A day in Jenny Baker’s Greenbelt
We've asked a few people to share an hour (or more) of their festival experience, whether attending events, spending time with friends, or running around on a mobile phone making things happen. Jenny Baker shares the story of a final day that was considerably more hectic than expected.
Monday morning 10:30am – the Greenbelt staff team gather for coffee and cake, and their daily catch up on how things are going. Normally at this stage of Greenbelt we’d expect a sense of winding down, a chance to relax and experience some of the festival but we’re waiting to hear whether Gil Scott Heron is going to make it or not to headline mainstage. Phones go off, fingernails are bitten, contingency plans thought up – who could we get to perform instead? How do we let people know? What should we do about people who’ve bought day tickets just to hear him? It’s a tense couple of hours.
And then comes the disappointing news that he’s not going to make it – we’re all gutted. Rachel, head of content, gets on the phone. Phil, who’s in charge of communications, thinks up wording for posters and heads over to the box office to brief Peter and his team. They’re doing all the hard work – I’m trying to provide support and not interfere! I go over to the Big Top, where Grace the worship community I’m part of, are setting up for their Be/Do service. It’s looking fab so I wish them well and explain I won’t be able to be there. I buy lunch for one staff member, and make tea for another. I intercept well-meaning, helpful suggestions that have already been thought of. Then there’s a trustees meeting where they’re told, and a meeting for the Ops team where Phil agrees with them how the news will be spread. Rachel is still on the phone, helped by Pippa from the programming group. They’re making progress. Foy Vance is signed up, The King Blues are happy to be bumped up to the top slot, sound-checks are lined up – and everyone can breathe again. Phil prints more posters with the new line-up, and people take them round site with rolls of sticky tape. Tom lets people know on twitter – do we need to do anything else?
Meanwhile Matt is trying to track down John Bell – how do you find a man without a mobile in a crowd of 20,000 people?; Karen’s organising for equipment to get packed up to go into storage for next year; Jo’s making sure that Angels invitations are given out as people leave; Lynne is making essential payments in the finance office and Linda is organising thank you cards for all the volunteers.
I’m left feeling so grateful for our amazing staff team and all the volunteers who come together to make this festival live. With the crisis addressed, I head for the Underground to listen to my son and his band in one of the Fresh Talent slots. And that was my Monday at Greenbelt.
Jenny Baker is vice-chair of trustees and acting festival director of Greenbelt.
