Festivals

Vince Power formerly organised the Reading/Leeds festivals (and owned a stake in Glastonbury) before selling up and moving on three years ago. Now he returns to the festival fray with Hop On The Farm, a distinctly different anti-corporate affair in Kent with no branding, sponsorship or even – shock horror! – backstage area. The event is being headlined by Neil Young in his only UK festival appearance of the year. Here, Vince explains what brought him back to the festy fold.

Why did you get back into the festival game then?
'It’s in my blood I guess. I don’t have anything else to do. If I had a huge amount of money and no pressure, I’d probably be an alcoholic in six months. I didn’t really have time to put together a full three-day camping festival, which is what I will do next year.' Feature continues

Unusually for festivals these days, you’ve refused to get involved with any sponsorship or branding
'Yeah, I just thought there was so much of it going around. It’s so difficult to buy a ticket with registration and identification and everything, and now there are lots of VIP tents the punters can’t get into – it’s just a big feeling of being excluded, even though you’ve paid £150 or whatever for your weekend tickets. So I thought now might be a good time to bring it back to basics and forget the sponsorship and just try and concentrate on the music. Make everywhere inclusive on the site, so there is no big exclusive areas for anybody. Everybody has the one ticket. You make less money, but I don’t need to make as much money as the big operators now.'

A lot of festival organisers say that sponsorship is the only thing which enables them to afford to put on a festival in the first place...
'That’s not true, really. Of course, it makes a lot of profit, but I can put on a festival without it. I can do the figures and show you that through selling food and selling beer and the ticket price and selling T-shirts, we can make money. But I’m not totally against sponsorship – if it’s a direct benefit to the person who’s on the site. If somebody gives the punters a free mac that protects them from the rain on a wet day, for example – I’m not against that. I’m just against the branding of everything and having a poster every five yards. And I’m against everything that has no connection with festivals. There are some ridiculous sponsors at some festivals at the moment.'

You’re also involved in running Benicàssim – are you surprised by how popular that’s become with UK festival-goers?
'Well not that surprised. It’s good value for money and you’re guaranteed the weather. But there are lots of factors. I suppose the biggest factor is people like easyJet and Ryanair, which makes it just as cheap to go to Benicàssim as it is to go from Manchester to Reading. You can see your favourite bands and you can make a holiday out of it. We did our survey and most people who go to Benicàssim go for a week.'

The Hop Farm Festival
When July 6
Where The Hop Farm, Paddock Wood, Kent
How much £49.50
Who's playing Neil Young, Primal Scream, Supergrass, My Morning Jacket, Rufus Wainwright, Guillemots, Everest
Info www.hopfarmfestival.com