Fairport’s Cropredy Convention

It has been said that folk-rock legends Fairport Convention did for real ale what The Grateful Dead did for LSD. And the barrel was most certainly rolled out in August for the 30th anniversary edition of the band’s evergreen summer festival, Fairport’s Cropredy Convention in rural Oxfordshire.

I use the word ‘summer’ lightly, but not even thrashing rain and a tornado could dampen the spirits of the hardy 20,000 in attendance. Not for the first time, but possibly the last, I braved the elements as a grumpy camper, emerging fron my tent between downpours to catch the action and jam after-hours with acquaintances from the Sail Loft, the respected Essex folk club that also hits 30 this year.

Cropredy is unique among festivals. Founded and run by Fairport, initially as a reunion, it’s a truly independent, non-sponsored, three-day event. Even in this heavily saturated summer events market, Cropredy not only survives but positively thrives every year, thanks to a very loyal audience who know a good thing when they see it.

The range of talent it showcases is often staggering. Ahab, Bellowhead, Martin Joseph, The Tindalls and local girl Thea Gilmore were among the more impressive of this year’s folkier acts, while muso idols Rick Wakeman and Little Feat — appearing a day after the death of drummer Richie Hayward — were highly anticipated and did not disappoint.

If Status Quo appear to have been an odd choice for first night headliners, think again. Although the festival has grown from the folk-rock and trad-folk genre, it has matured as a very holistic musical event with surprise ‘turns’ every year.

The Buzzcocks, Steve Winwood, Robert Plant, Supergrass, Nik Kershaw, Jools Holland and 10cc would not readily be associated with Cecil Sharp and the English Folk Dance & Song Society, but they’ve all played crowd-pleasing sets over recent years. As expected, Quo played a no-nonsense greatest hits blinder.

Inevitably, Fairport Convention closed the final evening with a rousing performance featuring many special guests, including Jethro Tull guitarist Martin Barre and singer Johnny Logan who featured in an extract from the Celtic rock opera, Excalibur, that’s been playing to full houses around Europe.

PRODUCTION
When I first met Cropredy festival organiser Gareth Williams he was manfully mixing monitors for Oasis. I can’t recall if it was at Earls Court, Knebworth, Maine Road or in rehearsal at Music Bank, but either way it was ear-piercingly loud!

His tour of duty with the Madferit Mancs neatly separated two halves of what is now a long career with Fairport. “The first band I ever worked for was Fairport Convention. My old friend from Manchester, Maartin Allcock had just joined them [in 1985] and he got me a job driving the backline.

“One day, the monitor engineer went missing and I was thrown behind the desk. They liked what I’d done even though I hadn’t a clue, so I thought I should learn.”

Williams continued with Fairport on the road and at Cropredy for a few years, and also picked up touring work with Jethro Tull and Deacon Blue along the way. “Then I went for more money and started working with Brit Row in the ’90s on bigger events like the BRITs and MTV Awards, which was quite a learning curve. Oasis was an extreme in many ways but I met a lot of friends through them like Jason Rhodes, Noel’s long-time guitar tech, who is now working for us as Simon Nicol’s tech.”
The path leading back to the Fairport camp was laid in 2004. Bassist Dave ‘Peggy’ Pegg and his wife Christine, who had run the Cropredy festival together for 20 years, were divorced. Mrs. Pegg quit the office and the band invited Williams to take her place as festival organiser and “stop arseing about with pop bands”. The event was then re-named Fairport’s Cropredy Convention.

“I was pushing 50 and getting tired of the tour bus, so this ‘proper job’ came around just at the right time,” said Williams, a devout Man. United fan who works out of Fairport’s Chipping Norton office. “It’s certainly become very much a full-time job since January 2009 when Rob Braviner, the band’s manager and agent, and my best friend, who died aged just 49. It was Rob who brought the festival up to scratch before I came onboard.

“I’d seen enough festivals to know what was wrong with some of them, so I thought I had something to contribute. ‘Change’ is a taboo word around these parts, however, bit by bit we’ve remoulded a few aspects to bring the festival up to a very high standard. Things like having trackway instead of 400 tons of rubble!

“It’s a quirky festival that has gradually expanded to take over what is now a 175-acre farmland site, including generous room for camping. This site’s been used since 1982.”

TEAMWORK
Williams is surrounded by an ace team. Assisted by Karen Horton, he is joined by production manager and new Fairport agent Nigel Reavill, site manager Mick Peters, safety co-ordinator John Sursham, head of security Marty Jones and stewarding chief Peter White, among others.
Before handing the on-site production responsibilities to Reavill, Williams books all of the suppliers “way in advance” and considers loyalty to be the key to happy consistency.

