How Towersey Festival Went from Community Get-Together to Beloved Festival in 60 Years

The post How Towersey Festival Went from Community Get-Together to Beloved Festival in 60 Years appeared first on Consequence .

Almost exactly 60 years ago, Denis Manners and Louis Rushby were looking to raise a bit of money to replace, of all things, the town hall toilets in their English village of Towersey. So, like the good community members and music lovers they were, they decided to throw a little event — part party, part concert. Thus, thanks to the simple necessity for indoor plumbing, Towersey Festival was born, and it would go on to have a valuable local legacy.

What started as a humble, one-off project quickly ballooned into an annual fest that would go on to be the setting for six decades’ worth of memories. This year marks Towersey Festival’s 60th anniversary, a remarkable achievement for any event, let alone one as homegrown as this. The celebration will be bittersweet, however, as 2024 will also serve as a last hurrah. After being a yearly home for musicians, comedians, artists, and (most importantly) families, the United Kingdom’s longest-running independent festival is sadly coming to a triumphant end (get tickets here ).

And yet, the conclusion of the festival is far from a purely somber occasion. Sure, it’s deeply unfortunate to see an institution cherished by many shut its doors (just check out their Instagram page for comment after comment lamenting the loss and sharing memories), but Towersey Festival’s legacy stands strong as a shining example of what a community event can accomplish.

Its first incarnation, which took place on August 30th, 1965 (five full years before Glastonbury debuted!), was a Bank Holiday celebration hosted in the founders’ garden. About 100 or so people gathered together for a bit of fanfare, a whole lot of music, and the soon-to-be-trademarked Towersey feeling of togetherness — in other words, it was a smashing success, blowing away the wildest expectations of Manners and Rushby. What choice did they have but to continue the party?

The following year saw the event introduce a third day, bringing in more and more attendees and bigger and bigger stars; future editions would see performers like Eliza Carthy, Richard Thompson, KT Tunstall, The Proclaimers, Roy Bailey (who became Towersey’s official patron artist in 2006), and more take the stage. Expansion continued well into the 1970s and beyond, as Towersey Festival further established its identity as a gathering place for people from all walks of life.

Photo courtesy of Towersey Festival

While the musical performances often leaned in a folky direction, the scope of artists and attractions grew and shifted as the festival matured. Organized dances, poetry readings, and comedians became a staple of each edition, with dedicated programming for children’s activities being introduced in 1980 and “Shooting Roots,” boasting programming specifically for teenagers and young adults, arriving in 2002. Hell, it even inspired the book Towersey Festival: 50 Years in the Making and three live albums: 1969’s Festival at Towersey , Towersey Festival 2015 , and Towersey Festival 2016 .

Each year brought with it new experiments and improvements, be it expanding to a fourth day or hosting public screenings of cartoons like Tom and Jerry . Some experiments, like the Festival Finale singalong (to The Beatles’ “Hey Jude,” of course), the Lantern Parade, and Dress Up Sunday, became beloved yearly traditions.

As a fully independent event, Towersey Festival was able to swiftly adjust and embrace aspects that proved to be a hit with its audience. It was uniquely positioned to adapt to trends and unexpected challenges, always putting the best on-site experience for its dedicated following at the forefront.

“We never rest on our laurels. We don’t stand still and just go, ‘Oh well, this is what we are, so take it or leave it,’” current festival director and Manners’ grandson Joe Heap explained to Festival Insights . “If we’re not selling enough tickets, we go, ‘What are we doing wrong? How can we transition? What’s the offer?’ That flexibility has always been there.”

Towersey has certainly faced its fair share of challenges. The fest has moved sites several times (both due to the demands of growing attendance and land agreements ending), weathered plenty of financial ups and downs, and dealt with the type of acts of God that every live event hopes to avoid, like the 1986 showdown with Hurricane Charley.

Of course, perhaps the festival’s greatest challenge arrived in 2020. The global pandemic decimated countless industries, and the live music space was particularly vulnerable. Towersey was forced to take 2020 off and operate on a much smaller scale in 2021. Its move to the nearby town of Claydon, Buckinghamshire was delayed until 2022. While the festival was able to relatively bounce back in the last two years, like many once rock-solid institutions, it struggled to match its pre-COVID peaks.

Photo courtesy of Towersey Festival

And it’s not just the brief hiatus forced upon the entire live industry that affected Towersey and similar productions (though that certainly didn’t help). The events landscape as a whole has radically shifted in recent years thanks to corporate consolidation, changing economic trends, and a host of new and niche festivals crowding the space.

“One of the big things that’s changed in my time of working festivals, which is 25 years now, is that there used to be so few festivals when I first started working at Towersey, that you could market nationally and people would come from all over the place,” Heap pointed out. “Now everything is much closer, people don’t travel so far and there are a lot more choices.”

Thus, this year’s edition, going down from August 23rd through August 26th, will be Towersey’s last.

“We’re proud of the massive contributions Towersey has made to charities, local causes, tourism, and emerging artists. More importantly, we believe festivals like Towersey are crucial for creating better communities and societies and for finding hope and humanity in an otherwise challenging world,” the festival’s official statement read. “Our thoughts go out to the other 35+ festivals who have already cancelled this year along with our hopes that we can collectively find a way to come back stronger one day… [but] we want you to know – Towersey 2024 will be one hell of a party!”

Indeed, Towersey is set to go out with a bang, throwing an extravaganza to honor its legacy and bring attention to the ongoing struggles facing similar independent, local institutions. Alongside fan favorite traditions and a lineup boasting artists from all six decades of Towersey’s lifespan (led by Billy Bragg and The Staves), new fanfare to celebrate hitting 60 years will also be featured: a 1965-themed dance party, an audio-visual journey through the festival’s history, and much more.

Check out everything that’s going on this year at Towersey’s official website . You can also pick up tickets at Towersey’s site or on viagogo , the world’s leading ticket marketplace, and join thousands of fans in saluting a truly great independent festival. Other than that, all that’s left to say is…

Hey Jude, don’t make it bad.
Take a sad song and make it better.
Remember to let her into your heart,
Then you can start to make it better.

This sponsored post created in partnership with viagogo.

How Towersey Festival Went from Community Get-Together to Beloved Festival in 60 Years
Jonah Krueger