Watchet Music Festival organisers Mark and Jackie Bale on running a successful event in Somerset

But the success of the event is the culmination of many years’ work, challenges and lessons learned.

PAUL JONES went to meet the couple behind the event to find out more about running a successful festival...

“WE were told we had to leave the East Quay because it was up for redevelopment.”

The year was 2006 and change was coming to to Watchet Carnival.

Since the late nineties, Mark Bale had been overseeing live music at the event, which ran each July.

But seven years later, he was told the East Quay would no longer be available, so he had to think of what he would do next.

New ground had to, quite literally, be found...

“If we hadn’t left there it would have folded,” he said.

“So, in 2007, we relocated the music festival and really, it’s gone from there.”

“Watchet has always had a carnival,” Mark, who heads up the festival organisation alongside wife Jackie as part of the Watchet Live community group, explains.

“In 1997 the carnival changed hands and they asked me to take part, to get involved and bring music into the carnival weekend.

“So we put some bands on in the East Quay area.

“That was the birth of it.

“But, me not being able to sit still, we just evolved it.

“After six or seven years of that, the music side started to take over the carnival.”

But back to that new ground...

It came in the form of 20 acres at Parsonage Farm, on the outskirts of Watchet, with spectacular views overlooking the town.

So in 2007, the first ‘proper’ Watchet Live Music Festival took place, but despite changes including introducing an admission fee as well as a new site, the pair said they wanted to keep the ethos of a ‘community festival’ at the heart of the event.

“The whole ethos of it is to bring live music and the festival experience to Somerset,” says Jackie. “We wanted to bring music to the town and the area that you can’t usually find here - we’re trying to do something completely different.”

Mark adds: “2010 was the first year of bigger-name acts and The Wurzels are now our official house band.

“Each year we’ve evolved the infrastructure and learnt a lot.

“We’ve always had the vision but have never been afraid to change things.

“Every year, we are only interested in what can be done better.

“It’s learning lessons and adapting where we can.”

After a fallow year in 2017, the organisers were unsure whether it could come back as strong as before.

But their worries were unfounded.

“In truth, we weren’t sure if we would bring it back because we’d achieved all of our goals,” says Mark.

“But the biggest thing for me was to show people we could bring it back, which we’re in the process of doing now.

“And we sold 50 per cent of the tickets in the first week after our first announcement and we knew we were on to something.”

And while the festival may have taken a break, Mark and Jackie did not, with the community ethos of Watchet Live earning the group the highest accolade possible for a voluntary organisation, in the form of a Queen’s Award.

“That was nice,” says Jackie. “We went to the Bath and West Show (to be presented with the award) and they read a citation and I looked around and said, ‘I can’t believe they are talking about us’. It’s the highest award a voluntary group can get.”

Mark continues: “The most important thing is two words we don’t use; funding and facilitators.

“We’re self-financing and we don’t facilitate - we do.

“We do it ourselves - that’s the most important thing.

“We’re not out to make a profit, any money the event makes, we put back in to the community.

“We paid for the Home Alone Christmas dinner one year, for example.

“We’re a bit of a Robin Hood organisation.

“Surveys have been done that show the festival is worth £1 million to the area.”

But it is back with a bang.

The 2018 vintage will see music giants such as Cast, former Spice Girl Mel C, Aswad, Reef and of course, The Wurzels, descend on sleepy Watchet across the August Bank Holiday weekend.

And anything of that size takes some organising, which is where the pair’s extraordinary work ethic comes into play, managing 120 stewards over the weekend, all of whom are volunteers who do it for the love of the event.

“We don’t really realise what we’ve created,” Mark says. “We don’t actually enjoy the festival, we don’t see a fraction of the bands. I’m looking after the infrastructure and Jackie books in the bands and looks after them.”

Jackie says: “Often at festivals, the organisers are out the front, having a drink, but we’re as much hands-on as the crew - the whole team is.

“A lot of people travel to come and help - no one gets paid.

“It’s like a big family.”

Mark adds: “We have got a nice team of volunteers that come from all over to spends a week in Watchet.

“People do come and people go, but so many people have come through,” says Jackie. “A lot of people have stepped up, which is great.”

But what of the future? Will Watchet Music Festival mirror its Somerset counterpart in Glastonbury, eventually marking 30th and 40th anniversaries?

“It’s a bit of a grey area,” says Mark. “A lot of local land is being sold off (for housing).

“While it’s available, we plan to hold it there, but you can’t just pick it up and move it.”

“Our message is to just enjoy it while it’s there,” says Jackie.

But could someone else run it?

“If anyone says ‘I want to do a festival, what advice can you give me,’ I always say ‘don’t do it’,” says Mark.

And Jackie adds: “It’s like having two full-time jobs, this is just a hobby that’s gone wrong.”