Tartan Heart Doubles Up

JOE GIBBS, the organiser of the Tartan Heart Festival at Belladrum, explains the changes in this year’s second running of the festival.

THE DECISION to make the Tartan Heart Festival a two day event this year grew out of the success of last year’s inaugural festival. It’s a big gamble for us, but it was a step we felt made sense for several reasons, but most importantly because there is so much great music around that we felt the event could easily stand the expansion, and it seemed a shame to have to turn lots of great artists away.

We found a format we felt would work, but what happened then was that even more people got in touch, so we are still having to turn some away, and in fact, we have ended up with a Fringe, with three days leading up to the festival where things are going on in various places around the Highlands, which should get a nice buzz going. The artists involved are people we would like to have had in the main programme, but just couldn’t fit in.

In practical terms, around 20% of our audience last year came from outside the Highlands, and it is clearly more attractive to offer them a second day if they are going to come all that way. It makes more sense in economic terms as well, being able to spread production costs over two days.

We had an initial worry that people would only want to come on the Saturday, but that doesn’t seem to be happening – the majority of people buying tickets seem to be buying them for both days.

We are very excited about the programme we have put together. The Proclaimers, The Bees and British Sea Power are not playing any other Scottish festivals this year, and we have a great diversity of music on offer.

We were very happy with the programme we had last year, but we realised that if we were going to extend the capacity and the length we needed artists with bigger drawing power, and The Proclaimers fill that bill admirably. Alabama 3 have a big cult following in the Highlands, and they fitted the bill for Friday night headliners, but in a slightly more edgy way.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that we see the festival as being very much a family-friendly event.

They are also what we see as Belladrum artists – we do have a Belladrum style in our minds, although it is pretty eclectic, and it is not the same as, for example, a T in the Park profile. We wanted to keep the wide variety of styles and types of music that we had last year. We want to give people what they already want, and to give them the chance to be exposed to other kinds of music as well.

We have an increased capacity this year, almost twice as many people. There was plenty of room last year, and we have actually created more space in the Gardens this time, and put in new exits and improved sight lines.

Another development is that we have three properly programmed stages this year – the main tent, the dance tent, and a kind of acoustic café sponsored by the Black Isle Brewery, which will be more of a chill out venue. As with many things involved in putting on an event like this, we won’t really know until we try it on the day how that will work – it was a very steep learning curve for us last year, and I’m sure it will be the same again this year.

One thing that hasn’t changed is that we see the festival as being very much a family-friendly event. Last year up to 30% of the audience were under 12, and we expect that kind of mix again. I think people are genuinely worried about taking their children to events like T in the Park – we took our 6-year-old daughter, and while I was very impressed with the system they have for logging children there, there is a reason that they do that – it’s not really ideal for taking kids.

A lot of people do want to go to festivals and enjoy a day with their kids there, and that is what we want to offer them. I don’t feel that is really on offer elsewhere in Scotland, and my own preference is for an event with a wide appeal rather than one focused on one age range or one style of music.

Our message to anyone coming is to prepare for wet and hope for dry!

There will be more street theatre going on this year, and more for kids to do, and there will be storytelling and dance workshops and so on, as well as the stalls. Assuming we survive this year, the theatre side of the festival is something we would like to develop further, and we are working with Arts in Motion on that.

We also have a solar-powered cinema coming, called Pixie Pictures. They film during the day at the event, then cut it together and play it back at night, which should be great fun.

The idea for the first festival last year really came from a lifelong obsession with music on my part, and I’m really looking forward to the hearing the first note being played again this year – I remember last year it sent such a tingle down my spine.

We were very lucky with the weather last year, but we are working on the basis that we can’t expect that again as a given, and we have put in some new tracks and so forth if it does get wet.

Our message to anyone coming is to prepare for wet and hope for dry!

The Tartan Heart Festival runs in the Italian Gardens, Belladrum, on 12-13 August 2005. Artists appearing include The Proclaimers, Alabama 3, The Bees, British Sea Power, The Peatbog Faeries, Karine Polwart, Ricky Ross, Country Joe MacDonald, Jah Wobble, Black Velvets, Bluetones, Trashcan Sinatras, Michael Marra, the Jim Hunter Band, Endrick Brothers, Sundown, Poor Old Ben, Cinematics, Hazey Janes, Gliss, Baka Beyond, The Duhks, Dexter Ardoine and the Creole Ramblers, NíFaly Kouyate, Jason Ringenberg, Heather MacLeod, Andy White, Hotlicks Cookie, the Karl Broadie Band, Unholy Trinity, Ronnie Elliott, Terry Clarke and Wes McGhee, Stetsonhead, the Galipaygos, Ruthless Blues, Andy Gunn, Davy Cowan, Calamateur, Michael Wadada, Ruth Sutherland and the Feis Rois Ceilidh Band.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2005

Links

• Tartan Heart website