Latitude Festival

With no Glastonbury this year, the Mean Fiddler is hoping the gaping hole in the festival calendar can be filled slightly. The tagline is "It's more than just a music festival..."

The Mean Fiddler is responsible for the Reading and Leeds festivals, but this one is only aiming to cater for up to 15,000 punters as opposed to the 150,000 monster that Glastonbury has become.

Lions and Rabbits

The promoters visited the estate in February and moved quickly to get the wheels turning. Henham Park has been looking to stage a big arts event following the success of the revived steam and air shows.

The Honourable Hektor Rous has been given the task of managing the 4,000 acres of land by his father - the "Aussie Earl" Keith Rous, 6th Earl of Stradbroke. He's one of the Earl's 15 or so children - the family motto is "They fight like lions and breed like rabbits!"

Speaking with a laidback Australian accent he gave the press a tour of the site in June "When I came here 2 years ago I realised I had a venue. The estate can't make money as a farm, but this should put the whole area on the map."

"I've been to a great festival in Melbourne called Summer Days and saw Groove Armada there a few years ago. I've never been to a camping festival, but I will be going to Leeds later this year to watch the Australian band Wolfmother. I'm also looking forward to the Royal Court Theatre's performance at Henham and Howard Marks because I've read his book Mr Nice."

"I don't think the festival will be too big - there will be fewer people here than for the steam rally and we don't have any major traffic problems then."

Melvin Benn and Hektor Rous

The Mean Fiddler's chief executive Melvin Benn says they'll start small and hope it grows into a regular summer fixture "We'll be happy with 10,000 people. We don't expect to make money this year, but we're putting the infrastructure in place for the long-term. It's a festival I've had in my mind for a couple of years - music at its heart but also poetry and theatre and a laid back enjoyment of life."

When I questioned Melvin Benn about drugs he seemed surprised that I thought festivals such as Glastonbury had anything to do with illegal activities "I think it's the journalists that think 'drug-crazed music fans' - trying to create a story for themselves. That isn't what festivals are about. I don't know if you've ever been to a festival? It sounds to me like not [I've been to Glastonbury several times - hence the question]. We're creating a very small, intimate festival and I don't anticipate any of the problems that you're suggesting and nor do the police or local council."

The dreaded bogs

And what of the toilets? Usually at festivals a trip to Dante's Inferno is preferable to hovering over the bowl and praying for the best. Melvin Benn says it's all in hand "Toilets are always a problem in the middle of a field, but I'm looking forward to seeing my new toilets installed here. It won't be the tardis-sized thing, it'll be a slightly more open thing." 

Ben Osborne - Noise Of Art

The other tents

The Music and Film tent is being co-ordinated by the the Noise Of Art's Ben Osborne "There's arty contemplative things but we'll be hoping to liven it up in the evenings with techno DJs such as A Man Called Adam and Vector Lovers and film projections. We hope people will be dancing on the ceilings by 3am!"

Norwich band Cord are one of the local acts to appear (on the main music stage) while in the theatre tent Ipswich-based Laughing Lizard will be performing. Louise Graham and Abby Butlin are behind the group "We've just finished performing arts degrees at Suffolk College. It's great that there's something like this on our doorstep. We jumped at the chance to get on the bill."

Laughing Lizard's Louise and Abby

Hektor Rous is confident the weather will be good "I haven't had an event day which hasn't been sunny so far. But it's all in tents anyway. If I have to ferry people around in my landrover I will. I'm not nervous - I can't see anything going wrong. The only problem will be trying to see everything."

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