The Glade is an electronic dance music festival which originally started out as a stage at Glastonbury Festival. The annual festival takes place in England for three days in the summer and attracted around 16,500 people in 2007. The festival's home for the first four years has been the Wasing Estate, adjoining Aldermaston near Newbury in Berkshire^[1].

The festival secured a five-year licence for the same location in 2008^[2].

The 2008 event, being held on 18-20 July, has undergone some consolidation in the light of "festival fatigue" in the UK festivals market as a whole, caused by a combination of poor weather in the previous year, cheaper festivals in continental Europe and too many UK festivals chasing fewer customers during a period of economic downturn^[3].

This consolidation has taken the form of a reduction in capacity from 15,000 to 12,000 and the loss of some of the additional venues that were added to the 2007 event - namely the Roots Stage, the Algorithm arts space and the Nectar arts/talks space. Some of the art has been moved to others spaces, such as the inSpiral (formerly ID Spiral) chill-out space. However, the organisers have stressed that no advertised performers have been cut from any line-ups, nor are there any plans to do so^[4].

Music policy

The Glade features many acts that are well known in the 'alternative dance' world. Some notable performers include:

• 2004: Mark Broom, Timo Maas, Freq Nasty, 808 State, Dreadzone Soundsystem, Ceephax, Pete bones, The Egg and DJ AFX.^[5]
• 2005: Hallucinogen, The Orb, Dreadzone, Squarepusher, AFX, Layo & Bushwacka! and Sasha, among others.
• 2006 (14-16 July): Autechre, Domestic, Panik, Atomic Pulse, Rinkadink, Alabama 3, Ticon, EVP, Emok, Headroom, Ecliptic, DNOX, Scorb, Dimitri DKN and Liquid Soul, Phil Hartnoll, Plump DJs, A Guy Called Gerald, Kevin Saunderson, Ceephax, Juno Reactor, Layo & Bushwacka!, Banco de Gaia, Gaudi, Coldcut, Celloman, Hybrid, Hellfish & The Producer, Krafty Kuts, Bong-Ra, Dynamic Variable (feat. Lyrical Lips) and DJ Zinc
• 2007 (20-22 July): UNKLE, Andy C, Dreadzone, Richie Hawtin, Trentemøller, Sander Kleinenberg, Hybrid, Krafty Kuts, Plump DJs, Shpongle, Venetian Snares, Derrick May, Squarepusher, Digital Mystikz, Four Tet, X&Trick and Beardyman among others.

History

The festival originated as the Glade Stage at the Glastonbury Festival, becoming a festival in its own right in 2004.

Some festivalgoers in 2005 complained about an increase in petty crime compared to 2004, some of which was attributed to a high level of gatecrashers breaching the perimeter fence. 2006 prompted yet more criticism from some festival goers, after the use of two security companies caused a number of reports of them being heavy-handed.^[6][7]

In 2007 the event was held at the Wasing Estate for the fourth consecutive year, from the 20th to the 22nd of July. The licence application suffered an early setback when it was dismissed on a technicality^[8][9][10]. The licence application then suffered further setbacks^[11] resulting in a delay in tickets going on sale, until on 18th April 2007 the mailing list announced "The Glade Festival is on for 2007... 100% licensed by those wonderful people in power!"

The festival had formerly featured nine main dance tents and stages: Main "Glade" Dance Tent (major artists), Breaksday (UK breakbeat), idSpiral (chillout and non-musical acts), Liquid Connective (psy-trance), Origin (psy-trance), Sancho Panza (house), Pussy Parlure (soul, salsa, R&B, reggae and world), Overkill (formerly the LittleBig tent, featuring breakcore, gabber techno and mash-up) and the Rabbit Hole (acoustic jam tent).

However, the main dance tent was scrapped for the 2007 event and replaced by a new open air stage for predominantly live acts and two smaller tents comprising a techno tent (Vapor) and the Roots Tent, which is themed on the origins of dance music^[12][13]. There was also a new space called the Nectar Temple, comprising visionary and performance arts ^[14].

2007 saw heavy rain that threatened to close the festival, local roads and villages were flooded and closed. The Overkill tent was initially cancelled on the first day of the festival due to the stage being submerged under 2ft of water. However, organiser Ned Overkill described in some detail how the crew dug trenches and built dams to salvage the stage: "Little diggers turned up, water pumps were suddenly sucking all the shit out of our dancefloor, and the soundcrew rebuilt their PA on the stage."^[15]

Sound levels at Glade 2007 were perceived by a number of festivalgoers to be inadequate, particularly in the Overkill tent, due to strict noise regulations in the licensing conditions. The organisers had relied on special Funktion One Ambisonic noise-cancelling technology to enable high volume levels within a restricted soundfield, while complying with the regulations outside of the soundfield. Unfortunately, Glade organiser Nick Ladd said the tent that had been intended to be used for the Overkill had been damaged at an earlier event and the replacement was too small to enable the Ambisonic rigs to be used.^[16]

References

External links

• Glade Festival official site
• Breaksday
• Overkill
• Liquid Records (Liquid Stage)
• Glade Festival photographs from 2004 onwards
• Photographicon (official event photographer)
• Outerfocus (official event photographer)