Womad, Womud August 1, 2007
Diary of a trader at Womad 2007
This year we decided to have a stall at Womad the World Music Festival.
Entry 1 - Wednesday 25 July
1.00pm We arrived at the traders entrance to Womad at around 1.00pm happy enthusiastic and ready to roll.
3.40pm We were still waiting in line to sign in it had taken nearly 3 hours for the Womad staff to process approximately the 10 traders in front of us. By process I mean check our three or four items of paperwork at give us our pitch number and wristband.
To be fair to the Womad staff at the site office there was only two of them doing it all.
It then became apparent that because of the muddy conditions every single trader’s vehicle would now have to be towed onto the site by a tractor as not enough tracking had been laid and the field was too muddy for vehicles to move. It also became depressingly obvious that they only had 4 tractors available for this task. The queue behind us was at this point over 500 yards long and growing.
4.30pm we were towed by a tractor to the top of the hill above the meadow (our destination) and left. We then carefully drove and slid down the hill to the meadow where we got stuck in the mud 100yards short of our pitch with the promise that they would send another tractor to take us the rest of the way.
5.00pm No tractor
5.30pm No tractor
6.00pm I begged a passing tractor to tow us to our pitch. He wasn’t happy but he did it.
6.15pm We began erecting our Marquee on pitch number M6. At this point in time the Meadow was already covered in deep mud and even deeper tractor tracks. (According to a local farmer I talked to the meadow had been virtually a lake only a week before. A bit of information Womad kept to themselves. I wonder why?).
We spent the remainder of the evening waiting for the electricity to be connected. It never happened. We were wet, hungry, and very muddy. The water was not working yet.
Entry 2 to follow
Al - Zoozoo2.com
- Posted in : life, The planet, t-shirts
- Author : Al
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