Harrogate Council

We have been to see Harrogate county council about getting a licence. If you have over 500 people on site you need one. If you have less than 500 you can go nuts. The 500 includes everyone not just punters, so we need a licence.

We are aiming at 500 to 1000 punters.

The folks at Harrogate were very helpful. I have a pretty dim view of the public sector since working in Wakefield council for a month on an IT project. One woman got compassionate leave when her cat got cancer (!) and spent 40 minutes watering all the spider plants in the office using a small jar (requiring a mental number of trips back to the tap)

So we had a meeting with 4 council officials. It was constructive, they were lovely and positive and pleased that we had though to go and see them 12 months in advance rather than 12 weeks in advance. They representated Health and Safety, noise pollution and the licencing departments. The sheer number of them did seem to indicate that they were all sitting about waiting for a couple to call to organise a festival. For once I felt that we'd had some value from our £2500 pa council tax bill. Rest assured that whenever you fancy putting on a festival on a whim there is a small army at Harrogate council waiting for your call.

We don't need to worry too much about the licence until early in the new year.

What is the term for someone paying to go to a festival? Punter infers someone paying for sex (or is that just me) Festival go-er is lacking in imagination.