And here is all you need to know about The Cloud 9 Festival 2011…..

The Event

After looking at the website I could see that The Cloud 9 Festival is an event not to be missed, so I asked Hannah how the festival came about.

Hannah explained that MARTIN WHEELTON, who is a dairy farmer in Cheshire, identified that dairy farming was declining and wanted to find a way of using his land. He put the event together in 2009 and to his amazement it attracted 800 people. In it’s 2nd year it grew at an overwhelming rate and attracted 2500 people. This is why in December 2010 Martin approached Weareanchor and requested that they take over the management of the event. Hannah Cox from Weareanchor has a huge amount of experience in festival management and has therefore taken on the role as director. Hannah is very proud to be involved in the festivals 3rd year, which will be attracting a crowd of 5000 music loving lovely’s. MARTIN WHEELTON now acts as an key investor and has made the surrounding businesses and local people very proud and no doubt grateful for this well needed influx of people who visit this wonderfully welcoming county every year.

The festival runs a battle of the bands and Popped Culture were very interested to find out how this works and what Hannah thinks of the bands this year?

Hannah described the Cloud 9 ‘Battle of the Bands’ as a unique opportunity to expose unknown bands to an expanding cloud 9 audience. She describes it as great for both sides of the stage, the bands get the exposure they desire and the audience get what they want. It’s a win, win situation, which she is very pleased to be a part of.
Hannah continued to explained that the ‘Battle of the Bands’ starts with an open call, which attracts hundreds of local and regional bands. The bands are then judged by a selected few who are involved in the festival. The chosen bands from this selection process are then published on facebook, where the Cloud 9 audience can choose who they want to see at the festival itself. There is then a final ‘Battle of the Bands’ gig and this year the winning band for Cloud 9 Festival 2011 is SHATTER EFFECT! The 5 band members met on the internet in 2010, arranged a date to meet in the studio and the rest is history. They describe their win as immense and are working on a performance packed with surprises……not to be missed.

Popped Culture are very interested to find out how this event will survive in the competitive music festival market? Does it aspire to be like Glastonbury? And what is the festivals ultimate unique selling point is?

Hannah was firstly very eager to say that although it has been said in the press that Cloud 9 is a mini Glastonbury, they are very keen to keep the festival small and personable to its audience. They are looking into extending the festival over a weekend and although it will naturally grow as the interest in the festival does, Hannah believes that some of the festivals appeal is the audience’s ability to travel there, attend the event and end the night in their own beds, ready for work the next day. Hannah also pointed out that the accessibility to the festival is a key attribute to the festivals success as well as its ability to offer such a wide variety of music and entertainment and still keep the costs low. This therefore creates a combined unique selling point:
Easy access, minimum hassle and low cost
What more could you want from a festival?

The Charity

This year the Cloud 9 Festival will be supporting two Manchester based charity’s called, C.A.L.M (Campaign Against Living Miserably) and Headculture. With so many good causes out there, Popped Culture was curious to find out why Hannah had decided to support these charities rather then any others.

Hannah firstly explained that she felt it was her duty as an event director to ensure a charity is able to benefit from all events she is involved in. Capturing an audience of 5000 people in one place is a unique opportunity and for charities to gain the exposure and support that they may not have been able to get without the event. Hannah and the Cloud 9 team are very proud to be supporting C.A.L.M and Headculture. Hannah was shocked at the facts regarding suicide in young men. When she heard that, “Suicide is the leading cause of death of men aged 15-34 in the UK, with over one thousand young men killing themselves every year”, she knew she had to help.

The Headculture tent and the C.A.L.M stage look to host some fine acts, are the acts involved with the charities outside of the festival?

Hannah explained that members of the charities helped chose the acts who will be performing in their hosted areas. She continued by saying that every single person who is involved in the festival has been given full details of the charities and are all in full support of them. She said, “A large proportion of our performers, including our headliners, are young men and therefore can really relate to the charities and their work. Many young performers are under a huge amount of pressure and it is charities like C.A.L.M and Headculture who these young men can turn to when it all gets too much. The charities are therefore very relevant to this event and we will be doing all we can to support them2.

And finally….
Popped Culture had to ask….if you could have any band support this festival, which one would it be?

Hannah’s reaction: “Oh My Goodness what a question! I thought it might come up and I was only discussing it with a friend the other day. All I can say is we are over the moon with all of the acts we have in place for this festival and couldn’t possibly say anything else!