Festival Love: Bristol on Tour

Top image: Dave Harvey and Tom Paine; credit: Sophia Spring

From the breaking-into-Glasto teenage rite of passage, to the soundsystem culture of St Paul’s and the free party scene; a rebellious streak runs through Bristol and the people who call her home.

Bristol punches way above its weight in terms of creative output, with the likes of Team Love, Shambala Festival, BoomTown Festival, Chai Wallahs and Arcadia representing.

“I don’t underestimate how much Glastonbury set me on this course to do music, do events, and do stages,” says Tom Paine – one half of Bristol’s Team Love. “I first went to Glastonbury in ’95, and I had my mind totally blown by this amazing thing.”

Dave Harvey makes up the other half of Team Love and together they have seriously made their mark on the festival world. They are directors of Love Saves the Day festival, as well as doing production and programming across the Glastonbury WOW stage, Secret Garden Party, High Definition and Garden Party, Croatia; to name a few.

Image: Love Saves the Day 

The tagline for their company, they joke, is ‘Making Friends and Losing Money’. So why do they do it?

“We love it”, says Dave. “We’re into putting on parties and it’s just developed on a much larger scale. When you’re stood on that stage or a packed tent, it’s an amazing feeling.”

It’s not just Tom and Dave making noise on the festival circuit. When they first moved into their offices in Hamilton House, they shared a floor with BoomTown, Shambala, Grade Music Management, and Green Stewards.

“Bristol has a can-do, DIY, get stuck in attitude,” says Dave. “Us, and most people who work in events and at festivals, they like a party – and Bristol’s really good at parties.“

Images: Shambala – credit: Carolina Faruolo ; Sidharth Sharma, co-founder of Shambala 

Shambala festival now welcomes around 12,000 people each year, but it grew out of an idea for a party as well.

“We didn’t feel like city nightclubs were where it was at for us,” says Shambala co-founder Sidharth Sharma.

“It started out as a party for close friends, with 500 people in a farmer’s field. The idea was about creating your own entertainment and not just accepting what was given to you.”

Another Bristol-born festival, BoomTown Fair, is without a doubt the biggest to come out of the South West in recent years.

“The beauty of it is that everyone is in it for the love,” says BoomTown founder Lak Mitchell. “We’ve all come from that free festival culture. None of us are money –orientated, which is probably one of the reasons why we’ve got to where we have so quickly.”

Images: BoomTown Festival; Lak Mitchell, BoomTown founder

In its seven years, Boomtown has developed a religious following, with 15,000 tickets sold this year before they had even hinted at a line up.

“Bristol’s always had that incredible underground culture, right from the early days when you had St Paul’s and free parties out in the streets – it’s all developed from that,” says Lak.  

He adds: “I think because of that real mixed culture, that’s why you’ve got that Bristol influence at these festivals, because it is so alternative. You can be whoever you want to be in Bristol.  

“There’s a bit of everything in Bristol and I think that’s why you get that Bristol feel at BoomTown, because that’s what we’re trying to do; we try and attract people from absolutely every different type of walk of life. The whole idea of BoomTown is that everyone is the same once they arrive in the festival.”

WIN TICKETS to BoomTown Fair and Love Saves the Day over on our festivals page