Small Nations Festival History

2002 Music for Madagascar

The Small Nations Music Project had its origin in 2002 when my wife Thelma and I opened up our house and garden to an all-day music event to raise money for a local charity – Money for Madagascar. Having worked for several years with one of that country’s top musicians – Justin Vali – I saw this as an opportunity to bring him to Wales for the day and create a sort of mini-festival. In the event, Justin never arrived, but the day was a success nonetheless and raised £1000 for the charity. (Justin Vali finally got here in 2004)

Martin Levan, the sound designer who had recorded the whole event, was one of the small group (which also included Ruth Stevenson of Pontardawe Festival) who met to look at future possibilities. The inspiration for the name came from a group based in Machynlleth called “Y Rhwydwaith – The Network” who had approached us to see if Justin Vali could play a gig for them. They had the idea of linking Welsh language music with music from other minority language cultures.

The intention then was to perfect the idea of a festival in miniature with a maximum audience of 300 people. However, there were strong objections from one of the neighbours, so the idea was moved to a larger farm site 6 miles away.

First Small Nations Festival 2003

The new site was Glangwenlais Farm, Cilycwm, near Llandovery. The owners, Mair & Tegwyn Davies had already allowed their barn to be used for several large scale musical events including a gig by Dafydd Iwan and the “Cilycwm 2000” pageant. No sooner had we secured their agreement than we found that two prominent members of the local community had also asked to run a festival on the same site at the same time. This was the Welsh language festival which later became “Gwyl Bro Dinefwr – Dinefwr Neighbourhood Festival”. When both sides realised that our aims were similar we held long discussions to see if we could combine the two events, but in the end decided that the potential audiences were too different and that we should co-operate as much as possible but keep them separate.

With a larger site we made the decision to put in place a structure similar to much larger festivals, with professional music spread over 2 days, a camp site, workshops and retail and food stalls.

The programme was ambitious, with headliners Te Vaka from Polynesia and Pape & Cheikh from Senegal, opera singer Byddug James, plus some 11 other acts, and a few workshops and stalls. That year will always be remembered for the power cut. At 9.00pm on Saturday evening, the farm electricity supply burnt out. With no hope of a PA or proper lighting, our compere, Rory Furlong, gathered all the musicians together in the centre of the big barn where the main stage is set up, and led a glorious lamp-lit acoustic jam session, which many of our audience thought the best bit of the festival.

The plan which we drew up in 2002 was for 3 years, and for each year the main focus was ticket sales. We felt that none of our aims could be achieved without good numbers of paying customers, and our aim was to double the numbers each year until we reached 1000. Our benchmark for sales figures was the number of people present at the peak - Saturday evening. This total was always augmented by musicians, stall-holders and stewards - approximately an additional 25%.

For 2003 our target was 350. In the event we had 253. The project thus entered 2004 with a deficit. This position was improved somewhat by a benefit gig in Swansea which was organised by some of our supporters. However, it did mean that we were unable to run other events through the year as we would have wished.

2nd Small Nations Festival 2004

The 2004 festival consolidated our position. Two of the founding committee members left but were replaced by three younger members who are now essential to the delivery of the festival: Jason Haynes, Kari Lucas and Andrew Roberts. The main names on the bill were Yat Kha (who in the end did not appear), Amy Wadge, Eleanor McEvoy and Justin Vali, (who did!) and we secured our electricity supply with a hired generator. (Despite this we still had a brief power cut). To build on the success of our impromptu session in the barn we added a second acoustic stage in a marquee, and had more food and retail stores, more workshops, and a lot more campers

Our target was 500 with a break-even of 400. The final total was a disappointing 364, which meant another (though smaller) loss. Adding in all the non paying participants we had a good 500 people on site and it felt like a proper festival. We were building a reputation as a really friendly event with a great atmosphere.

Cymru a’r Byd – Wales and the World

During the autumn and winter we established a partnership with the organisers of “Gwyl Bro Dinefwr” who are called “Menter Bro Dinefwr”. They are a community development organisation and the body promoting the use of the Welsh language in the Tywi Valley area. Jointly we staged “Cymru a’r Byd – Wales and the World”, a series of 6 Friday night concerts, and one major all-weekend event – a Welsh Learners Week-end. The idea was to bring together audiences for Welsh language music with those for international music. We had some strange combinations (none more so than the young guitar band Mattoidz with Hassan Erraji from Morocco) but the series as a whole was a success.

3rd Small Nations Festival 2005

We began 2005 with a combined deficit of just over £3000, and launched a big marketing campaign to do everything we could to bring the third festival up to our target, which was 800. Our headliners were Kissmet, Soothsayers, Coco Mbassi, Dremmwel, Carolina Herrera and 15 other groups on 3 stages plus DJs, workshops, 3 cafes, 2 bars and 20 retail stalls.

Advance sales were agonizingly slow, and the distribution of our huge pile of leaflets (50,000) was very late. It was not until mid June that we began to feel that we might succeed. In the event we benefited from the hottest week-end of the year, but so strong was the word of mouth in our favour that even a rainy week-end would not have been a disaster. The Saturday peak was 786 paying customers, and there were over 1000 people on the site.

Some Policy Considerations

While commercial considerations took top priority, we were also successful in attracting grant aid, partly because we could be seen to be using public money to further our non-commercial aims. Public funding for the arts is a two-way process. On the one hand a grant giving body is saying "we could give you money to do this". On the other hand the promoter is saying "Would you give us money to do this?" When the process works well, as it has in our case, there is an identity of interest.

This two-way process has led to some subtle changes in policy, mostly it has to be said from our own choices.

