The 2023 Bradley Stoke Community Festival looks set to be dramatically scaled down in scope after bumbling councillors failed to secure the services of a professional event organiser.
The hugely popular event, which is held annually over three days in June, usually sees thousands attend a programme that features rock bands, fairground rides, stalls, community group performances and sporting events.
This year’s event is due to take place from Friday 9th June to Sunday 11th June, but its scale and composition are now likely to differ significantly from the traditional format that has become so well established over the past two decades.
Event management
In view of the size of the event, Bradley Stoke Town Council has for many years outsourced its planning and on-the-day staging to a professional event management company.
In recent years, the event has been given a budget of £21,000 plus an additional £4,000 ring-fenced for “community purposes”. This covers the provision of all infrastructure (stages, marquees, sound system, toilets, barriers etc.), performers’ fees, marshals/stewards etc. plus a management fee.
An event planning timeline published by the council shows that organisation of the festival (in its traditional format) needs to begin eleven months in advance, i.e. in the July of the preceding year.
The council’s contract with the previous event management company, Re-Energize, came to an end following the staging of the 2022 event and councillors were informed that the manager of that business was retiring, implying that the business was not interested in retendering.
Lack of bids
A contract specification was agreed at the July 2022 Full Council meeting and tenders were subsequently invited from 14 “local event companies”. However, by September 2022 only one company had replied – saying it was “outside their scope of specialism”. Consequently, the town clerk was asked to speak to other local parish and town councils who organise events “to find out who they use” and also “touch base with the event companies who were invited to tender and ascertain reasons that they did not quote”.
A further two months had expired by the time the matter came back to Full Council in November 2022, when it was reported that the most popular reason given by companies for not tendering was “budget” (presumably meaning insufficient budget). The dialogue with other councils had yielded no further information of substance, other than the fact that two are continuing to use Re-Energize while a third, Patchway Town Council, organises its festival “in-house” for “about £10,000”.
The November meeting also heard that an estimate for a “suggested” three-day festival format had been received from an [unidentified] “freelance event company” – at a net cost of £11,790. The town clerk said this quotation had come “via Patchway Town Council, but not from Patchway Town Council”.
During discussions, Cllr Dayley Lawrence, who is also a councillor in Patchway (and currently their mayor), said there was a feeling in Patchway that “Bradley Stoke has been getting ripped off for years”, in regard to the amount the town council has been paying to a professional event organiser.
The Thai option
To complicate matters further, the chair of council, Cllr Tony Griffiths, also revealed that he was “in discussion with a person who provides Thai festivals” and was awaiting a quotation. However, the minutes record that no decision was made, effectively kicking the can down the road until the next Full Council in two months’ time.
At the January 2023 meeting, Cllr Griffiths advised that he had received an initial quotation for a Thai festival, but unfortunately it had been provided for the wrong date (the coronation weekend in May), so he had gone back to ask for the amended date. He then fumbled with his mobile phone for several minutes trying to discover if a revised quotation had actually been received. Meanwhile the town clerk expressed concern that the community festival weekend was fast approaching and arrangements needed to be put in place very soon, adding: “We don’t have the capacity to organise it ourselves”.
Freelancer selected
Following much discussion, Cllr Lawrence proposed acceptance of the freelance event company’s quotation to organise the 2023 community festival (as per their “suggested” format) and this was agreed by nine votes to two.
Prior to the vote, Cllr Lawrence had been asked by another councillor if the person behind the freelance event company was a friend of his, to which he replied: “No. I know the person because we’ve used them in Patchway.”
Editor’s note: When the Journal later asked Sharon Petela, the Bradley Stoke town clerk, for the name of the “[unidentified] freelance event company” which had been offered the work, this wasn’t initially provided, but we were told: “They are the same people who organise the Patchway Festival and other events in Patchway.”
On further questioning, Ms Petela revealed that the successful bid was submitted by Jack Turner, who is the town clerk in Patchway, so would indeed be very well known to Cllr Lawrence. She added that she understood the “freelance event company” is owned and run by Mr Turner “in his own time”.
Freelancer declines
Unfortunately, the decision made in January 2022 isn’t the end of the saga as the Journal has learned that when the freelance event company was subsequently advised of its successful bid, the organisation replied to say they were now unable to take on the work “due the difficulty in sourcing suppliers etc., as the event is very close now”.
In a written response to an enquiry from the Journal, the town clerk said:
“In light of [the above news], we are intending to organise a scaled-down “Community Weekend” of events for this year in-house, to ensure that the community can come together to celebrate all that is good in Bradley Stoke.”
“We are actively working with local community groups/organisations to facilitate a weekend of community events in the town. A detailed update of what we are hoping to provide, and the community groups we are going to be working with, will be brought to both the Leisure, Youth & Amenities Committee and the Finance Committee meetings on 20th & 22nd February respectively.”
Sporting events
The Journal understands that Bradley Stoke Youth FC still intends to proceed with its usual Schools Football Tournament at the Jubilee Centre on the Saturday of the festival weekend.
Entries for the Bradley Stoke 10k Run, usually held on the Sunday of the festival weekend, are yet to open. A spokesperson for the race organisers, Sole Sisters Running Club, said:
“We are hopeful of being able to host the 10k on the Sunday of the festival weekend as usual. An announcement will be made as soon as this is confirmed.”
ℹ️ For the latest news about the 2023 festival visit the Journal’s dedicated information page: Bradley Stoke Community Festival
Déjà vu
The community festival debacle comes hot on the heels of the fiasco surrounding the town council’s £105,000 Baileys Court play area redeveopment project which was delayed by almost a year – firstly because of hopelessly optimistic project planning, then because the council didn’t realise it had to obtain planning permission for the work, and finally because it then had to make a second planning application due to surveying errors made by the contractor.
The play park finally opened in July 2022, eleven months after the originally planned date.
