Festivals For All caught up with Nick Chambers, all round good guy and one of the organisers behind Beat-Herder, which our reviewers classed as sitting in their top three festivals ever.

It’s not big (but it’s certainly clever) – it’s located in the unfashionable arm of the spiral galaxy in Lancashire - and they never advertise … and yet, for those in the know, it’s the undisputed highlight of the festival calendar.

Back in 2013, we interviewed Nick in depth about the Beat-Herder ethos, so we thought it’s about time we had another in depth update …

FFA – Beat-Herder simply blew away our FFA reviewers in both 2012 and 2013 … it will be difficult, but we’re assuming you’ll be trying to better that in 2014?

NC – it’s what we try to do every year! That’s the mission (laughs). It’s all about defining what we do and what we've already done, to keep it evolving and to keep it interesting. We understand that people who come to Beat-Herder come back to Beat-Herder again and again and we don’t want them to come back to exactly the same every time – but sometimes, when the recipes right you don’t need to change too many ingredients – because its working really well… but we try & tweak little bits, we refine elements, and we add little bits if we can. It’s been than from the outset at Beat-Herder – we simply put on the best party that we can, keeping in mind what would we want to go to, what would we want to experience… and from that, on that thought pattern, is how we get to where we are – and I think we are respected for putting on a really good party.

FFA – FFA were impressed with the ‘shared community’ aspect of Beat-Herder- as an event you command fierce loyalty from the crowd, and although there are multiple disparate scenes, there is one overarching wonderful collective vibe – that takes some doing?

NC - We do find that people feel part of it, but people are sort of empowered to be in that position, because what you get at Beat-Herder, going back to my point about events we’d want to go to, it’s one of the fairest places in the land! You've got as much going on with the ticket as you would at events paying double, but more importantly, what happens once you are in the event, I think people are gob-smacked by the fairness of it all and the respect that they are given, be it in the price of alcohol, food, or the amount of things there are to do… and the amount of distractions that there are! There is so much going on – it’s a FESTIVAL and it should be that – not a gig in a field. Once people look around and they think my god this is absolutely idyllic and amazing… what you get from that – you get that attitude and sort of reciprocation of the fairness and the love … and you've then got the best atmosphere you could ever dream of. When you can do that for people and say look – come in, it’s alright we've not going to charge you £8 for a beer or £10 for a burger… people suddenly are calm – they are not defensive or on guard, so people really get to shake loose and enjoy themselves… and that’s the one thing we really want to happen.

FFA – Even to the degree of allowing people to bring alcohol into the arena?

NC - Exactly, we are not a sponsored event, (FFA hear a ping – in background) ...I've just taken some soup out of the microwave – we are not eating caviare (laughs). We are not a nanny state, but we kind of hope people don’t just bring in a full slab of beer and sit on it all day … the bar is not a profit making money spinner… the bar helps us balance the budget for the festival. Because Beat-Herder is a place where people come back ‘cos they see it’s such a great place, and if the beer is comparable to Weatherspoons, we hope they won’t bring so much and enjoy the wide choice and ice cold beers etc. It’s just one of those little elements – people aren’t being told what to do, they are relaxed with it.

(As FFA always recommends at those increasingly rare events allowing your own booze – appreciate it and do patronise the bars too. It really can make the difference to the ongoing viability of an event. No worries at Beat-Herder mind. Read the reviews, there is always a great scene in the many bars around the site)

FFA – Regarding musical ‘policy’ away from the main stage - Are you still working on the principle of inviting local underground club nights to curate individual tents with autonomy to manage their own line-ups?

NC – Yes! … the ‘family’ that actually operates the tents is from a functioning, current, underground scene really – and they are at the helm of putting on what they see as being great new things and current artists – so what we end up with is brand new to established acts like Happy Mondays and Boney M!.. but then you turn around to one of the tents and you've got some excellent new guy from Manchester of whatever that you haven’t heard of but is amazing. I think that thread, especially on the back of having over a dozen venues, Beat-Herder has so many different genres of music, and each place has got its own feel – so you can just get lost. You could do a weekend in a different tent!

