Cropredy 2024

[davidmjs]

And I don't think I've seen a comment so far saying how fab Tony Christie was...

Oh, I have (on Fairporters)

[Sue & Chris]

For me, the single stage is a selling point. I like the community feel it engenders. If I want multiple stages I can go to pretty much any other festival.

Anyway, on the basis of Simon's comments last night, the festival is secure for at least another year.

As for the Brasenose, good luck to them but I'm sure they know that without the main festival their's won't last long.

And I don't think I've seen a comment so far saying how fab Tony Christie was...

Well, you have now! I thought he was great. Wasn't expecting to enjoy him, but a great band and some bulletproof songs, plus a voice that's holding up well considering, made for a very entertaining hour.

[bassline (Mike)]

I don't doubt he's a good entertainer.

How many people bought tickets on the strength of him being on the bill, and do all the people that enjoyed it have ALL his records, or even one ?

An ironic cheesy singalong is fun.

I took my mom to see Leo Sayer for her birthday and I loved it, he would probably go down well at Cropredy.

Would Leo or Tony have been a hit with the original crowd from the 80's or 90's ?

What crowd do FC want going forward ?
What crowd are they going to loose ?

Which one will keep it going ?

[Adam]

Whether by oversight or design, Simon announced next year’s festival to be on the 7th to 9th August, whereas the Brasenose fringe tickets are for the following weekend….

[Sue & Chris]

I don't doubt he's a good entertainer.

How many people bought tickets on the strength of him being on the bill, and do all the people that enjoyed it have ALL his records, or even one ?

An ironic cheesy singalong is fun.

I took my mom to see Leo Sayer for her birthday and I loved it, he would probably go down well at Cropredy.

Would Leo or Tony have been a hit with the original crowd from the 80's or 90's ?

What crowd do FC want going forward ?
What crowd are they going to loose ?

Which one will keep it going ?

I doubt that many people bought their ticket to see Tony Christie. I know I certainly didn't. But as one out of 20 acts, I think a bit of cheesy nostalgia is fine.

Thing is, who is going to buy a ticket on the strength of, say, While & Matthews being on the bill? Or Dreadzone? Or anyone else who was at the Brasenose? Not many, I wager.

[davidmjs]

Whether by oversight or design, Simon announced next year’s festival to be on the 7th to 9th August, whereas the Brasenose fringe tickets are for the following weekend….

Well, it's always the second weekend in August - which I suppose depends on how you count it.  I've always assumed that meant the second Thur and onwards, but that kind of makes it the third weekend next year so...let battle commence  

[bassline (Mike)]

Whether by oversight or design, Simon announced next year’s festival to be on the 7th to 9th August, whereas the Brasenose fringe tickets are for the following weekend….

Well, it's always the second weekend in August - which I suppose depends on how you count it.  I've always assumed that meant the second Thur and onwards, but that kind of makes it the third weekend next year so...let battle commence  

Misinformation to confuse the Brase.
I like it.

[iandiddams]

There are already posters up advertising the fact that if you purchase a ticket for the whole weekend next year, it will cost you the princely sum of £15!
If the lineup is anything like this year I’m guessing that there will be a lot of people deciding to do that rather than pay for a Cropredy ticket.

without endorsing that idea nor decrying it (thats another thread/response another day ;-) ) - where would everybody camp?  are there sufficient private sites to accommodate everybody?

[Wandering Steve]

If they think their festival would survive without the main Cropredy festival, perhaps they should try running at a different time, maybe the end of June to commemorate The Battle of Cropredy Bridge.
Somehow I doubt they would be brave enough to step outside the shadow of Cropredy!

Interesting.......

The brasenose do a brilliant job with their fringe festival but it just couldn’t stand on its own two feet without the main festival at the moment.
The glaringly obvious reason is the lack of camping for people who would turn up.
Now field 8 is a totally different proposition and could easily hold a brasenose style festival with the same standard of acts AND have camping for all their attendees.
In my opinion(well it’s actually a fact) there will now always be a festival in august at cropredy even if the main festival fails (no reason it should if they add a better standard of headliner and increase prices to keep the competition at bay)
Has it not occurred that the thousands who are listening at field 8 and the brase are voting with their feet.

The main festival has serious competition but still has the upper hand for now.


How long that is the case remains to be seen.
There is no doubting that if the main festival and the brase up their game then the customers have never had it so good.

