I was hugely disappointed when the phone rang at about 6.45 pm yesterday evening to tell me not to bother turning up for this brilliant festival.
The festival site, just off the A303 near Yeovil, was completely under water and it was still raining heavily at the end of the first of the festival’s four days with more rain forecast.
I was just serving up dinner for the family when the call came in with a request to notify as many media as possible.
Having just missed most of the early evening news bulletins, we could see bigger problems ahead if thousands more festival goers continued arriving just as the evacuation procedure kicked in.
However, thanks to the co-operation of newsdesks, we were able to get the message out via mid-evening and late evening television news and radio broadcasts telling people not to bother going – including a mentions on the BBC 10 o’clock news and BBC News 24.
We were indebted to the BBC’s Clinton Rogers – an old friend of mine - who, despite being on holiday with his family and tucking into a Chinese meal, rang back on his mobile and then put the wheels in motion within the Corporation.
My disappointment was not that I had to eat my dinner cold and alone 45 minutes later, but that I was looking forward to being on site the following morning.
Sunrise is one of those festivals which ageing hippies like me absolutely love, and this year for the first time I was actually going to get a day where I could roam the festival on my own and enjoy it rather than constantly taking calls on the mobile from the journalists who were taking advantage of free tickets for the media – amazing how journalists work on those under-staffed newspapers and radio stations when there’s a festival freebie on offer!
We first became involved with Sunrise early in 2006 when it was still just a plan in somebody’s head and on a computer screen.
Without taking all the credit, we were pleased to be able to lobby the local authorities and local MPs and liaise with the local communities to ensure the festival was granted a licence – which, when I first came on board looked decidedly uncertain.
So successful was the campaign that it became the first festival under the new licensing laws to be given a 24-hour music licence, ushering in a new ear of ethical and sustainable festivals which many have since tried to emulate.
Sunrise is a client where work also becomes brilliant fun, and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our association with it and the crew behind it, despite the difficulties which have been encountered along the way.
We sincerely hope it survives this year’s downpour and can bounce back stronger than ever in 2009.
Our photo is from 2007 and shows the enigmatically-named festival head Sun Bird giving a television news interview on site.