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Homegrown + English Folk Expo

Venue: Various
Town: Bury
Date: 16-18/10/14
Website: http://themet.biz/homegrown/

Although the Summer festival season has ended, there's always one more event on the calendar to which folk fans can look forward. And what an event the Homegrown weekend has started to become. The event is now in its third year and an already stellar bill continues to get better and better, with The Met attracting an established audience from the local area and beyond with a varied programme across three venues in the centre of town, often leaving the public spoilt for choice and reflecting the very best in English folk music. Thirteen different shows utilising the 2 performance spaces in The Met itself, plus the larger capacity Drill Hall and the recently opened Clarence pub, a staggering total of thirty acts scheduled for public performances across the Thursday and Friday evenings plus a full day on Saturday.

Hand in hand with the musical events is the English Folk Expo music industry gathering, which allows The Met and the musical performances across town to showcase the best and exciting new talents of the genre which go some way to spreading the word on what English music has to offer. Whilst being offered the full programme of events which make up the Homegrown part of the weekend, the delegates who attend the English Folk Expo can add a whole host of their own events which make the most of marketing the artists and the music. The main mover behind English Folk Expo is Terry O'Brien of Playpen Music Management & Agency who took some time at the end of the festival to chat about her tireless work to promote traditional English music - more of that can be found here.

Thursday Friday Saturday Interview Gallery

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LIFTING THE LID ON ENGLISH FOLK EXPO
(or 'Selling England By The Pound')

As far as feedback from delegates is concerned she said: "We do get quite extreme things - this weekend someone came up to me and said it had changed their life - people really say these things. I don't know whether they're just being polite because I organise it which is why we have an independent survey going on be email after the event. We don't get access to individual reports from that but they put together a summary of the feedback from delegates which is pretty good, certainly in terms of what they spend which in the end is the thing. What they spend is the thing which will decide if this worked or not and certainly last year they did. This year, just talking to people and seeing who they've booked has been incredible. There's a man called Rudolph Davies who's here from India who looks like he's aiming to take one English artist a month for the next year to India on the back of this. There's no way that would have happened without this. Last year the programmer from the Rainforest Festival in Malaysia booked Blackbeard's Tea Party and they went out there."

As part of the English Folk Expo delegate experience, the delegates also get quite a broad feel of the North West area with a whole programme of events which runs alongside the musical events of Homegrown. - almost becoming an advert for the North West tourist board.

"If you give people a good experience, they'll come back which is what we need, but we want them to have fun and enjoy it which is a big part of the planning. Last year we took them on a steam train trip (the East Lancs Railway) to Ramsbottom and then put music on at two venues there - everything has to have music as part of the package. This year we took them on a boat trip from Salford Quays to a pub and there was some music on there, so we do try and look after them but if they also have a great experience then they'll also book these artists.

Jon Boden had opened the event with a keynote speech to delegates. When he played at The Met recently with The Remnant Kings, the show didn't end with the gig as the band had a singing session in the bar afterwards. It's the type of scene which gave rise and encouragement to a band like The Young 'Uns started and was the focus of Jon's speech.

"He was talking about getting back to social singing. Obviously this event is all about professional musicians, but he was trying to say that's wonderful and the professionalization of folk music is great for the artists to make a living because they get to do what they love but he didn't want us to lose sight of the social singing side of it and he gave a fantastic speech about it which was really inspiring. A lot of festival organisers in particular seemed to get a lot out of that and reviewing how that might fit within their festival so that was fantastic. All that social singing side of things hasn't been ignored in English Folk Expo either. This year we brought in Ian Stephenson (from Kan and others) who oversaw the running of the music in the bar but he also facilitated all the session, so after the gigs we put music in the hotel - we just pack in as much music as we possibly pack in, so until one o'clock in the morning we have music from showcasing artists, after which the PA gets switched off and with Ian's help we had session going on until 4 or 5 in the morning every night and the final night was a singing session because The Young 'Uns were the last showcasing artist and it was absolutely amazing."

It's something Bellowhead are looking to do on their November tour in 2014 in also helping to promote their' Revial' ale. Paul Sartin has commented that "pub session are the lifeblood of the English traditional scene; they are both a breeding ground for new talent and part of vibrant community culture."

"It's been a big thing for Jon and something that he feels very strongly about. It's a big thing for him and I agree with him. It's great to see a great slick band doing a great arrangement of a song but it's really amazing to see a rough version sung by 300 people over a pint in a bar. For a lot of young performers there's a the safety of a social singing session where they get their first enthusiasm for the music before they start to take it onto something more professional."

So what does the future hold?

"We have funding confirmed, thanks to Arts Council England and EFDSS, for 2015 and 2016 so there will be two more of these events at least and I'll certainly be going back to look if they'll do some more after that so at the moment we're secure for 2 years. It's a whole year's work from myself and my amazing colleague Tom Besford with whom I couldn't do this without - we work all year on it and it's very meticulously planned but a lot of work to do but it's wonderful when it comes together."

What came across from chatting to Terry was the immense amount of work that not only goes into the logistics of the musical organisation of the weekend's events which the public see and appreciate, but also the things which the public don't see. The whole English Folk Expo event is another massive undertaking but one done with a drive and passion that pervades into the event which has become a significant attraction in the folk music calendar.

Words & Picture:Mike Ainscoe