History is made at night

A couple of free festivals I went to in north London's Finsbury Park back in 1996. Not sure of the date of the first one - 'Festival...

A feature of the 1980s and 1990s in England was officially sponsored free music festivals, usually one day affairs supported by local counci...

Bedroll Bella by Sid Waddell (Sphere, 1973) is the story of a feisty, foul mouthed, hard drinking, 'right raver' and proud Geordi...

Continuing series of scanning in old flyers of things I went to in ancient times, or should I say documenting priceless cultural history art...

'The Big Sexy Festy Party' The rather grandiosely titled Free Festival of Human and and Environmental Global Rights was a one day le...

Finally got round to watching 'Festivals Britannia' a documentary about the history of the British festival scene first broadcast ...

In the early/mid 1990s there were some big free festivals in London parks. Not pseudo-free festivals behind big fences with lots of privat...

Nostell Priory Music Festival was held near Wakefield in West Yorkshire in 1984, a commercial festival with performances from Van Morriso...

Rob Young’s Electric Eden: Unearthing Britain’s Visionary Music is an ambitious, accomplished and entertaining survey of 100 years of music-...

Sid Rawle, a key figure in the free festival movement in the UK, died last month aged 64. His activism encompassed the Hyde Park Diggers in ...

As this story from Schnews makes clear, it is becoming increasingly difficult to get permission to put on any kind of festival in the UK ot...

The annual Lambeth Country Show in Brixton's Brockwell Park - held this year on the 17 th & 18 th July - is a slightly surreal ...

Following the cancellation of this year's Big Green Gathering thanks to official pressure, another festival is under attack. On Friday ...

Obituary of Michael English, graphic artist , who died last month. English was one half of Hapshash and The Coloured Coat, along with Nigel ...

'Festival communication actively engages the participants. It is this feature that distinguishes festival from those large-scale forms t...

'Festivals are collective phenomena and serve purposes rooted in group life. Systems of reciprocity and of shared responsibil­ity ensure...

The following article from Schnews (27 July 2009) describes the cancelation of this week's Big Green Gathering festival. I am reproduci...

Some reflections after my trip last weekend to Latitude festival... 25 years ago the British state mounted a huge and brutal police operatio...