with any interest in this type of music comes along and supports not just us, but the bands too, makes the most of it and has a great time! In fact, even if you don’t know all of the bands, come along and you never know what you might discover – that’s the fun of a festival like this.” You can get 4-day and one day tickets from the website www.nvrf.rocks – but as a reader of ESP you can get a special discount! At the checkout simply enter code ESP05 if you’re buying a day ticket and you’ll get £5 off the price. Come along for all four days and enter code ESP10 and you’ll save £10 – so get your tickets from the festival website now!
