Preview: Local music festivals in tune with their audience

YORKSHIRE plays host to a series of intimate music festivals over the coming month. Nick Ahad on the region’s boutique events.

the organiser of the newest of Yorkshire’s music festivals, Beacons, thinks he has the answer.

Ash Kollakowski, has been working in gig and events promotion in Leeds for a number of years, finding a slot for the Arctic Monkeys six years ago, when they were just a group of lads from Sheffield.

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He is the man behind Beacons Festival, a Skipton based event that is replacing MoorFest, held in the area in previous years. Along with a business partner, he has joined forces with the organisers of MoorFest, to help the event step up a gear. It previously attracted around 1,000, but the team is hopeful that Kollakowski’s experience of working with bands will swell that number to 4,000 for this summer’s event.

“We’re the sort of people who want to go to a local butcher, to a local shop. We like to support local business – we don’t like going to big supermarkets where everything is the same and everything comes wrapped in perfect packaging,” says Kollakowski of himself and the team behind Beacons.

“And that’s what we’re looking for in a festival. You can go to the big ones, but they are like corporate events now, with bands flown across the atlantic playing a set for £200,000 and no real connection to the fans or the music. We’re essentially the antidote to that, with bands that care about the music and about the fans and about showing their work in this kind of relaxed festival setting.”

Kollakowski believes this kind of smaller, more personal festival, is what audiences are craving, tired of the big event experience.

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The Beacons festival is being held next weekend, at a venue just outside of Skipton, the previous site for MoorFest. Kollakowski says the useful thing about setting up a new, bigger event at a spot which has previously hosted a festival, means that an all-important relationship with the local community is already well established.

“The relationship with the local community is genuinely important to us. With bigger festivals, many of them have grown to a size that are just unmanageable. You spend the whole weekend walking around the site, trying to find your friends. Beacons is a festival that we hope will have a good relationship with the local area, making sure the site is cleaned and well looked after, and by keeping it small we’re able to do that,” he says.

Acts appearing at the festival include Modern Amusement from Leeds, Club Pont and Bungalows and Bears from Sheffield and Akoustik Anarkhy from Manchester.

Tom Vek headlines on the Sunday and both Sheffield Doc/Fest and Leeds Film Festival will be hosting screenings at the event.

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Another festival that will certainly make sure the site is well looked after is the Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival, which opens today and runs this weekend.

The festival is now in its fifth year in the grounds of the family home of organiser Simon Cunliffe-Lister.

The mansion and 3,000 acre East Yorkshire estate was inherited by Cunliffe-Lister. The lord of the manor gave up a job in the city of London in his late 20s to take over managing the estate and for the past five years has used it to host a jazz and blues festival, regularly attended by 1,000 music fans.

“It’s like having a festival, full of all the artists and music you love, in your back garden,” says Cunliffe-Lister, who this weekend will welcome Claire Martin and Jacqui Dankworth, among others, to his festival. “It gives the festival a really intimate feeling, which is what I think makes it such a special event.”

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Another festival which also boasts of its ‘small, family- friendly’ atmosphere is Limetree.

Held at Grewelthorpe, at Lime Tree Farm, it is now in its fourth year and features a range of music that really can only be described as eclectic – jazz, soul, funk, dubstep and folk.

Running from August 26 to 28, there will also be a dance tent and a science area which will feature workshops and demonstrations – apt for a festival that claims it takes place at “a spiritual sanctuary at the edge of the Vale of York, complete with roundhouse and stone circle”.

Keep it local, stick it in your back garden and hold it somewhere spiritual appears to be the perfect festival recipe.

KEEPING IT INTIMATE: FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE THIS MONTH

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* Burton Agnes Jazz and Blues Festival, August 5, 6, 7. (See Jazz Preview below)

* Burton Agnes Hall, East Yorkshire. Day tickets available. Weekend tickets £35: 01262 490324.

* Beacons Festival (Formerly MoorFest), August 11-14.

* Heslaker Farm, Skipton, North Yorkshire. Day tickets available. Weekend tickets: £69.50: 0113 245 5570.

* Limetree Festival, Aug 26-28.

* Lime Tree Farm, Grewelthorpe, North Yorkshire. Day tickets available. Weekend tickets £35: 01937 557812.