“We do use most of the same companies every year and we pay on time so the prices are good. Prism are a good case in point. Around 1990-91, when I stopped touring with Fairport, Johnny Mellon was their LD and had already set up Prism Lighting. They’ve now been at Cropredy for 20 years and almost regard it as a holiday — they have their own fenced-off camping compound!”

Dave Lee designed the lighting for the second year. An LD who worked in a disco equipment shop before gaining his first live experiences during the rave boom with Liverpool hire company Phase Five.

He said: “I soon heard about Prism who were doing bigger and better things, Cropredy being one of them. They asked if I fancied a weekend away and all these years later, I’m still here. I adore it and it’s proof that there are kids who genuinely love the music and aren’t out to just get pissed and throw themselves against the barrier.”

Lee used WYSIWYG to come up with a versatile plot. “I try to design something that will cater for every band, knowing that some LDs like Quo’s Pat Marks won’t be too happy if it’s too specialised. So it starts off being very generic, with bars of six PARs, floor cans, ACLs, Atomic strobes with colour changers, lots of 4-lite Moles for audience lighting and Source Four profiles. And then I add the moving lights.”

Being well-known as a Martin Professional rental source, Cheshire-based Prism supplied 21 MAC 700 Washes and 15 700 Spots, as well as seven MR16 Howie battens, four Studio Due CityColor 1800s for PA scrim wash and a pair of 2.5kW FOH spots. The spec included three on-stage curved trusses with 15° angles, one front truss and six truss towers — all nicely toned with 48 ChromaQ Color Block DB4s.

“There are some specific elements in there that are just for Fairport. There’s a lot of key light and backlight, and they are very particular about solos being picked up,” said Lee.

Console-wise, LDs had a choice between a Hog iPC (with two fader wings and touchscreen) and an Avolites Pearl Expert. A Prism custom DMX line switcher was used to split generic and moving lights between these desks. Some LDs, of course, brought their own.

“Pat Marks is a grandMA user nowadays and he was brilliant to watch as he hammered away at all those accents in Quo’s hits. While Quo were in Switzerland for their previous gig, we had a grandMA here and set it up for him. He turned up with a USB stick after receiving the patch from me, tweaked his focuses and he was away. He was amazed at how well it went.”

Prism’s crew included Tim Eastham and Simon ‘Boff’ Howarth, a tech who appears to have the knack of being at nearly every event TPi attends. Has he been cloned?

STAGING & VIDEO
The stage was also provided by Prism for the ninth year. Built in 36 hours, Prism’s latest design for the festival featured a 19m x 17.5m Total Fabrications roof trimmed at 8m above deck (max. payload 9,250kg). Its 26.4 x 16.8m stage deck was 2m above ground level, and the points of the 6m x 6m arched PA wings were 13m above the ground.

Organised by Nev Bull, CT London’s Nick Whitehead supplied a large, central Barco OLite 612 LED video screen for I-Mag and graphics. CT’s package included four manned Ikegami cameras and two Bradley remote HD hot-heads, with Jon Steer controlling the cut on a Grass Valley 1ME HD switcher. Catalyst and custom content was provided by Nev Bull.

“There was always a debate about whether Cropredy should go down the video road, and I doubt if we’ll ever have left/right screens,” said Gareth Williams, “but we introduced the central display in 2007 for Fairport’s 40th anniversary set. Somehow, the focal point is still the stage action.”

SOUND
SSE Audio has been servicing Cropredy since 1998 and for the last six years, the company’s leading technician, Pete Russell has been at the helm of all things audio as project manager. His crew for 2010 included Detlev ‘Willie’ Kline (FOH), Jason Hattams (monitors), and Miles Barton, Ray Breen and Owain Richards looking after the stage.

The Midlands-headquarted rental firm’s choice of PA for this and its other major festival projects this year was L-Acoustics’ new flagship system, the K1.

“K1’s clarity, throw and predictability make it SSE’s No.1 choice for outdoor main stage use, particularly when it’s crucial to contain sound within the arena,” said Russell. “When you do the predictions in L-Acoustics’ SoundVision program, it’s absolutely accurate.”

Almost as soon as the French manufacturer delivered the system to SSE last summer, it went out on Download. “When we rigged it and fired it up for the first time, we stood there open-mouthed in disbelief that it sounded so good. The quality was simply on a different level.

“It’s got such a fantastic range and it carries on up the field. For this type of mostly seated audience we didn’t want to impose regular delays on their sightlines, and audio-wise they’re not really essential. But we put a cluster of four dV-DOSCs just behind the FOH tower to fill the shadow.”

The system was driven by L-Acoustics LA8 ‘intelligent’ amplifiers, controlled on a network with Lake processing and a TC EQ Station for audio distribution. There were 10 K1 cabinets and three dV-DOSCs in each of the left/right arrays, with eight SB28 subs in a cardioid pattern, and a further six dV-DOSC for infill.