The emphasis on the languages of small nations, which was a strong feature of our first year, has changed to an emphasis on playing our part in promoting the Welsh language, and in particular focusing on what we can do to help learners. Our partnership with Menter Bro Dinefwr has successfully conveyed the message to the Welsh language community - "We want you with us". This audience development work will continue to be an important part of our efforts in the coming years.

We began with a determination to cover all kinds of music but our first year's programme, with it's inclusion of classical, folk and traditional music from other nations tended to attract a middle aged audience. This has its advantages – insurance is easier and complaints from neighbours are minimal, but we were determined to offer something which would not only appeal to younger people, but would also help them.

In 2004 we moved more towards mainstream popular music while still keeping a strong traditional element. While there were several acts representing new and experimental music in 2004, this element became more important in 2005 and was combined with a strong push to represent younger audiences with the introduction of the “Digital Futures Stage”. The eccentric DJs "Llwybr Llaethog" featured heavily on our publicity as typifying our emphasis on electronic and Welsh language music.

Fourth Festival: 2006

October 2005 featured two high-flying traditional bands: Teada from Ireland and Crasdant from Wales. For the first time we used the Civic Hall in Llandeilo and the evening went off very well, consolidating our relationship with some of our existing customers and bringing in some new names for our mailing list.

The new year began with our first, and as it turned out last, attempt at a big gig in Swansea. Together with Queens Hall in Narberth we booked Kissmet for the week-end, and they came to us on the Friday night. The venue was the old exam hall behind the Taliesin Arts Centre which was cleared and staffed just for us. About 150 people came and it broke even, but for the amount of effort involved it was hardly worth it. This was the year we applied for a big (for us) grant from the European Social Fund. We were given 10k for a whole series of training events for our staff and punters. We found it difficult to find enough people who were qualified and willing to sign up for free training, and the paperwork was staggering. Some of the events took place before the festival, and one of the most successful of them took place during the festival. This was "In Tuition" run by Heie Gelhaus who took a group of tyro musicians on Friday and turned them into a band who gave a very creditable performance on the main stage on Sunday. In the end though we decided it was not worth all the effort, and is not something we will try for again. We did well for grants in 06, and one of them, a lottery "Awards for All" grant enabled us to offer a free mini-bus service to and from Llandovery, and to inaugurate the "Tywi Tent" a marquee with a bar devoted to local trade stalls and performers. For the first time we devolved responsibility for part of the programming when Gez took on the booking of DJs and live dance acts for the Digital Futures Stage. Despite a near disastrous PA breakdown and pouring rain on the Saturday night, the marquee was heaving with happy sweaty bodies when "Genod Drwg" finished the evening. Highlights of the programme were Buddug Verona James with her opera show "Knife at the Opera", the imposing figure of Senegalese Nuru Kane, two outstanding acts who performed almost free - Mooli and Evi Vine, Justin Vali playing solo acoustic, and a stand off between Mordekkers and the Bisserov Sisters with the punters preferring the high energy pipes + drum and bass from the Mordekkers to the spine-tingling singing of the sisters from Bulgaria.

Fifth Festival: 2007

We ended 2006 in good shape with money in the bank, but 2007 was the year things went wrong for us. It will be remembered with horror by a whole string of festivals as the year of the mud. Glastonbury set the tone with their biggest mudbath yet, but we all consoled ourselves with the knowledge that their spot in the calendar had always been prone to deluge. Then week-end after weekend followed with torrential rain, and the pattern did not let up until late August.

We would have been in trouble though even if the weather had been the usual mix of sun and rain. It was all down to personnel. With not enough new people on the team and another large growth in expenditure we ran into management problems which we were unable to resolve until after the festival.

Two new members of the team, who were not then involved in the management, offered us a free training weekend using filming as part of the training experience. It was great fun, but seeing ourselves on video made use realize how serious our problems were, and at the end emotions ran high.

So on the Thursday before the festival we knew we had sold out, but we also knew we were barely breaking even. We had four stages, bigger and better marquees, bigger and better PA and lighting, the shuttle bus, and a lot less grant money then ever before. We had a record number of camper vans coming - 80, and negotiated a new field for them to park in. Still, enjoying the pre-festival atmosphere, we were optimistic.

Then the rain came. It started at 8.00 am on Friday and continued without a break until midnight. For the organizers it was unrelenting misery, pushing vehicles in, towing vehicles in, shoveling woodchip AND getting all the acts on stage. By some miracle we did get every one in; by a second miracle the rain held off for the next two days, and from the punters point of view, the whole festival went ahead as planned. For us it was an ongoing nightmare - not enough stewards, not enough security, too many gate crashers, too much drug use, and mud mud mud. Then we had to tow most of the cars and vans out again!

We had again sub-contracted the Digital Futures stage, this time to Scott, an expert in dance music who booked a full programme of live bands on both nights - highlights being Omega 66, Subsource and the Anomalies. We'd hired a bigger marquee and bigger PA and, as a dance tent it was fantastic. Unfortunately it was very loud and attracted too many chemical brothers, both of which caused ongoing problems.

We were very pleased to have a team from Radio Cymru broadcasting from the site, wading around in wellies or bin liners talking to the Welsh language artists and punters.

We were also very pleased to have the whole event filmed by our resident film makers Andy and Karen who produced a stunning DVD featuring the stars of 07: Ska Cubano, Eleanor McEvoy, Kanda Bongo Man, Sibrydion and Rise and Doug. Two unknown acoustic acts were highly praised: Guy Buttery, a young guitarist from South Africa, and hurdy gurdy player Marc Egea from Barcelona.

Since then we've been licking our wounds and re-organising so that we can tighten everything up for future years.

a brief history