and this from today's London Times:
Festivals

Summertime, and living it up isn't easy

BY ADAM SHERWIN

Star tantrums, overcrowding, queues for the loos... there's very little the experienced promoter can't cope with. But foot-and-mouth? Thats another story

Ask the average nose-studded indie kid about the plight of farmers, and the response would normally be one of surly disinterest. But now the foot-and-mouth epidemic is threatening to wipe out this summer's crop of music festivals and even Marilyn Manson fans are looking anxiously at access restrictions and MAFF slaughter targets. The three-day Bishopstock blues festival in Devon, one of the fastest-growing events in Britain, where Ray Charles was due to headline in May, has become the first major music show to announce a postponement.

The 50,000 dance fans due to attend the Homelands event in Winchester, Hampshire, where Pulp and Orbital are scheduled to appear, may be disappointed. With the site for the festival on agricultural land adjacent to grazing fields, Winchester City Council is reviewing its decision to grant a licence following representations from farmers.

Meetings have taken place regarding the V2001 music festivals at Hylands Park, Chelmsford, and Weston Park, Staffordshire, where bills are currently being finalised. Meanwhile, the promoters of the Reading and Leeds festivals insist that their concerts will continue as normal.

Doubts have also been raised over Scotland's T in the Park in Kinross and the Gatecrasher Sound System at the Turweston Aerodrome in Northamptonshire in June, featuring Craig David.

All this means that the familiar summer sight of mud-clad festivalgoers with steadily worsening hygiene problems could be put on hold by a disease that the music industry knows little about and understands even less.

Million pound losses through cancellations and possible bankruptcy ride on the Government's ability to tackle the epidemic. In Devon, where the disease has hit hard, there was little prospect that the fifth Bishopstock blues festival would escape unscathed. The festival is held at Bishop's Court Palace, near Exeter, and the 6,000 ticket-holders have been told that the August Bank Holiday is the proposed new date.

"We have neighbouring farmers and we are sympathetic," says John Martin, Bishopstock's production manager. "It was a difficult decision but we could not have the vehicular access to hold the show. If we have to disinfect every fan to get the show on in August, we will do that." But Martin must now hope that a painstakingly assembled bill, which includes Ray Charles, Buddy Guy and Taj Mahal, will still be available for August.

Promoters have spent months luring the top names for the fiercely competitive festival season and are loath to see their line-up of star names collapse. With 50,000 tickets already sold at £46 each for the Homelands festival in Winchester, the organisers would face serious losses through cancellation.

In Winchester, Fred Masters, head of the city council's licensing committee, has other considerations regarding a major dance festival. "It's a cause for concern, especially because Homelands could, in effect, cause an outbreak (of foot-and-mouth)," he says. "As the situation stands, I'd expect the local landowning farmer to be strung from the nearest tree if this event goes ahead."

The Mean Fiddler group, organisers of Homelands, sees it differently. "The particular location of the car parks and event fields have not had cattle or animals on for more than five months," says a spokesman. "Access is from a major road which is unlikely to be closed and all cars will go through a disinfecting process. The farmer himself has a quiet confidence that his precautions and the government actions will result in the festival taking place."

At Chelmsford Borough Council, the view is that the V2001 shows, which are rumoured to have signed up The Who and R.E.M. this year, should go ahead although "dogs must be kept on leads".

This could be a challenge for fans of the crusty rockers the Levellers, who can generally be found attached to a mangy canine. With bad timing, the Brighton-based anarcho-band had booked a June tour of English forests which is now under threat.

Ultimately, MAFF has the power to order local authorities to close the site of a concert at any given time, if the ministry feels that there is an undue risk of spreading foot-and-mouth.

The most relieved man in the music industry this summer is Michael Eavis, the dairy farmer whose 400-acre site plays host to the Glastonbury festival. He had, fortunately as it now turns out, already cancelled this year's festival after he was denied a local council safety certificate.

"I would definitely have had to cancel because of foot-and-mouth and that would have cost me a million pounds," says Eavis, whose Worthy Farm in Pilton, Somerset, where 350 cows are currently producing 9,500 litres of milk each day, is only 15 miles away from reported cases of foot-and-mouth. "It is irresponsible to invite people from all over the country when there is a danger they could bring the disease."

But Eavis believes that the outbreak could create a new understanding between urban music fans and their rural neighbours. "There has been a suspicion about farmers and maybe we don't always help ourselves. But the kids love to look at the animals milking when they come here. We need to educate each other a little bit."

To that end, Eavis is currently planning Britain's first Farm Aid concert to help to alleviate the current distress. "I am looking at a September date, after the outbreak has died down, at the Royal Bath and West Showground, near Shepton Mallet," he says. "I am asking the leading performers who would have performed at Glastonbury to help us. It will be to raise awareness as much as fund-raising."

Eavis is hoping that R.E.M. and the veteran Canadian rocker Neil Young will perform. Radiohead are also a possibility but he hopes to counter some reluctance among "cool" British groups to help farmers.

If the summer festivals are wiped out, music fans may have to travel abroad to get their fill of baggy-trousered metal acts and over-priced burgers. Travel companies are offering trips to major continental rock festivals, including the Roskilde event in Denmark, where security arrangements have been stepped up after nine fans were killed in a stampede last year. The tragedy has not prevented Guns N' Roses, Beck and Bob Dylan from signing up.

There could, however, be a benefit from foot-and-mouth to the wider community. The thousands of filthy fans looking forward to a weekend's sliding in mud will be thoroughly disinfected by the end of the summer. Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd.

RtS