[iandiddams]

I'm glad Simon announced that the crisis was averted and the festival will be back next year.

well,  i suspect not really averted just postponed unless whatever caused the hiatus this year really was nowt to do with slow up front ticket sales and lack of sales over all...

[iandiddams]

I'd read smewhere the brasenose had a limit of 1000?

I have to admit that seems much more likely (but still highly problematic to the festival) to me

I can only quote what Rebecca Ryan posted ….and she’s been stage managing and compèring all 3 days ..and she says 3000.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid0aaWmoQihnFgH31z83uFtwAgBS7K3BDHxaVCS2KEWmEh14tznWLRXFNSHPapiyhgKl&id=608480108

Mandy Rice - Davies moment?

But - thanks for that confirmation hendo.  

[iandiddams]

I think that's a somewhat harsh interpretation in the world of market forces in which we (sadly) exist.  They saw a gap in the market and they have filled it.  And they're doing it well.  I'm really not sure they're (wholly) to blame - or do the festival organisers, who put all their eggs in a one stage basket, even as the desire for an alternative was apparent to all, carry some culpability?

this is where a "like" button would really work :-)

Thats it really.  

[iandiddams]

The fact they’ve taken the price down is interesting though.

Yeah.  Thats on a apr with a singlee gig of a decent band at a market town venue.

Though Im sytill unsre of iutrs real effectiveness.  If there were 3L at the BN for one band, that doepsnt mean that was 3000 x £30 BN tickets.  I suspect that's a few hundred BN tickets and a LOT of standard CCF wristbands.  Though as I wasnt there that is admittedly conjecture - though Id also suggest iof the BN had sold 3K wristtbands theyd not have to let any CFF bands in.

[iandiddams]

Whether by oversight or design, Simon announced next year’s festival to be on the 7th to 9th August, whereas the Brasenose fringe tickets are for the following weekend….

ooo... good spot!

https://www.universe.com/events/the-brasenose-fringe-2025-tickets-C7NY60?ref=ticketmaster

[Wandering Steve]

If they think their festival would survive without the main Cropredy festival, perhaps they should try running at a different time, maybe the end of June to commemorate The Battle of Cropredy Bridge.
Somehow I doubt they would be brave enough to step outside the shadow of Cropredy!

They have different festivals through the year
None have anywhere near the attendance of the fringe festival which is the big one…

[David H]

Never posted here before, but am a Cropredy veteran: first time in 1986, and most years since. So - some thoughts after Croppers 2024.

1. A lot of people have rose tinted memories of the 80’s and 90’s. Yes, the field was more hardcore FT and friends familiar and friendly, but the atmosphere was often quite heavy. RT once told me his band were once pelted on stage by local yobboes. It was quite wild.

2. We - the hardcore FT faithful - are dying off. We can’t sustain this festival anymore. Look at the half empty Albert Hall for RT’s 75th. Having said that, both RT and Fairport retained loyal and appreciative attention on Friday and Saturday. Shoot Out the Lights was fab.

3 Too many poor choices in this year’s line up. As someone has said, too many sound alike blues outfits and not enough idiosyncratic artistes like the wonderful Eddie Reader.

4.  The JC ‘surprise guest’ reveal was the most heart sinking moment at Cropredy I can recall. You could feel the sense of shock and deflation round the field. A truly bad call.

5 But what has become really depressing is the gradual disappearance of all the great and often unexpected musical fusions that the band surprised us with year after year. RT channelling Marvin Gaye with Roy Wood’s horn section…London Wainwright…,Percy with Jerry’s daughter. All gone.

6. And I have no great plan to sort any of this. I don’t think it can be sorted. Night draws in.
We’ve had a good run and been priveliged to enjoy some brilliant music.

7 So- not sure I’ll be there next year. But a better more varied line-up (see Cambridge this year),
a showcase for Sandy’s songs, and the full participation of all surviving FT members would probably do it.

Oh - and no bloody comics!

[hendo (Dave)]

Never posted here before, but am a Cropredy veteran: first time in 1986, and most years since. So - some thoughts after Croppers 2024.

1. A lot of people have rose tinted memories of the 80’s and 90’s. Yes, the field was more hardcore FT and friends familiar and friendly, but the atmosphere was often quite heavy. RT once told me his band were once pelted on stage by local yobboes. It was quite wild.

