Godiva/Godiva Fringe 2011

with news that CV One have lost the Ents side of the contract and the City Council taking it back it begs the question what will happen to Godiva Festival next year

I know CV One have their knockers amongst the local music scene due to some dodgy decisions over the past few years and a less than transparent BOTB comp for the chance to play main stage but could it be we have no festival at all next year?

Also puts into doubt the Godiva Fringe event as this was financed by CV One (paid for the venue and supplied a lot of kit from the main site) which is a crying shame as the organisers were looking to expand upon this years event

Do we think the council can put on an event in 2011 which matches this years successful festival? will they even bother? if they do will they involve the local music scene??

If it all goes tits up i'd be happy for the Fringe guys to join forces with another organisation (Keresley/A.N. Other) to make sure we do have a local fest next year.

No Godiva Festival is not a pleasant thought, no fest at all in Cov in 2011 is even worse!

I can tell you I wont be involved in Keresley next year mate.

And this year was my last Keresley too

Shit, I missed the first two Keresley festivals and last years Godiva, now it looks like neither could happen/be the same this year, BALLS!

What! I thought K Fest was a success? Or did not enough people buy tickets?

Shame that just as things look like thier working Cov council take it all back and you can bet its one they'll be looking to cut...well theyve got large salaries and corporate catering to fund you know ;-)
Would be a great shame to see everyones hard work go down the pan...maybe the fringe could become a combined event with keresley??? (not sure of the politics on that one mind)....just a thought

To be fair, compared to a couple of years back the cov scene is dead.
People couldnt give a fuck about local music.

New bands shun the websites because of the bad name they have.. and I have not heard a decent band come out of the city in Months.
I would say that gigs in birmingham and further afield this year are the way forward, there and only two venues locally that I can think of who pull in a crowd.

Its a shame about the festivals as we had a great time playing last year.
But I do think that CV1 have not got a clue about what the people want from their festival.
Hopefully if the decision making on line up goes to a different party they may decide to sack off the godiva competition all together and just let the band who submit the best demmos play.
It would centainly stop a lot of the bickering that has helped kill the scene over the past few years.

How is the new band coming along rig??

it will certainly be interesting to see how the council handle Godiva, or if they will just can it to assist the cost cutting. I'd happily pay up to a tenner to go across the weekend. maybe the council would be more open to a local bands stage? dunno!

apart from the usual suspects who remain good bands i agree mate that there's been little new stuff which has impressed me greatly, Trillionaires show a lot of promise for a brand new band

bands doing ok mate, not really rushing it, had 1st jam last week which was nice, good to get back into a rehearsal room. gigging is at the back of my mind, mostly a studio based project at the minute dude

how about yours? hope alls well man!

its going good mate.. we have done about 4 rehearsals and have about as many songs so lookin good.
and no click track as yet .. ha ha ha

A number of points made here:

1) This year's Keresley was good for punters (apart from the price) and so in a lot of ways it was a success. From an event organisation/management point of view, not so good. Luckily, nothing went wrong. But for me, and I suspect Ciaran too, it was an unnecessarily risky weekend.

People have to realise that these kind of events are simply NOT a case of making a stage, putting some speakers up and inviting some bands.

I still want to do some bigger events, but on my own terms and with the team I know I can trust. Oh, and not for free anymore either - been there done my stint and I'm 5 figures down for it.

2) Fringe/Keresley collaboration - no problem with that, there's certainly no 'political' obstacles to it - I know all the fringe guys and they're all proper good eggs and have totally the right ethos. Don't quite know how the events would work, but a collaboration between the two event teams would be no problem at all.

3) I said earlier that I'm so out of the loop I don't know who's around. But maybe, by the sounds of things, there just ISN'T much new coming out. Or if there is, they're not communicating.

4) Godiva - Frankly, I'm glad to see the back of CVOne's ownership of the Godiva - an incestuous, self-important little boys club, unaccountable to anybody, elected by nobody - a closed shop to anyone but 'mates' - good riddance to bad rubbish. Perhaps there will be a little more honesty and openness now and maybe even some opportunities for involvement.

Just a short retort ref new talent coming out of Cov at the minute...youve not checked out The Kontours yet then??? one to be keeping an eye on for sure
Good on ya Sound foundry more than fair response there mate...the voice of reason and fair play...will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next couple of months i guess. I'll try and pop in before long mate and have a natter

In reference to there being no good new bands in Cov - maybe you should actually go to gigs and watch these bands? Sounds slightly hyprocritical to me.

on the case stan da man

I've been back in the country for just over a month now and have been to three gigs so far. I would have been to more but ran out of money, which meant I missed Idle Playthings. Anyway, what I have seen has been good, bad and downright awful, Trillionaires, Shockparade and The Red List being the good. I don't think it fair to mention the bad and awful but suffice to say one band from Bedworth I will mention because they are young, naive and seemingly like to represent their parents right wing views on stage and didnt have the musical prowess to back up their stupid comments.

