Moving a festival to a new location is a lot of work. You have to deal with new local authorities, new technical situations, and a whole plethora of issues. So it was understandable, if frustrating, when the gates into this year's Greenbelt festival didn't open on time.
Twenty-five years after a group of rock-loving Christians first met in a field, Greenbelt's executive committee decided that it was time for a rebirthing of the festival. Along with another organization, Spring Harvest, they began to plan a new event called Freestate, which aimed to attract more young people and encourage them to encounter God and society through the arts. Alongside this would be a updated Greenbelt, which was to be a more "adult" festival, exploring a range of arts in a slimmed-down format. Unfortunately, due to internal difficulties within Spring Harvest, Freestate had to be cancelled and so Greenbelt was left to pick up the pieces as well as organize their own event.
A sneak peak inside the festival grounds before they opened to the public (ah, the joys of a press pass) revealed a radical change from Greenbelts gone by. The new site, Cheltenham racecourse, was neater than the fields of previous events, allowed some activities to take place indoors, and also provided that rarest of all commodities at a festival--real toilets.
The name of this year's event was "Deep and Wide," a phrase aiming to capture the essence of the new festival ethos. So it was that there was an enhanced range of arts available: a film venue showing a variety of pictures from My Name Is Joe and Orphans to A Bug's Life; a visual arts arena; daily storytelling sessions and workshops designed to explore the increased importance of story as a form of communication in a postmodern society; more classical music than before; a dance program largely run by Alison Eve and Paul Cudby (Eve and the Garden) which explored dance in a holistic context with prayer and meditation; and a more adult selection of popular music than last year's guitar-pop overdose. It is difficult to assess the success of the program. The festival atmosphere was changed significantly, and the average age of attendee was noticeably up from previous years. But as time progressed and the crowds got used to their new surroundings, it did begin to regain the atmosphere that has won the festival so many friends.
The seminar program was broad as always. Holy Joes, a group which meets in a London pub, chaired nightly debates which, despite occasionally lacking in focus, were friendly and engaging. Dave Andrews, an Australian, led a number of sessions based on the concepts he described as Christianarchy--a call for radical social action on the part of all those who follow Christ. The seminars did have a very radical edge to them when it came to social action, and this accompanied by the ever present focus on the Jubilee 2000 coalition and third world debt, is becoming more and more an integral part of the festival.
Musically, there was much to enjoy. The MAYC orchestra brought classical music to mainstage afternoons, while Bruce Cockburn (the festival's patron saint) played to a packed-out stage two. One of the biggest hits of the event were Vigilantes of Love, returning to their third Greenbelt. The band ended up playing three sets: a mainstage show, two songs in one of the nightly magazine shows, and an hour-long acoustic set. Bell Jar re-introduced Greenbelt to two former members of Eden Burning, now exploring the jazzy end of pop; and festival manager Andy Thornton showed that he's a solid songwriter in his own right with his solo show and the mainstage set he shared with Iain Archer. The festival closed with Martyn Joseph on the mainstage. One of the festival's favourite sons, Joseph was enthralling in his solo-acoustic way, and also managed to get the majority of the crowd singing along with his amusing new composition, "I am a liberal backslider."
Unfortunately some of the events were stifled by awkward license restrictions. Only days before the festival, the local council told the organizers that children under five years of age were not to be allowed on site. For a festival that has such a large proportion of families, that was clearly untenable. Despite protestations, the best that the council would conceed was that young children would only be allowed in the children's area and the mainstage arena during the Sunday morning service. Given that the council gave no mechanism for moving the children between these locations, the festival was forced to be creative in its interpretation of this ruling. Another restrictive factor was that no amplification whatsoever was allowed in any outside venue after eleven p.m. This certainly made the first evening's debate--"Are rules there to be broken?"--which started at 11 p.m. interesting. This issue also led to unforeseen programming conflicts. Bruce Cockburn's set had to be moved forward and clashed with mainstage act Asian Dub Foundation.
The day-long symposiums on different issues were among the more highly touted events of the festival. Saturday featured a debate on "Britain after the Stephen Lawrence report"--the result of an investigation into the Metropolitan police force's follow-up of the murder of a black teenager, the report from which was particularly damning towards the police force. Unfortunately Doreen Lawrence, the mother of the murdered teenager, was unable to attend and as a result her lawyer declined too. Nevertheless all reports suggest that it was a very successful day and that the discussions were of a quality rarely found outside an academic environment. Despite the high standard of discussion and the time commitment involved in attending an entire day's symposium, this aspect of the event still seems to have been popular with many of the festival's attendees and was not out of place within the program.
The Sunday morning communion is always a focal point for the weekend, and this year's was a particularly fine example of how the different elements of the festival can pull together. The music mixed ethnic African percussion, traditional and celtic chants, and programmed beat in a compelling fusion (a CD with the music is available from the Greenbelt office); and the liturgy managed to be inclusive without sacrificing a clear expression of Christian faith. Walter Wink's sermon was challenging, and Walter Wangerin delivered an unusual look at the last supper, drawing in much of what had been explored in the biblical storytelling seminars.
It took the Greenbelt faithful most of the festival to acclimatize
to the new emphasis and site. By the end of the event, though, it was clear
that many accepted the changes and were looking forward to rebuilding the
festival at its new home. With the postponement of the Freestate festival
for at least another year, Greenbelt will return next year to its historic
last-weekend-in-August slot, and the program will be expanded to try to
draw back the teenagers, who were noticeably fewer this year. Greenbelt
provides a safe space to explore faith-related issues and the arts which
is essential for the church in the UK. Despite worrying pre-festival reports,
attendance was actually higher than expected and it will be interesting
to see the festival grow in its new direction.
