Isle Of Wight Festival 2013 Review
INTERVIEW WITH JOHN GIDDINGS:
Image: Bobby Mirtalaee photography
John thanks for agreeing to speak to us again! How does it feel after months and months of frantic organisation and intense planning to see everything come to fruition like this? Its just so satisfying to see the ideas - that I had in the dead of winter - arise in the field in the summer months. The best idea was this guy at Christmas I saw and I said can you build me a pulpit? So hes built this wooden pulpit out there in the fields and random people are just getting up and giving speeches from it. You almost dont believe in it happening until you see it happening. You know There are even hot tubs out there I was driving round this morning and there are people in hot tubs having fun. Its just wonderful driving round, seeing the staff working really hard and making all of this happen. You previously said when we spoke last time that this job for you is a continual learning experience. What did you learn from the weather issues in 2012? What did I learn the main thing that parking cars on grass is hard when the ground is soaking and water logged. So I went and bought the farm, I put proper roads into and out of the car park, and there wasnt one queue with people on Thursday when they were arriving because they drove in on a road! What a concept, eh? It was a doddle for us arriving from London via the ferry at Portsmouth on Thursday. Yeah well that helps, being on an island it automatically staggers the arrivals. Four hundred cars, then a gap. Its not continuous. At Glastonbury you can easily be stuck in a twelve hour traffic queue.