Anyway, something I may have already said is that venues let Cov down, I can't really speak to for Warwickshire, but Nunny seems to be doing its fair share at present. I wanted to put on a Christmas gig in the vein of what we did with The Way, but the venue I approached haven't bothered to get back to me to let me know a date or well, anything. And the bands I've asked haven't had the good grace either to let me know if they can do it. Suffice to day I can't be arsed now.

I miss the olden days badly...we're lacking a brilliant music venue big time. I remember when Thursday nights gave you a headache with where to go with the likes of The Cross, Jailhouse, Campbell, Spencer, Colly etc all having gigs on to name but a few. We're lacking three things for me venues, promoters and bands. Where are all the young bands giving us old guys a run for our money?! - with a couple of exceptions of course.

I find it funny that you refer to yourself as an old guy Myke, when I have about 7 years on you and lets not even get into how old John is.

Haha I've been on the scene a decade now though mate! That's all I mean

I'd happily be involved in something with John and the Fringe guys, maybe a few of the old Covstock lot as well.

Not really going to comment on Keresley but I'll say this, I felt like I was going to have a heart attack with the amount of stress caused due to certain people and that's saying quite a lot considering I'm young and relatively healthy!

I would have been the same if it wasn't for my amazing future predicting skills Ciaran haha!

Yeah, pussy!

When I was promoting in venues I heard one of the venue owners I worked for talking to someone else and heard him say "....yeah the live music's doing OK, but that runs itself". And the same attitude seems to be given to organising events.

You know, over the years (and I'm sure Myke will back me up on this) we've learned an awful lot about just what it takes to put on events like Keresley, Covstock and the likes, and to do them properly so that nobody gets hurt, nobody ends up in prison and everybody enjoys a well executed event. So, having done all this sort of thing before, you'd think our experience might count for something. Trouble is, it doesn't. Too many people who HAVEN'T been through the hoops and learned the pitfalls and repercussions, already know everything they need to know about it and consequently you end up with an event which is poorly planned, badly executed and often downright dangerous.

I'm pissed off with it and that's why I say I only want to do events with the team I know I can work with - people who DO know what they're doing and can do it right, who know the risks and pitfalls and know how to deal with them.

That's not meant disrespectfully to anyone else - it's just that we all 'sing from the same hymn sheet', to coin a rotten old cliche, and we don't have to get into arguments with people who don't understand why we don't want to cut corners.

But if somebody wanted to drop a wad of cash on my desk and say "get on with it", I'd do it

And Dan - you should know by now I'm only 27

gotta be honest dude the Fringe was my 1st event of any kind, hadn't even put a gig on prior to that, i thought i did quite well considering i was green and had a complete lack of experience. It made me appreciate the depth you have to go to in the planning and the amount of calories you can use up on the day! but overall the whole thing ran like clockwork and it was an awesome day

there wouldn't be any political obstacles of a combined fringe/k2011, i wasn't suggesting we went that route, the initial post was more of a 'i wonder what 2011 will bring' as cv one were ultimately the ones who made fringe 10 possible and i don't think they will be there to help next year, so for sure the fringe guys will have to look at alternatives

Now this is the type of interesting coversation the forums should be full of...

Keresley/Fringe combination sounds like a winner! I have to say that my band felt immensely priveleged and grateful to be invited to play Keresley Festival - I would hope that no other bands took their place for granted.
Also I remember last summer talk of something like a week long concentration of music events under the same banner. Dunno who came up with it (might've been Rig) but it's a damned good idea, and would stick the 2 fingers up that Godiva seems to richly deserve!
Can I add to this that I'm gladly up for contributing an event of my own, or helping out with others for summer of 2011?

I have to agree on all the points made about Cov venues and the lack of a 'scene prescence' (that doesn't mean there's no scene, just that quite a few are keeping quiet).
There are some decent young bands around (The Kontours for one, who I was impressed with at the Colly recently). Maybe a lot of the 'established' (I didn't call anyone old, how dare I? ) bands are recording or playing further afield?
Still, I have to say that the only bands recently that I've gone out of my way to watch are Idle Playthings, Trillionaires and Shockparade.

Rig wrote:gotta be honest dude the Fringe was my 1st event of any kind, hadn't even put a gig on prior to that, i thought i did quite well considering i was green and had a complete lack of experience. It made me appreciate the depth you have to go to in the planning and the amount of calories you can use up on the day! but overall the whole thing ran like clockwork and it was an awesome day

there wouldn't be any political obstacles of a combined fringe/k2011, i wasn't suggesting we went that route, the initial post was more of a 'i wonder what 2011 will bring' as cv one were ultimately the ones who made fringe 10 possible and i don't think they will be there to help next year, so for sure the fringe guys will have to look at alternatives

Yeah, there's a lot to it that you can't relate to people unless they've done it

I'm happy to get together with people and talk ideas for 2011, but if anything IS going to happen, the initial plans and funding routes need to be looked at NOW. Certainly after November is too late for anything big next summer.