Wild Fields - A Festival In A Pandemic Age

How in hell's bells do you put together and safely run a huge music festival during a pandemic? We spoke to Ben Street, the fella behind Norwich's Wild Paths Festival about how he planned and put on the hugely successful Wild Fields Festival in the summer of 2020 at the Norwich Showground. We loved it, we know you loved it, and for Ben and his team, despite all the hard work, what a bloody achievement! Here's all the deets...

Amazingly you managed to stage a socially distanced festival this year. Give us an idea of what that entailed?

Thanks, it was an entirely new concept and a real challenge for the whole Wild Paths team but we just weren’t willing to let 2020 pass without delivering a music festival of some sort.Wild Fields was our first foray into socially-distanced, greenfield festivals but working alongside our friends at Summertime Social and ETS we managed to deliver a 2 day festival, presenting over 30 live acts and DJ’s spread over 3 stages.

320 festival pods were constructed, decorated and furnished (for groups of up to 6), we implemented regulated queueing and web-based ordering systems (for food and drink), enacted heightened cleaning schedules, erected sanitising stations and generally marshalled the whole event to ensure attendees and artists were happy and safe for the whole weekend.

The festival featured headline performances from KOKOROKO, an 8 piece afro-beat and jazz act signed to Giles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings and Indie-rockers Gengahr, we also invited Ezra Collective’s;Joe Armon-Jones with an all-star UK Jazz cast and BBC Radio 1 favourites, Another Sky.

Attendees munched on delicious food from the finest and most exciting food traders in the region and sampled a cocktail or two from sustainable cocktail connoisseurs Punchy and Sapling Spirits (for each bottle of delicious vodka bought, the company plant a tree - in an effort to remain carbon neutral).

Given the turn-around period of 6 weeks and with an apprehensive audience base, Wild Fields Festival 2020 was truly testament to the whole team’s ingenuity, capability and marketing prowess… head over to the festivals Instagram and check out the Pacman inspired promo video!

There must have been a lot of lessons in putting on such an event.

We learnt a huge amount and because the event was pretty much unprecedented there was a lot of time spent on playing out dummy scenarios to work out how to surmount covid-specific challenges; thinking about artist green room spaces, stage changeovers and equipment handling etc.The whole thing really couldn’t have been done without the support and receptivity of our event partners and the team at The Norfolk Showground.

What feedback did you get from the performers and event support staff?

The feedback was overwhelmingly positive! Most artists where just incredibly grateful to be playing to a live audience again and getting at least a taste of the festival-filled summer they’d had planned. Joe Armon-Jones and his team told us it was one of the most enjoyable and best-run festivals they’d experienced!

Our staff are almost like an extended family now (some of them actually are family) and most of them worked with us on our 2019 multi-venue festival, so the vibe’s always good. We make sure everyone gets fed and has a decent amount of break-time to see some of the music; almost all of them have signed up to be involved again in 2021.

The festival also received a huge amount of positive press feedback, including a notable article in NME and coverage airing on both ITV and BBC news channels.

I believe that other festivals have been keen to learn from your experience?

Yeah, I’ve given a handful of guest lectures and sat on a number of panels now (including an upcoming Access All Areas Conference at The Farnborough Centre in May) chatting about my experience in running both socially-distanced and multi-venue festivals and events.

Every time I’m invited to one of these things I always get a little pang of imposter syndrome but it seems I’ve - quite unintentionally - built up a bank of fairly unique experience and it’s always nice to trace back through how we (as a team) approached the festivals and find something informative to pass on.

It must have been an exhausting time for you and your team.

We all went back to the artist hangar after the festival finished and celebrated in true Wild Paths style. Then after a couple of day’s worth of site pack down we all collapsed. I slept for a solid 12 hours… fully-clothed.

The economics of a festival are difficult enough - how did this pan out with restrictions on audience numbers?

It was never meant to be a money-making exercise; nothing we do ever has that at its core. However, it always has to be considered and although we just fell shy of breaking-even, the support we received from the team at Summertime Social and the spread of infrastructure costs across various promoters (over 8 weekends of events) allowed us to deliver a unique festival that gave employment to a lot of worked-starved artists and production staff and provided a little oasis of music and celebration at a time when it was most needed.

