Fundraising festival celebrates 10th anniversary

A Bristol festival, which has raised more than £70,000 for charity, is celebrating its 10th anniversary.

Valley Fest is held at a working farm at Chew Magna and boasts a line-up including Sister Sledge, The Feeling and Sophie Ellis Bextor.

As well as music, the festival includes food tents and a skills workshops alongside Glastonbury icons Arcadia.

The festival's founder believes in a mission of sharing his land with people - something his father once taught him, and puts its longevity down to its fundraising, ethics and partnerships.

The festival was set up in 2014 by farmer Luke Hasell, after his parents died within a short time of each other, and believes his drive to host the event comes from his mother, who he said had "so much energy and a huge love of life".

Speaking to BBC Radio Bristol, Mr Hasell said: "This actually started out as a harvest festival.

"I was left this beautiful plot of land - my dad always said to me as he was driving the combine: 'This is wasted here, son. You need to share this with people'."

Mr Hasell's mission is reflected in his festival's tag line of "Get on my land".

He also uses the event to fund-raise for local charities.

"We want to keep going on that [fund-raising] front, because that means the most to me, to raise money for the cancer charities we've chosen," he said.

This year, Valley Fest will raise funds for Teenage Cancer Trust, as well as homelessness charity BillyChip and local project The Community Farm.

He added the "mind-blowing" Glastonbury Festival has given him a love of live music, adding: "When my parents died, I wanted to raise money, and share that story and build that community around our local area."

The festival also links up with Arcadia, known for their giant fire-spitting spider at Glastonbury Festival.

Last month, Arcadia developed The Dragonfly, made from an old RAF-style helicopter.

Melissa Kidd, the communication manager at the festival said: "The partnership with Arcadia has meant that what they developed is hands-on craft skills, and they develop their own main stages on which they can party - so they wanted to teach these skills that aren't taught in schools in a fun way."

Ms Kidd added the workshops are always oversubscribed, so this year they took the decision to expanded them.

Valley Fest runs between the 1 and 4 August.

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