Open Air Business May 2016

EVENTS
My wife and I had lived in the
Highlands for 20 years. We loved
the wild and remoteness for our
children to grow up in. The whole
family was keen on excitement,
danger and the outdoors. That
echoes in our festival where we
try to create a family friendly
environment. It’s a place where the
children are allowed to run a bit
wild – an accidental philosophy of
the festival! They can climb trees
and hay bales, roll down slopes,
take tea in a café solely for children,
staffed by children, and enjoy all
the fun of a 1930’s fairground.
What about the necessary
permissions?
Licenses are evolving every time
we grow and change; we are still
involved with planning specialists
now. We hope that we are gaining
more credibility with the local
councils as we grow. They are
reticent and wary, even if we’re not
a rave with 4,000 raucous young
people! You have to be on the ball
and make sure everything you do
is ticking all the boxes because you
won’t succeed without the support
of the council.
How have you planned the
layout of the event and what
structures do you use?
All the activities are held under
cover which differentiates us
from many other festivals. The
bigger tents - our biggest is the
biggest you can get hold of - are
all traditional canvas. There’s
much looking at a plan, moving
things to accommodate people,
changing the layout to suit
different purposes and, of course,
allowing for hills and flat areas.
We change the layout every year
so it’s fresh and fun to explore.
We create nooks and crannies
which visitors can think only
they have discovered and that
they can enjoy with their friends
and family. Expectations are
high, unrealistically so, as huge
festivals with massive budgets
like Glastonbury are held as a
benchmark.
How did you research and
source your marquees, stage,
bars, etc?
My sister is the full-time site
manager so she does much of
the leg work. However, it’s really
a combination of building things
ourselves and, like all business
decisions, we kind of follow a
lead: one arises and we follow it
and that leads to something else.
There’s a lot of “I know a guy who
does that!”
What entertainment do you offer
and how did you choose and
source it?
This year five or six household
name chefs are coming. They’re
not charging anything as they
enjoy the experience and know
we don’t have that much money!
You need to be very persuasive
and believe in what you’re talking
about and selling. Everyone needs
to benefit from working together
whether financially, in kind or
in future earnings. We’ve been
lucky in our bookings and have
some good friends and contacts
as a result. We have a speaker’s
tent where anyone - historians,
politicians, authors, adventurers -
can talk on any subject. If we feel
someone is interesting then we
reckon they will be interesting to
others. We don’t have VIP areas:
performers have to mingle!