Welcome to Venue’s unique festival guide

One thing’s for sure, Festival Land really needs the sun to shine this year. Rain stopped play for so many of our favourite fiestas in 2007. Victims ranged from biggies like Fflam and Truck to little ’uns like the Saul Canal Festival. Some rescheduled, some cancelled, some (like our own poor Ashton Court) were dealt such a finance-crushing blow by the weather they have failed to haul themselves back on their feet at all. Obviously the Greenbelt crowds weren’t praying quite hard enough.

Despite this, a glance at the ever-increasing quality of those who survived should put sunny smiles back on damp faces. Music, literature, beer, food, film, even walking: if there’s a decent festival for it, it’ll most likely be within these here pages.
Whether you’re raging against the machine or simply watching the sun rise to the sound of a didgeridoo, we hope it’s seriously hot stuff.

Anna Britten
Editor

Bristol - so good at the magical mix of food, booze, theatre, circus and music that makes those summery hearts thump. Yes, 2007 was muddy but even so some of Bristol’s classics were fantastic. Having worked hard with the team on St Pauls Carnival, I cherish the memory of that wild throb of joy as those masquerade troops strutted and twirled up Wilder Street. The EDF Energy Harbour Festival was also a sunny cornucopia, featuring my favourite act, the Newfoundland rescue dogs, with their massive, soggy, West Country strangeness on a sunny, cidery day. It would be an understatement to say I had a bad time at Glastonbury; it turned me into a spitting ball of mud and fury but I’m not 16 so should have been more realistic. However, it’s over and it’s 2008, so let’s wish for kind skies for the glorious Carnival and Shambala and welcome The Bristol Do - a new outdoor arts event in Portland Square and the youth fest Project 360. See you all there.

Claire Teasdale
Arts festival officer,
Bristol City Council