Twenty of SSE’s own MB4 wedges (15” + 2”) were available for stage use; SB28s and Arcs formed the sidefills, and the drum fill consisted of a dV-Sub and MB4.

Two sets of mixing consoles were in service. While a Yamaha PM5D was on monitors throughout the festival, the channel-hungry Fairport Convention set required a DiGiCo D5 at FOH; a Midas Heritage 3000 was resident at FOH for the remaining acts.

“A lot of the bands’ engineers aren’t as familiar with the digital desks as Fairport’s engineers, John Gale and Vince Sharpe, so we’ve gone for a standard H3000,” explained Russell. “Where bands have their own monitor guys, Jason Hattams is available to take them through the PM5D if needed. It’s a very simple desk even for digital newcomers.”
Russell, who also oversaw the audio recording for Sky Arts HD’s filming, mirrored the sentiments of most of the crew when he told TPi that Cropredy is his favourite festival. “I love it every year. It’s so laid back and friendly. I mean, what other festival would have a 100’ long real ale bar on one side of the field? There are no demands to impress record companies or clients, so you don’t have that kind of stress.”

SSE’s role at Cropredy also extended to the stage. Pete ‘Boot’ Ellis, who runs SSE Structures, provided a flexible range of risers to cater for all of the artists’ requirements.

STAGE MANAGEMENT
Tristan Bryant first came to Cropredy in 1988 as a Fairport fan and after studying sound engineering at LIPA and gaining some studio experience with the band, he joined their touring crew as a backline tech. He has been moving up the ranks of the Cropredy team for 11 years and became stage manager in 2008.

“In 1988 I was taking photos of Nigel Reavill and Gareth Williams at work as stage managers, so when I look at them now it’s really gratifying to know I’ve followed in the footsteps of the people who got me into the business.”

When Welsh band Mabon broke down on the way to Cropredy, the bill had to be switched around to fill the gap. Fortunately, they arrived just in time to play a reduced set, but the situation called for swift action with the crew from Stagecraft living up to their name.

“Martin Taylor’s Spirit of Django were very helpful in stepping up to cover. We were able to get everything in place so that all Mabon had to do when they finally arrived was walk on stage, plug in and perform... albeit for only 12 minutes. But it was a great 12 minutes and about 16,000 people were happy that we put the effort in.

“With all the curfews that govern the timing of sets throughout each day, there’s little room for leeway, especially when it comes to adhering to headlining bands’ contracts. It’s imperative that we keep things tight.”

Although it’s often been suggested to Williams that Cropredy adds a second stage, he’s very clear about why this would be a bad move. “The two village pubs put on their own programmes of entertainment during the festival. We call it the Cropredy Fringe and there are some great bands that provide a very decent ‘sideshow’ just a few minutes’ walk away.

“They are effectively the second and third stages, and we’d be doing the local businesses out of money if we added our own. It’s a perfect arrangement.”

[As a sidenote, it was impressive to see that while the village shops and services benefit from the patronage of a captive audience for three days, they do not abuse them by inflating prices. I was able to buy a full English breakfast for just £4.00, which would be almost unheard of in any other festival location.]

AROUND THE SITE
The general infrastructure is administered by Bounty Events, a company founded 10 years ago at Christine Pegg’s suggestion by site manager Mick Peters and other regular crew to supply electricity, water, site lighting and signage.

Other Cropredy services are supplied by Tim Laughton (toilets, showers and portable cabins), Trac Ltd. (trackway), Event Solutions (fencing and barriers), Stardes (trucking), B&M Starsleeper (crew bus) and Grundon (waste management).

Emma Lloyd and the Banbury & Adderbury Scouts did a great job of cleaning up in the aftermath, as well as managing the car parking and camping operation.

Meanwhile, Canon Safety was in charge of fire prevention. St. John’s Ambulance handled all things medical and MJ Events Support worked alongside Thames Valley Police on security.

The festival’s safe and peaceful reputation was reinforced this year with virtually no incidents reported. “There’ll always be a few disturbances and a bit of rowdiness here and there, but in the main we’ve enjoyed yet another trouble-free year,” commented Gareth Williams.

‘IT ALL COMES ROUND AGAIN...’
Most of the people I met at Cropredy agreed that the one defining moment of each year is when Fairport and their guests end the festival with their 1968 anthem, ‘Meet On The Ledge’.

Said Tristan Bryant: “We’ve all lost good friends in the industry far too early in life, like Rob Braviner, Fairport’s ‘sixth member’. It’s a song about mortality, and watching and listening to 20,000 people linking arms and singing that song is truly emotional.”

The finale number could not have been more perfectly timed for me. Neither could the loosening effects of the band’s own brand of beer, Fairport Five — a hearty brew if ever there was one. Go next year, you’ll see what I mean. I’ll be in a camper van for sure.
TPi