How festivals decided to ditch the mud and grow up a bit

Perhaps it’s the mud? The sadly predictable summer weather? The tales of the toilets? Really not wanting to listen to some teenager pluck his guitar and pour out his heart around a campfire while adolescents tear up a field around him?

Probably a combination of all these are the main reason why the idea of pitching up in a field to pay £8 for a warm pint of beer and watch a rock band on a stage half a mile away has never really appealed. The festival experience, it’s fair to say, passed me by.

Festivals are for the young and dumb. Which I may at one time have been, but these days I’d sooner have a cup of tea than pay to stand in a muddy field and hear music I could more comfortably listen to at home. That, however, was before the festival grew up.

In 2006, Melvin Benn, the mastermind behind the Reading and Leeds festivals, took UK festivals in a new direction.

With Radio 4 and Bafta as sponsors of the Latitude Festival, this was clearly an antidote to the type of event that a more mature audience might balk at. “I wanted to create a festival that had at its heart all the cultural interests that are my own,” says Benn, the managing director of Festival Republic, which also manages The Big Chill.

“I spent a number of years mulling it over as an idea and used as a template the idea of a Sunday broadsheet newspaper review section. I realised there was a huge market for people interested in reading about books and films, theatre and poetry as well as music.

“The idea was always to keep my own passions for literature and poetry at the heart of the festival and create something where all those interests would be represented.”

Perhaps the festival wasn’t all about doing everything you could to avoid the horror of the toilets? In one fell swoop Benn created something for the more discerning festival goer.

Bespoke camping, yurts, mattresses already blown up and waiting to host their cultured temporary residents, it was about a “luxury festival experience,” according to Benn.

He says: “It was never about reclaiming the festival from any particular age group – we have a really broad range of ages that come to Latitude. It was more about catering for people who wanted a different experience from a festival.”

Latitude is held in Southwold in Suffolk and has an undeniably strong musical line up, with Suede, Paolo Nutini, The Cribs and The National all playing this year. Look a little closer, however, and you see a festival line up that clearly appeals to a certain demographic – as Benn says there was a reason Radio 4 was involved for the first four years of the festival. The Gate Theatre, the Battersea Arts Centre and Paines Plough theatre company are appearing, the Poetry Arena sees Simon Armitage and Linton Kwesi Johnson on the same stage and the Literary Arena will be visited by Mark Billingham, David Morrissey and Louis De Bernieres and Sarah Dunant.

Benn adds: “We definitely share some of our audience with the Edinburgh Festival.”

A festival closer to home taking advantage of the more mature demographic is The Magic Loungeabout, which bills itself as a “refined unwind”.

In its second year, the festival has moved to Broughton Hall near Skipton, where a tapas restaurant will sit alongside guest speakers including Oscar winning writer Simon Beaufoy and cerebral comedian Robin Ince.

There will also be music.

“Just because you reach your thirties or forties, doesn’t mean you become naff and want to stop going to festivals,” says Simon Adamson, the man behind The Magic Loungeabout.

“We realised with Bestival and Latitude, that there was definitely an interest in a festival experience that was a bit more refined. I didn’t see anything like that in the region, so we decided to hold something here in Yorkshire that would appeal to those audiences.”

Adamson says its not a case of arrested development, but simply the fact that today’s 30 and 40 year olds are healthier, richer and more interested in filling their leisure time with cultural activities than their forebears that makes these grown up festivals so appealing.

“Turning 30 doesn’t mean you start liking Simply Red. We might be older but we are much younger in spirit in our thirties than we used to be, which means we still like credible music and having fun at festivals,” he says.

Latitude: July 14 to 17. www.latitudefestival.co.uk

The Magic Loungeabout, July 29-31. www.themagicloungeabout.net