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Eddy Says
Eddy Says: To be the best, sometimes you have to be the worst
By Eddy Temple-Morris | Published on Wednesday 4 August 2010
If you know Eddy, then you know the Secret Garden Party. The two are inextricably entwined. But how? And why? These are questions the answers to which are known only by a select few. Until now, that is.
With this year’s edition of the festival a still chiming memory, and a highlights show ready to hammer that bell again (is this bell analogy working? It was the chiming, see? The chiming memory. Oh, never mind) on this week’s Remix show on Xfm, Eddy casts his mind back to when he first met two men with an idea and a field…
One spring day, the lion’s share of a decade ago, two very nice young men asked if they could come to my home and pitch an idea they had for a festival. It had started as a private party and they wanted it to become public. One of them was from an old Huntingdonshire family, with a beautiful bit of land behind their ancestral home on a working farm, the other was interested in big events and tents and suchlike.
They turned up with a MacBook and we walked to the Regents Canal where they showed me pictures of a big lake, a huge fire with sofas around it. Gleeful, pie-eyed revellers were dancing until daylight to unknown beats… and smiling. Everyone, in every picture, was smiling. This was my kind of crowd. I was sold.
“Please play for us – we love your show and think you’d be perfect for our crowd”, they said. “Groove Armada are headlining”.
They had me at “here’s the first picture”. I had a feeling that a) these two guys were genuinely nice people and that b) they were in this for the right reasons and this was going to be an amazing little festival. They wanted to call it the Caukus Secret Garden Party. They didn’t have much money but said I’d be well looked after and could invite as many friends as I wanted. I told them I was fine with the low fee and thanked them for their generosity.
Some time afterwards, I was approached by an old friend, who was booking acts for a big corporate show. He offered me three times the fee these nice boys had come up with, but I politely declined as I loved the idea of this festival and I’m old fashioned in many ways: a deal is a deal.
As the festival approached, one of the boys, Freddie, the one whose land it was, called me, sounding like all the blood had drained from his body.
“It’s Groove Armada”, he gulped. “They’ve pulled; they were offered a corporate gig that paid them twice as much, so they’ve cancelled us”. The poor boy was clearly heartbroken. “What am I going to do? They were the headliner”.
“Don’t worry”, I reassured him. “You’ve planned what is sure to be a wonderful party, I’ll make some calls and find a worthy replacement for you”.
Of course, the irony was delicious. I’d been offered comparatively even more to play elsewhere but chose to honour my booking. More than that, I felt a connection to Freddie, and to the idea, so I put my thinking cap on. It was so late in the day that nobodywith the weight of Groove Armada would do this; especially at ‘mates rates’.
‘At The River’, I thought to myself. What matches that musically? What’s on all the same Ibiza chill out compilations? Kinobe? Hmmm. Or AMillionSons? They were part of that Nottingham crew, with Crazy Penis and Bent, they’d just had ‘Essential New Tune’ on Pete Tong’s Radio 1 show. Yes, Bent were hot and, more importantly, I was friends with them, I had their numbers. One ecstatic phonecall later and we had headliners, and more, they’d agreed to bring Crazy P with them, too.
I called Fred and told him “I have bad news and good news. The bad news is, I’ve been offered a gig that’s paying me three times what you’ve offered. The good news is, I’m not going anywhere – wild horses wouldn’t keep me away – and I’ve got you a couple of names to replace Groove Armada. Similar ballpark musically, but a fraction of the fee!”
I think it was at that point that Fred anointed me ‘Patron Saint’ of his festival.
At that time, year zero, the Caukus Secret Garden Party was in September. Bestival didn’t exist in those days, and it stood alone at the close of the summer. Where the main stage now stands was the camping field, and what is now Where The Wild Things Are was the ‘main’ stage – little more than a scaffolding platform.
The dance ‘area’ was under an oak tree, with disco balls hanging from the branches, and the booth was in a treehouse (now Feast Of Fools). There were four hay bales around a mudpit (now the enormous Collisillyum) and there were 800, yes, 800 beautiful, smiling people there.
I had THE. TIME. OF. MY. LIFE.
I remember thinking it could never get better than this. I loved it so much, and felt so bad that the organisers had clearly lost a fortune that I gave back my fee (I did that in year two as well. I had such a brilliant time I could not justify adding to the debt).
The nice pair split up, with Tim, the ‘Caukus’ one, going off to start Lovebox, and Freddie becoming ‘Head Gardener’. The Secret Garden Party – as we know and love it – came into being at this point. My good turn earned me the right to invite like minded souls to play the following year, and before I knew it I was hosting a stage and became part of the furniture.
At this point you probably think I’m going to get all wistful and say “those were the days, nothing beats year one…” But you’d be wrong.
What has consistently astonished me is that, hand on heart, every year I think: “THIS is the best year yet, it will never be beaten, we’ve reached the zenith of festival experiences”. But every year, I’m proved wrong. The same thing happened this year. The attention to detail is just staggering. Every nook and cranny of that wonderful site was dressed up, fanciful, colourful, had love put into it.
Freddie’s steadfast refusal to have any logos on site ensures that the festival stays close to its roots, that the spirit of that first year is still there. Everyone who goes maintains it is the best festival out there, and I know this to be true. Not just because my gut tells me, but it’s pretty much a mathematically provable fact: If you take the amount of money you spend on the festival – the production, back end, marketing and talent – add it all up and divide it into the number of people there, you get a ‘per capita spend’. It’s effectively what everybody on site has spent on them by the organisers. The last time we looked at this, our nearest rival spent HALF what we do on our punters.
It’s like El Bulli, the best restaurant in the world. It IS the best restaurant BECAUSE it loses money. So much love and so much time goes into giving the people who go the absolute best experience possible, it is impossible for that restaurant to make money. I know the Secret Garden Party has sold out four years running. I also know I’ve never seen a penny in dividend… it’s ALL put back into the festival, to make sure it remains the best out there.
We refuse to make it bigger, and go down the same route as other former ’boutique’ festivals, because we know this will dilute the experience, literally cheapen it, with every person there having less spent on them. The Secret Garden Party has never been about making money. That is what I saw in Freddie all those years ago. It’s about LOVE. He wanted to put on THE BEST FESTIVAL in the UK. He has. We have. It is.
You can listen to highlights of The Remix Bubble at SGP10, with interviews and music from almost everyone on the bill that weekend, this Friday on The Remix on Xfm.
Don’t miss out next time. I know it will be the best one yet. It ALWAYS is, because we are the worst festival at making money, and long may that continue.
Eddy xx
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