Since it started in 2004, Rob and Josie de Bank’s multi-award winning Bestival, on the Isle of Wight, has worn a green heart on the very sleeve of its fancy dress; something the festival is famous for.
Founding fathers of the Green Festival Alliance, team Bestival is committed to containing the event’s environmental impact, from promoting public transport and car sharing to increasing the use of proven environmental energy. This will be the second year Midas has provided power for the campsites and the Tomorrow’s World zone, ‘A vision of a fun, sustainable, inspirational future’.
“Bestival is a long site and it’s like two parallel sectors with a huge creative zone at the top. It makes for a very complex power contract,” site manager, Christina Von Bonin, says. “It’s too big for a single contractor, so we use one for the arena/the showspace and one for the campsite. We had a solar power company in Tomorrow’s World before and we were keen to maintain that green element.”
Graham MacVoy, Festival Director at Standon Calling, gave Midas the power contract for the Hertfordshire site fours years ago. Impressed with the company’s commitment to 100 per cent bio-diesel and its straight-ahead approach, he brought the Midas touch to Bestival, where he’s part of the site management team.
“We have to meet our budget targets, but we didn’t want to take a step back in terms of the green initiative,” Von Bonin says. “Midas was quickly able to dispel the rumours that ‘bio-diesel doesn’t work’ and ‘the generators clog up’ and while the fuel is a bit more expensive than red diesel, we would certainly like to increase the amount we use, in small steps year on year. It’s easy to work with Midas because its team is flexible, easy to get on with and straight talking.”
Having continued to invest in kit, the company was able to deliver its commitment to an event on the mainland, which opened a couple of weeks before Bestival, and fit in with the tight schedule on the Isle of Wight.
“Effectively, it was two builds in tandem,” Midas director, Dave Noble, explains. “There was a spike in ticket sales very late, so the footprint increased for the campsite and they needed more power. We’ve been scrupulous in our priorities as a business, always putting money into generators, mains and distro, so we were able to deliver in terms of time and quality.
“The production arm at Bestival, like the creative side, is imaginative and forward-thinking, so it’s a real pleasure to be involved and we look forward to helping them keep the green initiatives moving.”
