SEPTEMBER | REVIEW
I
t’s been a turbulent year for
the festival industry and, in
the case of Port Eliot Festival,
it seems two years of bad weather
can have long lasting implications.
This year’s Port Eliot Festival
was revealed to be the last edition
– for the forseeable future at least
after the organisers decided that
their financial situation was not
sufficient to put on the event to the
standard they would like.
News of the impending
cancellation prompted much
dismay on social media, with
the event enlivening a loyal and
passionate visitor base over the
years.
Port Eliot Literary Festival, as
it is formally titled, is an annual
celebration of all things literary
and cultural, taking place at Port
Eliot in Cornwall. It was founded
by the late Jago Eliot. Guests who
have attended the festival in past
years include Hanif Kureishi, James
Flint, Hari Kunzru and Louis de
Bernières.
The 2010 festival was widely
considered the event’s artistic peak.
Artists and performers that year
included Grayson Perry, Stephen
Jones, Jarvis Cocker and Harper
Simon. New acts including the
vocal group Fisherman’s Friends,
the comic performer Wilfredo, and
The Book Club Boutique Band also
caught the imagination of the Port
Eliot audience.
Port Eliot’s
last hurrah?
Access attended the last (probably) Port Eliot
Festival, and spoke to its organiser Poppy Handy
Suppliers list
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Security: ESP UK
Stewarding: Wicked Events
Sound: Clue Audio
Marquees: Companies
including Penrose and Albion
• Track hire: Davis
• Bars: Field Vision
Organiser Polly Handy however,
says this year’s event was really
up there. “This year’s festival was
one of the best. After two wet
years there was added stress and
pressure. In addition, our founder
Lord Saint Germans, passed away
so there was an extra need to make
it special.”
“We only knew that this year
would be the last year around a
week before the event itself. When
we announced this we had a brief
spike in sales so we just scraped
past what we sold in 2016. But it
wasn’t quite a sell-out.
“We had to make savings this
year of about £100,000 so we looked
to make cuts. Certain elements we
felt were very important, like the
compostable loos ,which also lessen
the vehicle use needed on site. We
also looked at cutting plastics and
using less track way.”
“Elsewhere, we scaled down
on security and looked at ways
to reduce our power bill and
consolidated some of our areas.”
In a high pressure industry,
margins are make or break, but
the temptation to book bigger acts
was deemed too unwieldy. “We did
look at ways to make more money
from the festival and we considered
the economics of bringing in big
headliners, but we concluded that
there wasn’t a feasible way to make
it work and the festival has never
been about the headliners. As
soon as you get a big act the whole
infrastructure of the festival is
impacted too. You’d need an entire
re-think”
Another challenge was the
positioning. “There’s always a big
challenge marketing festivals.
How do you attract new people
to an event in an industry where
everyone is billing themselves
as unique? So we rely a lot on
word-of-mouth. Meanwhile our
PR department, run by Michael
Barrett, do an absolutely amazing
job gaining far more column inches
than most festivals our size.”
Handy says the festival’s
independent spirit has been part of
its magic: “Really one of the things
I’ve been touched by is how many
people tell you they’re grateful
for the festival. I don’t think that’s
something you’d get at Reading
Festival for example. We are not a
commercial product, that’s not our
style. Port Eliot is an adventure.
It’s an experience, and going along
with that is our ethos not to restrict
peoples’ movement and not check
their writstbands too much, for
example. We like people to be free
to roam and explore.
“When you look at the list of rules
at, say, Boardmasters festival, it just
seems excessive. This is a world
away from that.”
So in the absence of Port Eliot
what will become of the site?
“The site is certainly open to the
opportunity of new festivals, but
there is a fair amount of work to do
to ensure the site is ready and up to
regulations. You need tree surveys
for example and a lot of investment
from the estate itself. But it’s such
a fantastic site. Sadly we could not
make enough money to make a
forward investment.”
The door, it seems, it certainly
still ajar: “I’m going to focus
on finding suitable long-term
investors who will keep the ethos
should it ever return. It is a great
brand and people have great
memories of the event. We are
stepping back and taking stock.”
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