Will Baxter, young producer of St Leonards Festival.

Young producers plan St Leonards Festival

Meet Will Baxter, one of the young producers who are responsible for programming this year’s St Leonards Festival. Will grew up in St Leonards and has attended nearly every festival – either as an audience member, on stage or working on one of the stalls. HOT’s Erica Smith asked him why he wanted to get involved behind the scenes this year…

“I’ve been playing acoustic guitar and singing for four or five years now, and I’ve performed at the festival a couple of times already. I also promote indie, acoustic and rock nights at local venues like the Roomz and the Carlisle. When I saw the post on the Festival Facebook page saying they wanted young people to get involved, I thought it would be a good experience to find out more about events management.”

The festival organisers, 18 hours, were very keen to work with a group of young people and get them to plan and programme the performers for the free family day on Saturday 12 July. They worked with local youth organisation, Xtrax, and set up a group of young directors to work together on all aspects of curating and managing the Family Saturday.

The challenge for the young producers was to pick a selection of local and national acts, which would appeal to the whole of the St Leonards community. The producers rose to the challenge and have produced a programme which covers everything from The Bourne Valley male voice choir all the way through to X Factor Diva – Misha B!

Will’s particular task has been to programme the Performance Circle. This is an innovation for the festival – a new performance area which is open to all local artists. I asked Will what his personal highlights for the Performance Circle are. “We’ve got Respond Academy on at 5pm, the Yeah Yeah Party Freedom Drummers, Acoustic Castle and local supergroup The Lennys headline the Performance Circle stage with a half-hour set at 6.30pm.” And Will’s top tip for the main stage? – he breaks into a smile – “The Dub Generals” – the popular local sound system take over the stage after Misha B.

To see the full array of events on the Free Family Saturday, have a look at the online programme.

The festival starts on Friday night, with a series of pop-up seaside songs by Steve le-Squeeze and Rachel McCarron in local restaurants and pubs, plus the Free Saturday – AND Fringe events in local bars on Saturday evening, then the ticketed Opera Garden Party on Sunday.

Also in: One Long Party