2. We - the hardcore FT faithful - are dying off. We can’t sustain this festival anymore. Look at the half empty Albert Hall for RT’s 75th. Having said that, both RT and Fairport retained loyal and appreciative attention on Friday and Saturday. Shoot Out the Lights was fab.

3 Too many poor choices in this year’s line up. As someone has said, too many sound alike blues outfits and not enough idiosyncratic artistes like the wonderful Eddie Reader.

4.  The JC ‘surprise guest’ reveal was the most heart sinking moment at Cropredy I can recall. You could feel the sense of shock and deflation round the field. A truly bad call.

5 But what has become really depressing is the gradual disappearance of all the great and often unexpected musical fusions that the band surprised us with year after year. RT channelling Marvin Gaye with Roy Wood’s horn section…London Wainwright…,Percy with Jerry’s daughter. All gone.

6. And I have no great plan to sort any of this. I don’t think it can be sorted. Night draws in.
We’ve had a good run and been priveliged to enjoy some brilliant music.

7 So- not sure I’ll be there next year. But a better more varied line-up (see Cambridge this year),
a showcase for Sandy’s songs, and the full participation of all surviving FT members would probably do it.

Oh - and no bloody comics!

Interesting read ……
Of course Fairports would never say it was ever a folk fest.
It has become a middle of the road fest……

[Dubai Danny]

Of course Fairports would never say it was ever a folk fest.

In the days of the printed newsletters, they absolutely called it a folk festival - someone posted a scan on the Fairporters FB group a few years back that proved it

What's been said above does, I think, underline that "it's the lineup, stupid!", because as has been said time and again, the pool of punters who will turn up just because it's Cropredy and FC is diminishing every year.

Someone who was talking to the ticket sellers says that the sales for this year were somewhere from 9,000 to 11,000, against a maximum of 20,000, so at best it was just over half sold (last year was 15,000). If that's where they ended up after what was apparently a decent walkup on Saturday due to the good weather, it provides some context for where they must have been back in April when Simon's first "use it or lose it" message went out, so it's understandable that they were worried.

[StephenB]

I've so much to say about all this but I'm on the boat home and tired so just a few random thoughts.

imho RT is an absolute genius of a guitarist and a songwriter,but a woeful singer whose singing has spoiled quite a lot of things for me in the past. Ive also heard him in various guises in the past few years so I wasnt as ecstatic as some at him being there - it was.just better than Trevor Horne... can I still.be a Fairport  fan?

Re "Has it not occurred that the thousands who are listening at field 8 and the brase are voting with their feet." I've stayed on F8 for the last 4 or 5 years. I've found most people I chat to are there for the main gig, and in between all the times I've been back to the tent in the day or nght time i dont think I've ever seen more than 100 people engaged with the music and for a lot of the day it seems to be just a handful. So while i think F8 has capitalised very well on a gap in the accommodation side, they have a very long way to go in their dream of it being a serious alternative musically.

Jasper - imo a disastrous marketing concept with a not surprisingly poor outcome. It's good to hear musicians doing stuff from the 70s, but it doesn't quite work with comics.

Fairport's set - far too samey as the last few years now. They have a vast back catalogue of excellent tunes but all we've  heard for the last 3 years is Portmeirion, Bankruptured and Steampunkery. Same with songs, Moonlight and Hiring Fair.
Great to hear Ralph himself doing Red and Gold.

My personal highlights: Duelling Keyboards, Dutch yodelling and stylish gibberish, and those spooky Spooky men (what is it about acts from Oz playing to their biggest crowd in Cropredy at the end of a tour and storming it?)
That's enough for now? before I jump into the "what should they be doing" debate ...

[Andy]

I'm glad Simon announced that the crisis was averted and the festival will be back next year.

I'm not sure he did any such thing. He did say that the festival will return in 2025, shortly after Peggy had been much more cautious in his speech, merely hoping the festival will be back then.

Cancelling the festival would involve invalidating many contracts such that the organising company, Fairport Convention Ltd, would probably have to go bust to do so. I haven't read the details of how other festivals have managed the financials of cancelling (because it hasn't been publicly discussed) but it's an interesting area.

Having said the above, I really want Cropredy to continue. In the programme, Simon says (paraphrasing) that they will do what is needed to ensure it does. How that translates to reality has yet to be made public, or, I suspect, decided.