Our music festival debut!
What a great experience and learning journey: July was very much dominated by our merchandising partnership for our local music festival Chalfest.
Ever since it was founded in 2017, Chalfest has been a huge part of our family life, as residents in Chalford Hill. At that time I never would have dreamt I would one day be designing clothing for it.
I can still remember how I was struck by the magical transformation of our local park into a wonderland, full of happy people enjoying music, festivities, drinks, foods and a whole range of community activities. Chalfest became my world for two days, and then on the Sunday - silence, and empty again. An equally magical transformation. That feeling has stayed with me every year, as the event has grown, the music acts more amazing, and the outfits more daring, regardless of the weather.
I’m aware that the environment can be tougher for smaller festivals, often run by volunteers who are all passionate about putting on an impressive show, but restrained by their size. I was keen to offer more help than just via my sponsorship. Merchandise is capable of being a money earner, in return for providing much-loved Festival wearables and souvenirs for the customers. But it is also exposed to risks with the traditional model of relying on a fully-stocked stall in the event itself. I put a solution to the Chalfest committee and I’m delighted they supported my proposal to offer my business model of only making what we sell, with everything operated via the website and purchases delivered directly to the end customer before or after the event.
This approach also enabled me to prepare and offer a much wider range. From my limited research, I have not found ANY festival in the whole of the UK with as high a ratio of merch choices to its size, than what I have turned around for Chalfest. There are seven collections, one in collaboration with ruthhickson.com to bring the Chalfest Classic design that everyone knows and loves; the other six collections were "xTOPIA Originals" and tapped into the feelings evoked in me by Chalfest and its music; there’s a story behind each one on the website.
We ran a very thorough test of the POS app + payment by phone, though weren't quite prepared for the complete loss of data signal after Dick n' Dom, the biggest crowd puller of the whole event. Fortunately we found willing volunteers on other networks to hotspot us.
In summary it was a very positive experience, great to be a partner for this small independent festival and looking forward to building on that for next year. If you are interested, tickets are available via the Chalfest website here.