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[title]I went to a handful of festivals last summer, across all sorts of genres: jazz, techno, indie, pop, drum and bass. I two-stepped for hours on end and quite literally lost my voice. But a theme started to emerge when I asked friends if they enjoyed themselves.
‘Yeah, but the sound wasn’t the best,’ said one seasoned raver. ‘I couldn’t hear it properly,’ added another. ‘There was no bass coming through during Bradley Zero’s set,’ one more noted.
This isn’t exactly what you want from a festival when you’ve paid upward of £60 for a day ticket. You want to feel that 808 squirm its way into your veins and for the kick-drum to throttle your bones. You want to be forced to lip-read your mate in the crowd or to communicate via some sort of interpretive dance. You want the sound to drown out your awful, trembly singing, your voice hoarse from too many campsite fags and not enough sleep. But are festivals really turning down the volume, just when we need a great night out more than ever? I spoke to some practised festival-heads to find out.
‘Generally speaking, [it seems that] music festivals are absolutely getting quieter,’ says Peter Goddard, a DJ and avid festival-goer from Edinburgh. ‘Largely I’d think this could be happening to try and keep decibel levels down to a manageable level to keep in line with local legislation. Another factor could be that punters are so aware of their hearing at the moment, which is a great thing – but maybe the fact that a lot of people are actively bringing earplugs could explain why event brands are making their gigs quieter?’
Sophie Rosa Cooper is the drummer from ĠENN, a psychedelic indie band based in Brighton. ‘I’ve been to quite a few festivals, and played at a few,’ she says. ‘For most multidisciplinary festivals, it can go two ways. The sound is either incredible or you’re playing something that sounds a bit like a garage. It’s very hit and miss.’
Good vibrations
Clearly, something isn’t quite right – so I reckoned it was time to speak to the sonic experts. GMC Events is a production company working across large-scale music events like Glastonbury, Shambala and Bristol Pride. ‘From a technical side, the limitations that are put on events generally haven’t changed [in the last five to ten years],’ says Matthew Tooth, CEO. ‘I think what has changed is the customer’s attitude towards what they’re expecting from the sound quality. Looking at electronic music festivals in rural areas and the demographic that goes to them, if they’re not being rattled by bass then it’s not a good sound system.’
Meanwhile, F1 Acoustics works with councils to manage noise control for events, including regulating the sound levels on the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury. ‘The feeling that festivals are getting quieter is probably more to do with the style of music which is popular these days,’ says Robert Miller, the company’s director.
‘There’s more bass-centric music, like techno and EDM. So, the sound levels we’re measuring off-site haven’t changed, but the frequency of music with longer wavelengths may make it seem subjectively quieter on site. Ultimately, it’s probably a perception thing rather than a case of actual numbers.’
The UK’s official noise-control guidance – known as the ‘Pop Code’ – has been around since 1995, and according to Miller, needs updating. ‘A new document is currently being worked on by a group of people in the industry, trying to incorporate more low-frequency guidance and update it to modern times,’ he says.
The feeling that festivals are getting quieter is probably more to do with the style of music which is popular these days
Responding to the steady commercialisation of rave culture and a generation of hungry ravers, the number of dance and club-oriented music festivals has ballooned in recent years. At these events, punters are expecting the same sort of sound in an open-air field as they’re used to hearing in a low-ceilinged club or sweaty warehouse, which – obviously – is very difficult, if not impossible to replicate. At the same time, festivals themselves are getting bigger. If you’re partying in the middle of a crowd, which could be as large as 20,000-plus people, and are in a spot that’s far from a delay tower or from the front of the stacks, then you’re not going to have the same experience as someone else in the same crowd.
That said, technology has come on leaps and bounds. ‘Sound mapping – which tries to plot the distribution of sound evenly between the crowd using sound waves – is far better than it was five to ten years ago,’ says Tooth. ‘Based on that map, you can adjust your speakers to give a visual representation of where the sound is good and where might need tweaks.’
Steve Jones, who works at D&B Audiotechnik, a speaker manufacturer company which has worked with festivals like Boomtown and Wireless, also says that that sound quality has improved ‘without a doubt’. ‘But what hasn’t necessarily changed is the budgets [of festivals], which often aren’t quite there to deploy technology in the best way possible,’ he adds.
The battle of the bass
Punters might love the shudder of bass rumbling through their torsos, but not everyone is down for the party. On the flip side, bass-heavy music impacts local residents considerably more than other genres due to the low frequency being able to travel further distances, making it more of a concern for councils. ‘Bands will probably be playing at a higher frequency which won’t travel as far,’ says Tooth. ‘That’s why, if you’re in your bedroom at night, you can hear the pump in that bass but you might not hear the guitars on top of that.’ Physics, huh?
‘As a resident, you might think that festivals are getting louder, because the music is more repetitive or uses sound systems made to be better at reproducing those low frequencies,’ Miller says. ‘It’s also probably to do with the number of events taking place in a single location, which can have a cumulative effect.’
Take Finsbury Park, north London, for example, where a major gig or music festival is taking place for four weekends out of nine in July and August this year. ‘Locals face a loss of public access to a much needed green space for months of the year, mostly over the warmest months,’ says Bethany Anderson, co-chair of The Friends of Finsbury Park campaign group.
‘And then there’s noise pollution. Vibrations have a huge impact on the mental health of residents, especially those in flats nearest to the park. Even small events have loud sound systems. The noise has reportedly been heard from up to a mile away. Those most affected are the flats on Seven Sisters which reportedly shake from the vibrations.’
Sarah McBriar founded electronic music-oriented festival, AVA, in Belfast in 2015. Back then, the events ‘hardly got any complaints’. ‘But then when more promoters came onto the site, we started to get much more, because the residents come in a bit more tired of hearing live music on a regular basis,’ she says.
‘The noise complaint thing is just not going to go away,’ says Tooth, who notes it is a particular issue in urban areas where festivals battle with noise from nearby traffic. ‘We make sure that we’re within the limits that the council imposes on us, which are fairly reasonable. But what we’re finding is now that there are more people in general and urban areas are a lot denser.’
Festivals usually have specialised teams to keep an eye on the sound during the event to keep it within limits. ‘Our genre is known for being loud,’ says Adam Gregory, co-director of heavy metal festival Bloodstock in Walton-on-Trent. ‘We have sound-monitoring teams whose job is to drive around test points that have been predetermined to monitor sound levels at all times. We also have a 24-hour hotline that people can call if they do experience problems.’
Something in the air
But no matter how much planning you do, some things can just be completely out of the organiser’s control – like the weather. ‘Last year, we had unprecedented temperatures: 40C heat and everything else,’ says Gregory. ‘Unfortunately, that created what we call a sound bomb. Because there was no wind or cloud, the sound was literally just exploding and bouncing everywhere instead of the sound being directed. It was the first time in 23 years we ever had that.’
There’s a possibility this issue is only going to worsen as global temperatures rise due to the climate crisis. Music festivals are already having to invest more into prepping for all sorts of freak weather, like droughts and flash floods.
It might not be the rosiest time to be a festival-goer, but thank god we can have a decent boogie before the planet goes up in flames. Most events aren’t actually getting quieter – even if we’re tricked into thinking some genres are – so maybe we can start enjoying ourselves again, awful singing and all.
Read more: The 41 best music festivals to book for 2023.
Plus: The tyranny of the talk tent – why music festivals are getting nerdier.
And: 5 emerging acts you’ve got to see at a music festival in 2023.