Home Farm Fest, the charity music festival held in Chilthorne Domer and the biggest annual fundraiser for the charity School in a Bag, has once again smashed its previous year’s fundraising total coming in at just over £72,700 – even if the windy conditions tried its hardest to scupper the music!
Last year’s festival raised £60,000 so the upward trend of raising more each year for School in a Bag continues – and it has now raised a total of over £325,000 in its 12 year history.
This year again a few changes were made to the layout of the festival site, even introducing a sixth main stage, the Anderson Dance Tent, as well as a smaller Busk Stop on the new Village Green area. There was also the introduction of e-ticketing, and one of the most sort after items, the plastic Collector’s Cup – a pint-sized special edition Home Farm Fest 12 cup which allowed for refilling, which had sold out by Saturday lunchtime! These alongside the e-tickets, helped reduce the amount of paper and waste used during the festival.
Once again there was an international football match, England v Scotland World Cup Qualifier, which was shown to an enthusiastic crowd shown on the big screen, the ever-popular Silent Disco was back with the introduction of a children’s one as well which went down very well, and thanks to Steve at Yeovil Press, there was even the first edition of Home Farm Fest Press – a brilliant round-up of what was on including interviews with some of the bands!
With the changes from last year and the growth in popularity of Home Farm Fest, numbers were also higher over the weekend, including the most ever amount of caravans, camper vans and tents! Not only that, but with the seven stages in total, there were 139 different acts on over the weekend – 43 more than last year and a 45% increase on the amount of music and other acts on offer!
Luke Simon, Founder & CEO of School in a Bag and Home Farm Fest organiser, said: “Once again we are bowled over by the festival’s success and how much it has raised! We watched as the ticket orders came in, and surpassed last year’s by a considerable amount. In my role as one of the Poo Patrol team, although it may not seem a glamorous job, it does mean I get to see the whole site regularly, and also chat to festival goers, traders and volunteers alike and the feedback we get each year is just brilliant – I still find it hard to believe just 12 years ago it was one stage with three bands over one evening!”
Zoë Fox, Events & Marketing Manager for School in a Bag and Home Farm Fest Organiser said: “We did have a testing time on the Saturday afternoon with gusts of wind reaching up to 46mph that meant halting proceedings on our main stage for an hour and a half, but thanks to a lot of teamwork, the bands affected being amazing, and the wind finally subsiding, we were back on track!
She adds: “With the festival getting bigger, it means relying on more and more volunteers and we are so lucky to have such a brilliant team who help from setting everything up, being here over the festival weekend and then helping tidy up afterwards. We’re only a small team who run the charity and organise the festival, so we are truly grateful for all the help we receive. We’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who helps, from all the musicians who play for free, the sound engineers and stage managers, Play Art who give up their time to help entertain all the children, the bar staff for pulling more pints than ever before, and the huge number of other volunteers as all this effort amounts to thousands being raised for School in a Bag.”
Planning for Home Farm Fest 13 and it’s hoped that the upward trend will still continue in the forthcoming years. For now though, School in a Bag is able to prosper from the gain and put it towards helping even more children gain an education through its SchoolBag initiative.