Devauden Festival Statement
Minutes from the Devauden Community Council Meetings of July and October 2024 show that there were concerns in the aftermath of the 2024 Devauden Festival about stewarding, noise, alcohol sales, sewage disposal and safety. Penallt TUCC Community Councillors asked the TUCC to note these concerns at its December meeting and, as a result, the Clerk was asked to contact the Festival organisers for “assurance over the plans in place to mitigate any impact on local residents”.
The Director of the 2025 Festival to be held at Humble by Nature, Tim Walker, gave a detailed response to the TUCC and has also agreed that the extracts below can be made public:-
“I am one of the directors of the festival which is owned and run by the Devauden Hall charitable incorporated organisation. The Devauden Festival is a family-oriented festival that provides a safe and enjoyable experience for attendees and a professional performance environment for emerging and established artists. It is led, managed and staffed by volunteers, supplemented by professionals such as paramedics, security staff, qualified event electricians, lighting engineers and sound engineers.
I'd like to point out that the leadership of the Devauden Festival has many years' experience in running large events and takes a robust approach to managing risks and any issues that arise and ensuring the safety of all attendees of the festival. We work with Monmouthshire County Council's Event Safety Advisory Group (ESAG), including submitting an event management plan, noise management plan, general risk assessment, fire risk assessment and fire plan for each festival and reviewing these with the ESAG. We also do a post-event review with the ESAG after each festival to capture lessons learned to feed into our future event management. Our event management has been rated as "the gold standard" by the ESAG leadership.
With regard to the minutes of the meeting of the Devauden Community Council (DCC) on 28 July 2024, none of the festival organisers were present and therefore were not able to respond to them at the time.
In response to the concerns raised:
Lack of stewards and cars blocking access to local field and livestock.
We had over 300 volunteers helping run the festival plus a team of professional security staff, who were present 24 hours a day. At no point was there a lack of marshals. We can't patrol all the roads around the festival and we have no legal powers to prevent people parking on the public highway or on private land or moving such vehicles, but we aim to minimise off-site parking by offering free car parking (unlike many other festivals) and we also respond to reports of illegally parked vehicles that we receive.
During the 2024 festival we did receive one report of a car blocking a private drive, and one of the festival directors went to the affected house - where it turned out the car wasn't actually blocking the drive and belonged to another resident on the same road and was not related to the festival. We didn't receive a report of the car blocking the access to a field (in fact the first we heard of it was from reading the July DCC minutes), but would have responded if we had been informed. At the 2025 festival we are also offering free parking and we aim to have a frequent public bus service in place to reduce people driving to the festival - this is subject to negotiation at the moment.
Noise levels were too high after the music licence period of 11pm.
We have a noise management plan for each festival. We take measurements of noise levels and we follow MCC Environmental Health noise guidelines. Our noise management approach includes ensuring all stages are shut down by 11pm (and if necessary we would get our chief electrician to turn off the electricity supply to a stage to enforce this). We are aware that MCC Environmental Health also monitors noise levels and in our review session with them for the 2024 festival they confirmed we did not exceed guideline noise levels after 11pm.
We are also conscious of the noise generated by people leaving the festival, and to minimise disturbance to local residents we route people away from houses and deploy marshals with signs asking people to be quiet. At the 2024 festival we ran a silent disco on Friday and Saturday nights after the stages closed to stagger people leaving and therefore reduce noise levels. Our noise management approach also includes actions such as orienting stages/speakers away from residential areas, monitoring stage sound levels and limiting sound power output in response, shutting down the playground at 9pm, deploying sound barriers and providing a contact phone number for local residents to call if they wish to complain. We received no complaints about noise during the festival and none since - other than this single, unspecific observation recorded at a DCC meeting.
Our noise management approach will be adapted for the new site in 2025, and we have already met with MCC Environmental Health on site to discuss this.
Alcohol was being sold in the grounds. The licence allows alcohol to be consumed in the grounds, but its sale should only be in the hall.
We pay close attention to licence conditions and have always worked within the restrictions written in our premises licence - and confirmed these with our licensing officer.
Note, we are applying for a premises licence for the festival at the new site and this is likely to have different conditions.
Timely removal of human waste tanks after the event.
These tanks were arranged by the farmer who was running the car park and campsite in his field, without authorisation by or consultation with the festival organisers. We provided a large number of toilets and a daily emptying service for the car park and campsite. The farmer had not arranged for the person who supplied them to remove them, and it proved impossible to track down this person. We therefore arranged a professional waste disposal company to remove them. In the meantime, the farmer moved the tanks to the side of the B4293, creating a public hazard, and then moved them again to the village hall grounds without informing us - which further delayed their removal as the waste disposal company could not find them.
Concerns over safety at the music festival, the event didn't feel safe or controlled for both staff and attendees of the event. No process was put in place to record health and safety issues at the event or after.
This comment is consistent with the misrepresentations that are being made by a small group of people about the festival. It is in direct contradiction with the feedback we received in our survey of attendees and our own views of the event. For example, here are two comments we received from attendees in their responses to the attendee survey:
As a first timer it was a lovely atmosphere. We trialled somewhere in 2023 which labelled themselves as family friendly - it really wasn’t, whereas this year with you it was fantastic, relaxed, safe and comfortable.
It was our first festival as a family with young children - and we all really enjoyed it! It felt safe and welcoming and relaxed.
In addition, in the responses to our attendee survey nearly 8 out of 10 visitors gave the festival an overall rating of 5 out of 5 and said they will be coming to the 2025 event.
Various incorrect assertions have been made including that we didn't have someone responsible for health and safety (we did - the Chief Marshal), there was no process for recording accidents (there was, it was run by our first aid provider), and there wasn't a safeguarding policy (there was - and our lost child process was executed successfully several times during the festival, run by our first aid provider in conjunction with the Chief Marshal, and with positive feedback about it in responses to the attendee survey),
We welcome constructive criticism and objective feedback and incorporate lessons learned into our event planning. We gather feedback after every festival from the ESAG, the wider festival management team, volunteers and attendees, including after the 2024 festival. Finally, I have to point out that we had no significant accidents or incidents during the 2024 festival or in any previous festival. At the 2024 festival we had challenging weather conditions on the final day and we took a number of actions to mitigate the risks arising because of the heavy rain, including deploying more marshals to the car park and employing the services of a local farmer and his tractor to help rescue stranded vehicles.
I hope this reassures you about our management of the Devauden Festival.”
Tim Walker
Director, Devauden Festival
