Wet weather forces new layout at festival site

The event is taking place on Saturday and Sunday, with the team implementing the new site plan in late April after areas of the Rabbit Warren field were rendered unusable.

Festival co-organiser Alex Lock said the timing had been stressful.

‘There’s a lot of red tape involved once a site plan has been sent off and approved so it’s not ideal, but we didn’t really have a choice,’ he said.

‘We’re so used to what the old site was like last year.’

However he added that the decision had not been all negative.

‘We were going to change it for 2024 anyway so it has sort of worked out in our favour.’

A team of about 70 people start on preparations as soon as the last one ends.

Work on setting up the site began last Thursday. It was marked out before fences were put up over the weekend and the festival has continued to be built throughout this week.

Mr Lock said that while the wet weather had presented challenges, things were now looking up for the weekend.

‘It’s been drying up nicely. It’s going to be a bit softer than in 2022 which although makes setting up a bit tougher, it is a lot nicer for people to walk on. The ground was like concrete last year.’

The festival was started in 2021 and this year is being held over two days for the first time.

The main stage, BBC Introducing stage, VIP arena and dance tent make up the four stages, with a mixture of 50 local and non-local acts over the weekend.

‘We started three years ago just because we wanted to put one on and then the idea moved more towards giving local artists and DJ’s a platform,’ said Mr Lock.

‘We’re now incorporating UK tributes and naturally letting the tree grow.’

The festival will open its gates on Saturday at 11am and the music will run until 11pm, with Sunday starting an hour later and finishing an hour earlier.

The festival site is behind the Track at the bottom of Victoria Avenue. About 10% of tickets are still available from guernseytogether.co.uk.