SIGH NO MORE
When Lewes District Council agreed to host Mumford and Sons' Gentlemen of the Road festival, it met local opposition. Andrew Thomas donned festival wellies to see how its community engagement campaign ensured that folk-pop global superstars weren't moved on
The town of Lewes in East Sussex has long held a reputation for its maverick ways. Nestling in a gap in the South Downs, and lying on the Greenwich meridian, first impressions are that this picturesque English market town would be conventional and unadventurous; a bastion of English conformism.
Yet Lewes, with its 16,000 residents, has a tradition of being staunchly anti-establishment. The first references of the Lewes Bonfires, an annual reminder of the foiled attempt to blow up the houses of parliament, appear in 1795. In 1853 the first two ‘bonfire societies’ were launched. Now grown to 7 in total, the bonfire societies are semi-secretive organisations that ensure the November 5th ritual can remain independent of authority. With no single individual or organisation responsible for the evenings’ festivities and mayhem it is almost impossible to close down or even control.
With such a colourful history it was, perhaps, no surprise when, in February 2013, folk-pop group, Mumford & Sons announced Lewes would host the UK leg of its established international Gentlemen of the Road tour. Mumford & Sons, with the fastest selling album of 2012 in both the UK and the US and 8 digit global record sales, are the biggest contemporary British band of the moment. Despite their youth and their global success, their songs reference Shakespeare and Plato, and their music, with banjos, mandolins and accordions, hark back to another time.
Jenny Rowlands, Lewes District Council’s chief executive, was delighted to have won the right to host the day and a half long festival. Mumford’s banjo player Winston Marshall was the first person she met to discuss the project. ”He showed up in person and he picked the site. He chose the town because he liked Bill’s cafe and he liked Harveys’ brewery and he loved the ruins. They all loved the whole local vibe” recalls Rowlands. One of the key principles of the Gentlemen of the Road festival tour was that it was community based. Mumford and Sons were keen to take the tour to towns historically excluded from tour schedules and aimed to include local suppliers wherever possible. Lewes ticked all the right boxes.
In February, the festival was announced in the press. From the outset, there were murmurs of discontent. The local Express newspaper reported that Lewes St Michaels’ cricket ground feared their future was in doubt if their ground suffered damage from festival goers. Local shopkeepers began complaining that their businesses wouldn’t benefit from the additional visitors to the town and pubs and restaurants began rumours of quieter than normal trading.
It wasn’t just the locals that voiced concerns. Within the area chosen to house the festival lay the ruins of a medieval Priory. Lewes needed permission from English Heritage to house an event in this ancient monument site. Dissenting voices talked of damage to the ruins; perhaps a metaphor to the perceived carnage to the fabric of the community should the festival go ahead.
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Folkstock, for the enjoyment of many Music festivals often receive negative coverage in local and national media and creating a new event can often bring out the ‘nimby’ mentality. Folkstock, a new acoustic festival taking place in Hertfordshire on September 21, also realised the benefits of engaging the local community from the outset. When its organiser, Helen Meissner, wrote to the local residents she still hadn’t finalised the festival’s license with the local authority. A small pocket of dissent formed from those living in the immediate vicinity and the local papers initially swung behind those complaining. “In many ways, this was the best thing that could have happened. The media now had a reason to come to our licence application hearing”, says Meissner. When the press discovered the festival was organised by the Folkstock Arts Foundation, a community interest company established to foster and promote emerging musical talent in the local community, they switched sides and supported the event. This not only helped ensure a favourable outcome from the hearing, but gave her valuable media exposure. Other community initiatives, such as donating ten free stalls at the festivals to local businesses and charities, encouraged further positive comments. On approving the licence the council stated that “the enjoyment of many should override the inconvenience of a few”. Those few look increasingly less likely to be inconvenienced – since the hearing they’ve nearly all taken Meissner’s offer of free tickets. |
Within days the murmurs became louder and the opposition became more vocal. An anti-festival Facebook page was created, and protesters started boasting that they were going to stop the festival, with some even going as far as discussing the organisation of a human barricade.
The phrase ‘we wun’t be druv’ , unique to Sussex, started to be heard. A literal translation is that Sussex people ‘will not be driven’. Often used by the Lewes bonfire societies the assertion is that they will not be forced against their will or told what to do. Jenny Rowlands contacted Mumford’s management – she knew the campaign wasn’t going to go away.
It was at this point Lewes district council began its campaign of engagement. The main voices of dissent were identified and the council invited them in for lunch. It seems an obvious step, but almost instantly the situation started to improve. The concern of banning re-admission seemed to be the biggest stumbling block. Like most concerts, the terms and conditions for tickets stated that re- admission wouldn’t be allowed. Local businesses were angry that no-one would have the opportunity to visit their premises. After much discussion the terms were changed. A different ticketing system was decided on and local opinion started to shift.
Whilst the re-admissions policy was discussed and debated, the organisers started to explore other ways to engage the local community. A guide to Lewes was planned, with any local business open or offering a service during the festival included. The official drinks supplier to the festival, Harvey’s of Sussex, invited the bonfire societies to provide volunteers to man the beer tents; in return Harvey’s would donate to the temporary barmen’s societies.
Local volunteers were asked to join the security professionals protecting the Priory ruins – not just to help the ‘bouncers’ but to act as guides to explain the historical significance of the ancient site.
With each initiative a different stakeholder audience was converted. The local media, ostensibly neutral, though arguably giving an unequal weighting of coverage to the naysayers, switched tack and coverage became almost entirely positive.
“From that point on those who had initially been against the festival created this amazing viral messaging campaign” says Rowland. “The town felt like part of the weekend. Suddenly everyone wanted to get behind the festival and make it the best thing that had ever happened to Lewes.”
With the history that Lewes has, it’s hard to say whether it was Lewes’s best moment, but the feedback was certainly that it had been the best weekend on the Gentlemen of the Road tour. Visitors, locals and the media have been enthusiastic in their praise. It clearly had financial benefits for the town – it is estimated the event injected £4m into the local community – but there’s also a very real sense of the town working together, to the extent of looking how they can continue and even do it differently, and better, next year.
As Rowlands adds “Lewes comes up as being in the top ten independent shopping towns but it’s hard work keeping that independence. With Bonfire, it’s a great community party, but everyone boards up their shops. This thing was good for business and it was fun. We can’t believe our luck.”
