Latitude Festival 2021

With so many festivals this summer being cancelled, fortunately Latitude Festival, presented by Cinch, returned to Henham Park. With full capacity, it took place on the 22-25th July after joining the third phase of the Event Research Programme as a test event. As Latitude said "restarting festivals is crucially important to the wellbeing of everyone in society" and I was lucky enough to get the chance to go! It felt so surreal yet so normal walking into crowds of people without masks on, with loud music everywhere - the atmosphere was just electric. I had a brief moment of doubt when I first arrived, but pretty quickly it felt as though the pandemic had never happened, and we'd just picked up where we left off!

The highlight for me was Sports Team, who stepped in to replace Alfie Templeman, and performed on The Obelisk Arena. Their set was energetic and fabulous and they have the natural ability to engage and entertain a large crowd from start to finish. Their contrasting methods of stage presence added to their appeal and made me love them even more! It was whilst standing in this crowd and taking it all in that I felt like I was finally home again! Lead vocalist Alex Rice showed no hesitation in how he interacted with the crowd - if anyone needs lessons in swagger, this is your guy! Afterwards, he told me "it made us all feel very human again, best bit was seeing all the other bands, sharing it all with friends. It's good to be back." I knew I missed seeing live music, but I didn't realise how much I missed it until I was there! Only trouble is, now I've fed the addiction I can't wait for more!

As well as the arenas for some of the biggest names in the industry - Wolf Alice, The Chemical Brothers, Bastille and Bombay Bicycle Club all headlining this year, Latitude offers a lot of opportunities for local artists through their work with organisations such as BBC Introducing, Access Creative College and Creative Nation. This gives opportunities for East Anglian performers in the Inbetweeners Area and on The Alcove stage. 

"Even after a year of no live music, emerging talent has thrived off of passion and support from BBC Introducing. What a great platform to offer some of these new artists their first ever live performance. The crowd were amazing and proved the power of supporting new diverse talent across the whole country offers music fans a taste of the direction future music will head to." - Angelle Joseph, BBC Introducing.

Gabby Rivers, a talented local singer/songwriter, was given the opportunity by BBC Introducing to play The Alcove stage on Friday 23rd. She played to a full capacity audience with a queue of people across the bridge trying to get in, and described the feeling as amazing! She says; "I have been going to Latitude since I was 8 years old, so to now be playing alongside some of my favourite artists who inspire me everyday is a dream." 

Access Creative College hosted The Inbetweeners Stage from 11:30-6:00, supporting their students to perform across all of the days of the festival. This gave an opportunity to young people, including myself, to experience performing at such a huge and prestigious event - it's something that I'll remember for a long time. In this same Inbetweeners Area, Creative Nation hosted entertainment and activities, including theatre, music and dance performances, creative writing, news reporting and fashion workshops.   

The band Lovely Boy performed on Access Creative College's Inbetweeners Stage on Saturday, and they told me "we are so grateful for the opportunity that Access gave us and really enjoyed performing on the Inbetweeners stage to a great crowd of people. We're so lucky to have been chosen to play and will remember this day forever. We work so hard as music students and it was so amazing to have our original music heard and listened to."

I spoke to Alexander Gordon-Smith, an author who I came across at the festival with his family. He said; "It was amazing to be back at Latitude! I have been there every single year since it began, and the festival has always been a huge part of our summer - especially since we had our kids. This year it felt like more of a celebration than ever, because of everything we lost last year. It was incredible to see people just being people again - singing, dancing, laughing, playing. For my youngest two daughters, 3 and 5, it was a world they could barely remember, and they were mesmerised by it. It was an emotional experience, both mourning everything we loved and lost in 2020, but also celebrating the boundless energy and optimism of the human spirit. Things aren't quite back to normal, there are scary days ahead, but Latitude this year reminded me of what we're fighting to get back to, and made me hopeful that we can get there. Oh, and I got to see The Chemical Brothers, The Kaiser Chiefs and Grace Calver!" 

The setting was beautiful - the big main arenas, the famous pink sheep minding their own business by the Latitude sign, the waterfront area, and the woods which hosted some secret late night sets - all added to the magical feeling of being in another world away from talk of COVID-19. Finally a quote from Latitude's Instagram page on the importance of these test events taking place - "Crucially, the additional research collected at Latitude will benefit all festivals and live events moving forward."
You can now book tickets for Latitude 2022!