Climate Change and Festival Funk
I'll be honest, that was more about getting a nice bit of alliteration in. I'm not saying festivals are smelly. Sometimes they are. But to be honest, sometimes even weddings are. I know that indoor events DEFINITELY are.
Shall we start again?
OK, thanks!
If it's on your radar (heh) , you'll know that Boardmasters Festival has been cancelled this weekend due to anticipated dangerous weather conditions. There are a lot of things at stake with a decision like this and I for one applaud whomever was prepared to sit in that room and say what no-one wanted to hear.
Aside from getting into a whole funk (see, it WAS a useful word) about climate change, there's little doubt that this Summer has thus far been one of extremes. It's been either baking hot sun and crew have been getting trucker tans in the van or it's been biblical rain and wind during which we've either been worried about tents or glad we didn't have any in that particular part of the country.
Yikes. Fortunately all of our stuff is in one place this weekend so I can be there to keep an eye on it. We always have staff on hand when there are warnings like this and it's part of the job. You have people who know what to do and you make it OK.
What can often happen in years like this though, is people have good weather so they expect more. Tents don't get booked and then at the last minute you end up with a bad forecast and a lack of availability.
What I'm saying is, whether you're having a wedding, a festival or a little party in your back garden, make sure that everyone at the event can get somewhere under cover as part of the planning. It's not so much of a problem at the bigger events as people have their own camping tents or there's a pavillion or there are big tents people can squeeze into. But the smaller ones, the little garden parties or the fetes - if there's no central area in the dry people will just leave. And that will be the end of that. No people = no event!
The good news however, is that proper marquees and big tops can stand winds of the kinds they're expecting.....it's the flimsy DIY garden gazeebos that can't. Then they cartwheel across a field and THAT's when it get's dangerous.
Just sayin'
Till next time....
Arif