The Mill Hill Music Festival Starts today - Rog T's Festival Blog

For the next ten days, the Barnet Eye will become the Mill Hill Music Festival Diary, where you will learn all about the trials and tribulations of being a music festival organiser. Normal service will be resumed on Monday week.

So it is here. A year after we started planning it, the Mill Hill Music Festival has finally arrived.
The festival organising committee has had an average of one meeting a month since last September. The first thing was to secure venues for the events, then we booked the bands, drew up the publicity material. We've stood in the rain dishing out leaflets, written press releases for the local papers and plastered Mill Hill with banners. We've organised insurance, ordered the drinks for events, ordered staging etc, booked PA systems, done planning visits to venues and worked out artist requirements. We've ordered buffets for the artists, posted leaflets and tickets, set up a website, facebook page and twitter account. And now after all this planning, last night it all started. And after all that, it is finally here.

Today the festival finally kicks off with The Hendon Band of the Salvation Army at Hartley Hall and The Ron Lewis Partnership at The Adam and Eve (supported by The False Dots - My band, please come up and say Hi_, I will miss the opening concert at the Hartley Hall, as I am running the gig at The Adam and Eve. My involvement with Hartley Hall will be  limited to dropping off the drinks. My wife, who is festival treasurer (it may not surprise regular readers to learn she's the one who is "good with money") has been having the usual sleepless nights that all community festival organisers have. As is usually the case, when we first send out leaflets, there is a rush of tickets, then things slow down. When we reach the actuall week, it all goes crazy. The phone has just gone and Mill Hill Wines need more tickets! We run the festival on a not for profit basis, but we aim to break even and keep money in the bank to pay for the next festivals expenses. We don't get any cash from the council, the vents have to finance the festival expenses, which are considerable. We have had some generous gifts this year to assist.

As a local festival we have no delusions of grandeur, we are not Glastonbury, our mission is to give the residents of our locality the opportunity to see some excellent music on our doorstep. The venues are local and the ticket prices far cheaper than the West End. Some events our free, this year at the Adam and Eve pub. We are grateful for their assistance and support. They pay the bands, my company, Mill Hill Music Complex supplies the sound systems.

So on to tonight. I am really looking forward to it. Firstly as my band are playing, and secondly because the other band are some old friends of mine. The Ron Lewis Partnership are an amazing band, playing top notch Rhythm and Blues in the style of Dr Feelgood and 9 Below Zero.  Checkout there version of Tulane.




Mill Hill's finest, The False Dots will be performing at 8.30pm sharp.



As to how the festival is doing, over the nine days we normally get around 1,500 people attend and we are well on course for that this year. Around half attend the paid, ticketed events, although next Fridays party night with The Foundations will see the crowd determined by the Weather. If its raining, the event will be inside and will be limited to around 150, if it is outside, we expect considerably more.

In just one weeks time, we will have one the Jazz worlds finest saxophonists playing live in Mill Hill with seven of the finest Jazz musicians in England. Make sure you don't miss out as this is one of the hottest tickets in Mill Hill. https://t.co/q00pqs34vg

— Mill Hill Music Fest (@millhillfest) June 13, 2019

Brian Peerless (right)

We are now at the point where the events are breaking even and we are well on the way to covering the costs of the administration (leaflet drops, insurance, piano tuning etc). It is a labour of love. The committee are unpaid. This year, we had a tragedy. One of the long time organisers, Brian Peerless, who organises our Jazz program passed away. This was completely out of the blue and took the wind out of our sails. We are dedicating the festival to the memory of Brian. His great friend, Jazz virtuoso Alan Barnes is doing a special show in honour of Brian on Thursday at The Hall with The Alan Barnes Octet. If you were seeing Alan at Ronnies or The Jazz Cafe, you'd be paying far more, and you'd need to get the train home!

Today will be a day of frantically running around, taking stages and sound equipment to the venues, and all of the other last minute arrangements. I will have a relatively sober time for the next ten days. As there is a lot of driving to do, it will be the odd snatched half of Shandy here and there.

Finally I'd like to say a word about the other music festival in Mill Hill this weekend.

Check out the Mill Hill Summer Festival programme for this weekend - June 15 & 16! Join us for two days of music, entertainment, children's activities, plus food, drinks, crafts and gifts (don't forget Dad on Father's Day!). pic.twitter.com/khIyLcspF4

— Vibe Market (@VibeMarket) June 13, 2019

A few locals have been rather confused to see posters and tweets advertising two completely different events on the same weekend in the same place. The Mill Hill Summer Festival is organised by Vibe Markets in Association with the Mill Hill Neighbourhood Forum. They are having events in the Town Square on Saturday and Sunday, between 1pm and 6pm. This is all free to enter. Osita and Sara who run Vibe Markets have put together an excellent programme and it is worth checking out. Due to the different print schedules and organisations organising the events, it hasn't been possible to jointly market the events. I hope that Vibe get good weather and a good response. The event is designed to get people onto the Broadway and using the new Town Square.

Mill Hill gets a huge lift from the various music events, the more the merrier. Must go now, got a festival to organise.