Andrew Gooding / @gooding.photo

So looking ahead to 2021 what are your plans?

Not content with simply sitting back and ‘riding out’ this turbulent period we’re planning to come strong in 2021. Wild Paths Festival will be returning to Norwich to take over a host of venues and distinctive spaces. We’ll be working with our network of industry contacts and production partners to deliver something truly unique.

We’ll be presenting the best in live music from indie and neo-soul, to post-punk and new-wave jazz and pairing it with themed after-parties, conferences, supper clubs, art fairs and a whole lot more.

The festival will descend on Norwich for four days in October, taking over around 18 of the city's best-loved venues, and a host of other DIY spaces, including a Shoe Factory and a TV Studio. Featuring over 180 live acts, 60 conference speakers, artists, drag-queens, tattooists and DJ's, it's set to be a long overdue celebration of music, food, art and culture... and the beautiful city of Norwich.

We’ll be featuring a blend of ‘big name’ acts paired with the best newcomers and regional talent. There’ll be more networking events as we look to expand the conference schedule, housing more delegates and industry professionals and building the festivals profile.

A new website and a festival app are being constructed - complete with scheduler functionality (allowing you to plan your festival schedule and share your plans with friends via social channels). With the popularity and financial success of our festival merchandise we’ve built a dedicated merch shop into the website. featuring exclusive Wild Paths merchandise and signature pieces from notable collaborators.

We’ll be building on our pledge to reduce our environmental impact and educate attendees on a whole host of climate and sustainability issues. In 2019 we achieved are goal of going single-use plastic free across the whole festival site and in 2021 the team are looking to make Wild Paths carbon neutral by working in conjunction with Ecolibrium and other like-minded climate organisations (read more about our carbon calculator and other initiatives on the Wild Paths website).

On top of all this we’re also working on delivering another two-day, socially-distanced music festival – presenting some of the best live music and DJs in a beautiful outdoor venue. The event is set for the last weekend of May (this year!) and will be a collaboration between ourselves and The Norfolk and Norwich Festival. Keep checking the Wild Paths Instagram (@wildpathsfestival) for more exciting news on this and other events.

Tell us some of the highlights not to miss?

This year's Wild Paths Festival is set to be the most adventurous and impressive yet, featuring some of the most exciting new artists and bands from across the UK and beyond. Keep an eye on the socials for line-up announcements all through April!

We’re expanding on what the festival offers and in 2021 there’ll also be two-days of music industry conferences and networking events featuring some key figures from the industry, established DJ’s and festival performers. On top of this we’ll be working with local art collectives to showcase and exhibit some amazing visual art and installations - spread across the city.

Personally I’m looking forward to strolling from venue to venue and catching as much music as I possibly can… oh and also to the host of food trucks and pop-up bars that’ll be popping up outside a number of the key festival venues!

Will it be at city centre venues this year?

Yes, we’ll be featuring all your favourite city-centre venues and adding in some exciting new spaces too, including churches and a listed building or two.

Andrew Gooding / @gooding.photo

Where can people find out full information?

www.wildpaths.co.uk.If you like the site get in touch with Emma at themissus.co and get her to sort your socials and revamp your business!

How can they book tickets and are there any early bird tickets?

Tickets will be released in the first week of April and will be available to buy through the website. Early-bird tickets will likely go in the first week though so make sure you’re signed up to the ticket waiting list!–www.wildpaths.co.uk/online-tickets.

There’ll also be a limited allocation provided to a few other key Norwich spots. Keep you’re on the festival socials for more news on this.

What sticks on in your mind over the pandemic period?

For me 2020 and the pandemic will represent a period for innovation and rising to new challenges and a the year when Wild Paths as a team set itself a new course to be pioneers of a new breed of music festival.

On a personal level it’s been a tough period. However, I’ve managed to start up teaching drumming and yoga again and recorded an album in a venue I converted into a studio space… so not all bad.

Andrew Gooding / @gooding.photo

What do you see for Ben, going forward?

As a festival we’re always looking to innovate and expand and so the future is all about presenting more unique, impactful events, spreading out to new regions and working to diversify and build on what Wild Paths offers year on year… It’s a new breed of music festival!

https://www.wildpaths.co.uk

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