Words: Benjamin Hacking
The first year of ‘The Brit Fest’ finally arrived in Cheshire last weekend (5th-7th of July) after years of planning. ‘The Brit Fest’ is a festival organised by brothers Edward and Anthony Prophet with a focus on celebrating ‘all things British’, bringing music, cars, food, drink, and entertainment to the countryside of Cheshire. I joined the excited festival goers in their journey through Hale this weekend to experience the festivities and to talk about my thoughts on the weekend.
The festival on a whole was an incredibly chilled and relaxed atmosphere, and while that might not be what you would usually want a festival to be described as, I do feel that it worked perfectly for the vibe that they were trying to conjure with this festival. This weekend was definitely designed with a more family-oriented mind, catering for an aging generation and small children alike, with fair rides galore and countless camping chairs being allowed in front of the main stage. This was replicated in the lineup for the weekend with the artists mostly consisting of one hit wonders and bands who achieved success in the eighties.
‘The Brit Fest’ website talks about how music is ‘only the start’ of planning a festival and how it shouldn’t be the complete focus of an event, this was evident in the number of stalls and experiences they had available. However, while the food was very good with plenty of variety and the drinks surprisingly cheap for a festival with a captive audience (a six-pound pint is a shocking luxury at any festival), I do feel like they should have focused more on the lineup for the weekend. Listening to the main stage was pretty boring at times, lacking any substantially big names past ‘Scouting For Girls’ and ‘Bonnie Tyler’ to bring the excitement, in fact at times the much smaller ABC+ warranty stage was significantly more fun to experience which is great for the artists on this stage (‘South By Zero’ and the ‘Rock Choir’ being personal standouts) but I feel like it’s rather telling of the vibes coming from the main stage.
If you were after an experience alike to that which you’d find at festivals such as Glastonbury or Download, ‘The Brit Fest’ is definitely not it, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad – it’s a completely different experience. ‘The Brit Fest’ was a really cute family friendly affair, perfect for dipping your toes into the festival scenes if you have children or just can’t quite hack the mega events anymore. Forgetting some minor technical difficulties and selfish sabotage from other festival goers to some of the camping facilities, it was also an incredibly smooth operation. All in all, for the first year, ‘The Brit Fest’ seemed like a big success, it obviously has areas it could improve (namely the lineup) but as long as you weren’t expecting the next Glastonbury it was definitely a fun, event filled weekend.
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