Godiva's What Ever Stage

whats peoples thoughts on the Godiva What Ever stage?

awesome choice of headline acts with The Bentleys and Herbaliser. also great to see some Cov bands mixing it up with the signed acts.

Think this will go someway to appease the Cov Music v CV One issue or is that still a seperate debate?

gotta be seperate as the Gfactor shud be for young local acts imo. but were over the moon to have been invited and feel were worthy of a slot so happy days. and yeh any band would take this chance so dont hate us. x

It's still a separate issue I reckon, but we'll see whether people stick to their guns now or just let it drop - traditionally, the music scene doesn't hold to its principles and this 'buy off' may just work.

And that's what it is - a 'buy off' after some early pressure, NOT the organisers showing pride in and support for the talent of the city they're supposed to be promoting.

It's a sad state of affairs when local musicians have to exert pressure to even get a sniff at playing their own city's festival.

I just wonder what 'joint ventures' with Brum will emerge later down the road and how much 'funding' is involved. Just my suspicious mind but there you go.

Anyway, good for you Shacks and I hope the whole Whatever Stage just goes to show the powers that be what they've turned their backs on (although, if it's a roaring success they'll claim it as 'their triumph' and a complete vindication of their whole approach).

No winning I guess

I spoke to the CVONE guys the other day and put a few ideas forward.
I've known that there would be a good few local bands on for a while so that's why I mainly kept out of the G factor debate.
I don't really see it as a buy off as this has been known for some time.
I think they accept things could have been better this year,guess we all make mistakes though so cut them some slack.

pretty sure no one hates the Shackletons or any other Cov band who made the Inspire stage, fair play i say and any band would jump at the chance.

We met up with CV One too and yeah i agree i think they realise they dropped a fair few bollocks this year regarding Godiva.

We gave them the perspective of a Cov musician, how Godiva is the highlight of the calendar, how hard it is to get gigs in Brum without the promise of numbers, how disappointing that out of town venues were used etc etc

meeting lasted an hour and a half

We also gave a number of proposals and are working with them to try and incorporate more local talent on subsequent godiva's. Obviously we were unaware that Inspire had so many local bands scheduled but even so there's still a good 40 odd more who would love to play to bigger numbers across that weekend.

Finally we are looking at something which can be done this year and we are working with CV One and others to see if it can be incorporated into the Godiva Festival but more news on that as/if it happens.

To be fair Jon, Inspire were given the stage ages ago

Yes and believe me I'm not having a pop at them - well done to them I say.

But this whole 'tender' thing DID come about due to the regularly voiced disappointment about the ditching of the local band tent and the locals' desire to be represented. Yes, that WAS before the 'Brumfest' debacle but I think that's irrelevant. That's the only point I'm making.

Coventry musicians shouldn't have to negotiate their inclusion in their city's own festival.

Anyway, my opinion isn't important really (apart from being a taxpayer) as I'm not really a part of 'the music scene' anymore. I just hope you have a good time of it and fly the flag for cov music that CVOne should have been flying.