FFA – it’s a great model for keeping everything fresh?

NC – Exactly. Music will always progress and its one of the great gifts we have as a race really. It’s a great thing to be able to hand over from us to people we trust and we just know they are going to come through with some surprising, great things, and people will come out of the tent thinking – that’s the best thing we've ever seen!... so it adds to the spread and adds to all the different things to do at Beat-Herder – music being just one of them.

FFA – Beat-Herder likes at least one high profile slot for the classic legends – we've seen Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Cliff, and now Boney M … is there a policy here of introducing younger audiences to older class acts?

NC – It’s just coincidence! The age spread at Beat-Herder is 1 to 90, there is something there for everyone and that’s what we try and do. It’s not intentionally to say – you may never have heard this – but check it out. But, yeah, apart from the likes of Boney M we've got the Orb coming for instance – going 25 years – there may be people who have never heard of Alex Paterson and won’t understand he’s been responsible for influencing so much – in the massive web of everything he’s been quite central… so yeah, I'm hoping a lot of younger people will be ‘wow, this is amazing’. .. but yes it’s there for everyone – enjoy it! For older people it may be reliving their youth – but what’s wrong with that! (laughs)

FFA – do you have any particular favourites or recommendations of acts not to miss?

NC – Er, hmmm, brrr, er, really putting me on it now, it’s not necessarily a favourite or recommendation but, I think perhaps one of the newest bands, and it’s a first for us, we are putting on a semi live act in the woods, rather than a DJ set, it’s a band called Dextric, two 18 year old lads, and I think they've a really special sound. I don’t think perhaps people realise that last year we had Clean Bandit, year before Jake Bugg, and a couple of years ago we had Django Django, and they are all enormous acts right now… so I think our Maison D'etre tent, the new music tent, people should come open minded and think well I haven’t heard the name but I’ll check it out because there are really big future artists there and it’s gives the opportunity to see them at a really intimate level at Beat-Herder.

FFA – Beat-Herder in more than the music of course, what else should we expect?

NC – Well, I can’t give much away but if people have never been to Beat-Herder before and they wanted to get an idea of what effort we put into the festival – then go to the Street In The Woods ... which is about 50 metres long with 3 venues there, the ‘Church’, ‘Hotel California’, a Pub, and then the Garage – which is a forecourt with Dashboard DJ’s! All of these are permanent structures – not marquees… In my eyes, the actual effort that goes into building the site and putting the work in, the attention to detail that goes in, you could wander round there as if it were a gallery!

That’s our passion really – the doing and the making – we are all trades people that run the festival at its core, we’re all friends from school, we’re all self-employed tradesmen, we've all got skills in making stuff, so between us we can make a Castle! … I think this is the thing about Beat-Herder.. If we can get things in with tradition and authenticity we will. I think for us, the look, the effect of everything, is as important as what it does. We make our own flags and at the minute, we’re making flower boxes, we grow flowers from seed, and we’ll display them... so we’re running our own flower show as well (laughs). People may think we are crazy but we do it to make it right for everybody.

FFA - Anything else?

NC – It’s a family at Beat-Herder, we don’t advertise, it’s all word of mouth, if you've heard of it, come along. Tell a friend. Because that’s how it all works.. we are a family of friends of friends!... We are set to sell out again this year, we are already well into our last tier tickets. It’s not a hard sell… but I wouldn't dilly-dally if you’re thinking of coming!

FFA can feel in our waters that something special will be going down in them there Lancashire hills in July … go check it out.

The Beat Herder Festival 2014

Dockber Farm, Sawley, Lancashire, BB7 4LH

Dates: 18th Jul 2014 - 20th Jul 2014

Price: Tickets for adults with camping from £120

Article by Barrie Dimond