Greenbelt festival
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Greenbelt festival is an annual Christian festival of arts, faith and justice. Since its start in 1974 Greenbelt has grown from a music event, to which 1500 people came, to seeing crowds of nearly 30,000 with a much broader scope of arts, faith and justice.
The festival regularly attracts the biggest names of Christian music and many mainstream musicians. Those that have played the festival in the past include old rockers, new folksters and soaring pop-stars. This list has encompassed U2, Moby, Cliff Richard, Bruce Cockburn, Steve Taylor, Daniel Amos, Midnight Oil, Over the Rhine, Iona, Amy Grant, Miles Cain, Lamb, dfg, Lambchop, Goldie, Jamelia, After the Fire, Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Asian Dub Foundation, The Polyphonic Spree, Dum Dums, Daniel Bedingfield, Why? and Delirious?. The festival has also featured Christian rock bands aimed at the youth Greenbelters.
Greenbelt is also a venue for teaching and discussion around (but not exclusively) the Christian faith, and has attracted a large number of famous Christian speakers, including Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) who is now the festival's patron. However, it is not just about inviting Christians to speak. The festival welcomes anyone who the organisers believe 'speaks for justice', usually meaning that they are on the political left, and has recently had Anita Roddick, Peter Tatchell, Bill Drummond and Billy Bragg sharing their thoughts. Greenbelt sees itself as having never been shy of tackling controversial issues and providing a 'safe space for honest debate'.
More recently with its links to the NGO Christian Aid, Greenbelt has become heavily involved in campaigns for trade justice. The festival was one of the main catalysts for the huge Jubilee 2000 movement. Greenbelt is also a showcase for performing arts, visual arts and alternative worship, again, not exclusively Christian.
Contents |
[edit] Music Headliners
1979 Friday: Meet Jesus Music. Saturday: After The Fire. Sunday: Cliff Richard. Monday: Bryn Haworth.
1980 Friday: Adrian Snell. Saturday: Famous Names. Sunday: Larry Norman. Monday: Jessy Dixon
1982 Friday: Noel Paul Stookey. Saturday: Bryn Haworth. Sunday: Adrian Snell. Monday: The Barratt Band
1983 Friday: 100% Proof. Saturday: Cliff Richard. Sunday: Jessy Dixon. Monday: Mighty Clouds Of Joy.
1985 Friday: Jerusalem: Saturday: Deniece Williams: Sunday: Philip Bailey. Monday: Steve Taylor.
1988 Sunday: Amy Grant
1996 Sunday: Stephen Curtis Chapman
1998 Friday: All Star United. Saturday: Carleen Anderson. Sunday: Delirious. Monday: Fat and Frantic.
2006 Friday: Martyn Joseph. Saturday: Daniel Bedingfield. Sunday: My Morning Jacket
Greenbelt has been staged at a number of different venues in its history. In 1999 it moved from open green field sites to the more permanent facilities of Cheltenham Racecourse. For various reasons (including a one off move away from its traditional August Bank holiday weekend), it attracted under 5,000 die-hard Greenbelters. However it has grown each year since and in 2004 was attended by over 17,000 people.
When at its Odell Castle and later at its Castle Ashby location, it was well-known for its unsanitary toilet facilities, something which organisers and concert-goers treated as a running joke.
[edit] Festival locations
The first Greenbelt Festival was held on a pig farm just outside the village of Charsfield near Woodbridge, Suffolk over the August 1974 bank holiday weekend. Local fear to the festival in the weeks running up to it proved to be unfounded, but the festival didn't return to the venue.
Between 1975 and 1981 the festival was held in the grounds of Odell Castle in Bedfordshire.
The largest audiences for Greenbelt were during its two-year stay at Knebworth Park in Hertfordshire, 1982 and 1983.
1984 saw Greenbelt move to one of its longest-serving homes, Castle Ashby, Northamptonshire.
Originally the 1992 festival was expected to be held at a new, permanent home on a farm a few miles away in Church Stowe. Greenbelt had finances in place to purchase the site, but met strong resistance from local residents. The plans collapsed and the festival returned to Castle Ashby one last time.
From 1993 to 1998 Greenbelt's home was the grounds of Deene Park, Northamptonshire. Putting the plan to purchase a permanent site on hold, Greenbelt instead negotiated with Deene Park's owner and invested in infrastructure improvements to this temporary site instead.
Following a downturn in audience figures and rising production costs, Greenbelt faced up to the inevitable in 1998: it was no longer financially viable to continue using the Deene Park site. A bold plan was devised. The 1998 festival was pitched as the "last Greenbelt of its kind", with two festivals planned for 1999: a youth-oriented festival "Freestate" in partnership with Spring Harvest to be held the August Bank Holiday weekend in 1999 and a more family-oriented "Greenbelt" to be held over the last weekend in July in 1999 at Cheltenham Racecourse.
In early 1999 plans for Freestate collapsed and its embryonic programme was hastily rolled into the Greenbelt planned for Cheltenham. The 1999 Greenbelt Festival took place at Cheltenham but saw the lowest audiences since the 1970s. It remains the only Greenbelt to not have taken place on an August Bank Holiday weekend.
Greenbelt worked through its financial difficulties and has returned to Cheltenham racecourse with ever-increasing audiences each year since. Today Greenbelt sees audiences comparable in numbers to those of its "glory days" in the early 1980s.
[edit] Festival themes
While at Castle Ashby, Greenbelt begun the practise of naming festivals. Artists are encouraged to draw from the theme where possible.
- 1988 "Fifteen year special"
- 1989 "Art and Soul"
- 1990 "Rumours of Glory"
- 1991 "Wrestling with Angels"
- 1992 "Journeys of the heart"
- 1993 "Field of Dreams"
- 1994 "Roots, Rhythm and Redemption"
- 1995 "Can these dry bones dance?"
- 1996 "Windows on wild heaven"
- 1997 "Divine Comedy"
- 1998 "The last of its kind"
- 1999 "Deeper and Wider"
- 2000 "heaven@earth.com"
- 2001 "Eternal echoes"
- 2002 "Kiss of life"
- 2003 "Diving for pearls"
- 2004 "Freedom bound"
- 2005 "Tree of life"
- 2006 "Redemption Songs"
- 2007 "Heaven in Ordinary"
