The Brentford Festival Survives Licensing Ordeal

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Free family event in Blondin Park to proceed but it was a close call

The 2022 Brentford Festival

August 29, 2024

The Brentford Festival will go on, at least for this year anyway!

It may seem like I have been a little quiet of late but believe me when I say it has been all but quiet.

You may remember when I wrote the Diary of an Event Manager at the beginning of the year, and I said I had to go back to school? It was all about requiring a premises licence to serve alcohol at the Brentford Festival in Blondin Park and also if we wanted to sell alcohol from within the pavilion on the occasion.

Well, I duly passed my personal licence, with a very good percentage pass I might add, although I am having problems now extracting this from the council.

Bear in mind that it was the council that advised us that we had to apply for a licence in this way because the event had got too big to operate on the TEN licence that we have always used. As I am always so busy I employed a company called The Licensing Guys to apply on our behalf and thank goodness I did – what a crusade. In brief neighbours to the park were vitriolic about the application to the extent that 72 people objected to the application* – and so I went quiet as instructed to do so.

That said, many hours in the licencing meeting last Friday (23 August) has come up with a result. Yes there are some conditions to be met but I can confirm that the Festival will go ahead on Sunday 1 September noon to 6pm. It does mean we will not be able to get our banners out of storage.

Neither will we be able to get flyers to the 15,000 addresses we usually do. For this event only we will not be providing SIA security which was requested. The meeting acknowledged that we have never had any problems with anti-social behaviour and the festival’s view is that such security (1:100 visitors) is not only a prohibitive cost for this free event but would take away the family fun day feel that we have provided for the past 18 years.

Linda Massey

So, peddling forward fast – a few suppliers still need to be organised for example toilets and skips – there was no point in throwing more money at this if the event was not going ahead. The CAMRA beer guys are waiting to hear from me so that they can order the kegs and of course I now need to get back to the volunteers who have offered to help us deliver a safe friendly event. It would be really good if some of the 72 objectors came forward and offered their services to show that there are no hard feelings.

So, getting to the event we expect most people to walk but Red Routemaster will kindly put on busses to bring people to the event. The route map and timetable will be published next week.

The bands have been signed up for some time so we can now announce the delights ahead of you.

Main Stage

(In the central area with loads of picnic benches, individual chairs and plenty of grass for blankets to while away the day.

There are some new bands who have never played at the festival before so come and give them some support.

11.30-11.50-12.00	Geoff (or Hanwell Ukes
12.00 - 12.40	The Champs
12.55 - 1.35	The Bats of Ealing
1.50 - 2.30	The Thrillers
2.45-3.15	Love2Sing
3.30-4.10	The Grim Face Marys
4.25- 5.05	Lemon Sharks of London
5.20 - 6.00	Primary Scream

Performing area (amongst the stalls)

Hounslow Brass band – up until 2pm

Morris Dancers Performance and interactive dance

Love2sing will perform throughout the day when not on the main stage

14 Catering Units will be coming, some have been with us before but a few are new to us.

	Pitch No	Food Type
Tunh Laing	1	Chinese and Thai
Rio	2 3 4 5	Gourmet Burgers Chinese Noodles Sweets and Candyfloss Tropical Slush
Fine Street Events	6 7 8	Greek Gyros Burgers & German Sausage Spanish Churros
Hungry Tacos	9	Tacos quesadillas
La Piazza	10	Italian Bread Products
Pallavas Kitchen	11	Indian
Marrakesh Kitchen	13	Moroccan
Premier Punch	14	Caribbean Punch, Gin cocktails
Clive Parsons	15	Doughnuts

There will also be two ice-cream vans within the event.

I will cover some of this next week when my nerves have calmed down but would like to say as a matter of urgency that we are looking for more volunteers to help on the day. Firstly the dog show host is in need of help setting up the ring and also taking bookings on the day and generally keeping order and it may be that she is still looking for a judge or two – interested?

Other volunteers are needed – particularly if you are able to help mark out the pitches with the white roller machine – if you can drive a car I am sure you would be able to do this, just needs a little common sense. Stewards to get people to their positions are always needed and to generally walk the site, to litter pick and to be helpful.

I would love to hear from you.

Linda Massey

Event Manager

eventmanager@brentfordfestival.org.uk

* The objections were not being made to the Brentford Festival which the objectors say they support but the associated application made by Boston Manor Ltd for all year round alcohol licence for The Pavilion in the park.

 

 

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