The Big Green Gathering - Help this festival survive

The Big Green Gathering is an important festival run by and aimed at people who care deeply about the environment, this isn't about jumping on the rather trendy 'environment' bandwagon as so many have over the past couple of years - this is about a group of people who share a vision and who have consistently and unerringly pushed the spirit and the message out there year after year. It's a very alternative festival attracting more and more to the event year on year. The Big Green Gathering has a long tradition of campaigning on environmental issues in a practical manner - showing quite clearly how things can be improved. How ironic then, when environmental issues have jumped to the fore and the mainstream is begriming to grasp the fact that the environment really matters and that we all share a direct responsibility - The Big Green Gathering should find itself in deep financial difficulty.

The Big Green Gathering Co. Ltd. now has debts exceeding its assets by around £150,000, and will have to declare itself bankrupt unless they can urgently raise at least £100,000 to stay in business. Yet the total 3-year loss suffered by The Big Green Gathering is less than £10 each for everyone who attended this year's event. If The Big Green Gathering can prevent future costs continuing to escalate as they have in the past couple of years, the situation could and should be recoverable - they just need a helping hand to get through the current crisis. Given what these people have done for so many years it doesn't seem to be a lot to ask. On the other hand, if the company goes under, it would probably be impossible to re-start the event without a start-up capital of at least a quarter of a million pounds.

What can you do to help?

The Big Green Gathering is putting on benefit gigs - on Saturday 17th November the first gig kicked off at the Trinity Arts Centre in Bristol - starring that great God of hellfire Arthur Brown. This gig raised over £2,000 - a brilliant start.

There will also be a London fund-raising gig which has now been confirmed. This will take place on December 8th (the night after the Climate Change March) at a brand new venue, Climate of Change, which is in Union Street, London SE1 0LR, very close to the Tate Modern. First line-up details:
Martha Tilston | The Rub | mc Excentral Tempest | Planetman and the Internationalz | Daisy plus DJ's | plus there will be cinema, dancers,fancy dress and much more.

In addition they are also planning another gig in the Glastonbury area,  and have been contacted by supporters keen to organise further gigs in Totnes and Edinburgh.

The Big Green Gathering has also had some pretty impressive donations for auction - either at a benefit gig or on e-bay - donations include a full horoscope reading by Jonathon Cainer - the UK's leading and most accurate astrologer. Navitron have donated a wind turbine and Michael Eavis has donated tickets to the Glastonbury Extravaganza - all this among a host of other desirable goodies - so check it out here - there's some great stuff on offer - will you bid or could you donate?

The Big Green Gathering is for people who care about health, the environment, sustainability, our children's future and life in general. It is a celebration of our natural world and our place within it. As such it is a place for enjoyment, learning and fun. Unhealthy activities are not encouraged. The only things taken in excess should be love, peace, joy, and friendship. The Big Green Gathering matters - and it matters because it represents what's good about our society - the fact that people will get together and work hard for a cause that affects us all - and they do it for no financial reward - that's a rare commodity in today's society and it's one which we should be proud of and support - we shouldn't loose this festival - in a world where the majority of festivals are great big money making corporate events we need our traditional and different festivals as well - we need a little more care - a little more nurturing - and a little more friendship - that's just what The Big Green Gathering gives us - as well as supporting causes that actually matter. Can you have fun, learn stuff, support a cause and come away feeling just a bit better? - hell yes - just check out what the people at The Big Green Gathering have been up to!

This crisis has come about because of stringent new legislation and increased costs imposed because of it - and in the great scheme of things they need very little to get back on track - just a mere £10 from everyone who went this year - how easy would that be?

A bit of history

The first Big Green Gathering grew out of discussions among participants in the Green Fields area of the Glastonbury Festival in 1993, which revealed a demand for a separate and and independently self-managed smaller event with an explicitly Green focus. Originally, the Green Fields area had itself grown out of a series of Green Gatherings held on the Worthy Farm site during the early 1980s, organised by an independent Green Collective.

The last of these original Green Gatherings took place in 1984, by which time many of the Collective members had become involved in the Glastonbury Green Fields.

During the late 1980s and early '90s there were a number of small 'Green Gatherings' - camps for about 300 people - and some of the original Green Gathering spirit also carried on in the Green Fields, but by '93 there was a growing feeling that it was time for the Green Gatherings to be re-established in their own right.

The Big Green Gathering Co. Ltd. was set up during the winter of 1993-4 to fulfil this need, and the first Big Green Gathering took place at Watchfield in South Oxfordshire in July 1994, attended by approximately 1600 adults.In 1995 the event moved to a site at Lower Pertwood Farm on the Wiltshire Downs - one of Britain's largest and most successful organic farms - and grew over four years to its 1998 size of over 7000 - for a full history of The Big Green Gathering click here.

The 2006 event was the first to come under the provisions of the new Licensing Act 2005, which required a licence from Mendip District Council, and meant that the festival was more heavily regulated than ever before. It also had to cope with a new Security Industry Act, which required all security staff to be individually licensed, and both these pieces of legislation combined to push up costs substantially. Nevertheless, the event itself was a huge success, with close to 20,000 people enjoying what many said was the best BGG ever. However, the new conditions have led to The Big Green Gathering crisis as the 2007 event added even more financial pressure on the organisers and significant losses have been made.

The Big Green Gathering is a festival with a message and a mission. Showing that there is another way, another vision, and a host of practical ways to make that vision a reality - I if you leave the Big Green Gathering feeling refreshed and empowered, feeling a little less hopeless, less helpless, less useless, then everyone will have taken at least a small step forward.

Can a festival with such an ethos be left to disappear?

Get all the latest news from The Big Green Gathering website and see how you might help keep this festival alive.