Fordhall Beer and Music Festival!!



The bunting clad marquee



The week leading up to the Festival was busy! The breweries delivered their beer and the marquee arrived. Charlotte and Beth went with Geoff Russell to collect the stage and then spent 5 hours putting it up! Josh went to collect white wine from Ludlow Vineyard and the cider from Mahorall’s Farm and Wally (that’s really his name) delivered the red and the rose wine from Wroxeter Vineyard and ticket sales were still coming in!

Saturday soon arrived, the marquee was decked out in lovely bunting (supplied by shareholders and supporters) volunteers set up the bar, Rob set up the car park, the games tent was created and people began to arrive…

Odds & Ends
The first band on was Odds and Ends. They were a musician down, but still managed to play a good set full of Greenday and Beatles covers. Next up were Folkwit, Kelly and Dave swooned the crowd with their beautiful music. Raw Lemon played next with a fantastic mix of double bass and flute combined with lovely voices. Heidi and The Brownies followed, with a wide selection of original pieces. Up next was Blues Boy Dan, it’s hard to believe that the incredible husky voice singing spine-tingling original blues actually belonged to him! The great acoustic trio, Beyond Bangg followed.
 
Dancing in the rain to Buffalo Riot
  Then, the rain came in…but that didn’t faze anyone! The Buffalo Riot took to the stage and whilst many people crammed into the marquee, the hard-core Buffalo fans danced in the rain. 
Smokin’ Aces


Oaken Lee grasped the audience’s attention with original lyrics reminiscent of Paul Simon. Our very own Katy took to the stage with her partner Toby, creating the acoustic Pre Sleep Monologue and took audiences by surprise with her stunning voice. Followed by BabyTwin, who thrilled onlookers with their unique Indie style.

To end the festival was a lively, 1950’s style band, with slicked back hair and 50’s microphones. Smokin’ Aces kicked out some rock ‘n’ roll and had everyone up and dancing to Elvis, Jonny Cash and Chuck Berry. What a fab end to the night! Massive thank you to all our performers! 

Whilst the bands were playing, the beer was flowing. Beer connoisseurs had a choice of 15 different ales from 7 local breweries. Market Drayton brewery Joule’s supported our event with a kind donation of beer and cooling systems for the barrels. Shropshire breweries Wood’s, Three Tuns, Corvedale and Salopian all provided tasty tipples as did Staffordshire breweries Titanic and Lymestone.



Skeleton Emilio and Isis Jess



As always, the volunteers we had were incredible. They were extremely hard working and willing to help out in any way they possibly could. We even had a volunteer from as far as Scotland who came down to support us. They manned the door, organised the car park, ran the bar and served ice cream, face painted, supervised the games tent and litter picked as well as packing up the morning after! Huge thank you to all in our volunteer festival team!



Chilling to the music





THANK YOU!!

Still more thanks needs to go to Ben and Fordhall Farm Catering staff for supplying delicious grub, Adrian from Page Electrical who gave up his Friday afternoon to sort out our power supplies, Wenlock Water for donating bottles of water for our bar, Ago (and team) from Melody Corporation for the marquee, Geoff Russell for giving us the stage and showing us how to put it up! Thanks to the guys at Joule’s Brewery for their support and to Norman from Corvedale Brewery for his kindness and advice. 

Happy crowds and Hen Party!



Last but not least, thank you to all who attended on the day. We hope you enjoyed it as much as we did. See you again next year!!



http://www.fordhallfarm.com