Each summer the excitement builds as the large tent appears in Romilly Park, and when that tent appears, we know it’s nearly time……GlastonBARRY Tribute Festival is coming to town!
It’s a weekend the team at Value in the Vale very much look forward to, so we decided to catch up with the Events organiser Matt Blumberg to find out more about him, the festival and a little more about the benefits such a large event brings to the local community.
Hi Matt, firstly, thank you so much for choosing to support Value in the Vale for a second year and offering further tickets for the 2024 event. The tickets you offered us last year allowed volunteers and their families to enjoy a fun filled day out which they may not have had the opportunity to do otherwise, especially during the continued cost of living crisis.
Hi, no problem, it’s great to build a relationship with a valuable local organisation and I hope it will encourage more people to volunteer in their local community.
Having run such a successful event for the last 10 years, I assume your background lies within Events Management?
Actually, I was a primary school teacher for 8 years before we started running the events. I’ve always been a keen musician and have gigged in a number of bands since I was in my teens. I had a bit of experience in running small gigs, and I’d played at lots of local festivals, events and gigs, but it was when my cousin Ross returned from working away in 2013 that we decided to take the plunge and put on our own events.
We were both very proud to come from Barry, and both felt that nothing exciting really took place in our home town. He was keen to put on some after dinner events with footballers and had already been in talks with ex Liverpool player Jan Molby. I had an idea to put on a music festival called ‘GlastonBARRY’ but it was just a very vague idea at that point. We decided to team up and have a go, that was how Mack Events started.
We did a couple of after dinner events with famous ex footballers and rugby players to begin with, but as soon as we announced that first GlastonBARRY event, September 2013, we knew we were on to something really special, the response was amazing and the event sold out very quickly.
The festival has grown from strength to strength since then. We had around 600 guests that first year, and in 2023 we welcomed just over 17,000 to Romilly Park over the weekend. Since then I’ve gone back to college, completed a number of different courses and have slowly become more qualified and knowledgeable, but when we first started, to be completely honest, we were both winging it!
Where did the inspiration from GlastonBARRY come from?
I’m not sure where the original idea came from, but I had always joked about putting on an event called GlastonBARRY from the early days of playing as a musician.
When my cousin Ross told me he was thinking of putting on evenings with footballers and starting an events company, I told him about the GlastonBARRY idea and we decided to team up and have a go! We just thought the name was funny and light hearted originally, but I think the name has actually been a big part of our success as people recognise it and talk about it.
Last year was the 10-year anniversary of GlastonBARRY. How much have you seen it change and develop over those ten years?
It has changed dramatically! We’ve been through some amazing highs and lows over the past 10 years!
We never envisaged it getting to where it is today, to be honest at the beginning, we did it for a bit of fun alongside our full time jobs, I was a teacher and Ross was an aeronautical engineer. It was year 2 or 3 that we actually saw potential in doing it full time as a business, left our jobs and became full time event organisers.
Things were going amazingly well until 2019, the business had grown dramatically and I think in 2019 we welcomed around 12,000 guests over the weekend and launched our GlastonBARRY Juniors event, which was also a huge success.
When Covid hit in 2020 it all came to grounding halt and put the whole business in jeopardy. That was a very tough 2 years! We came very close to going under a couple of times, and had some tough decisions to make.
Ross decided to move on during the Covid years, he moved away from Barry and started a new career down in West Wales. I carried on with some of the team we had built up over the past 10 years, but the 2022 event was very difficult, it was my first year without Ross and there were a number of difficulties behind the scenes.
We got through it, but it wasn’t fun! In 2023, I restructured a bit, brought in some trusted friends and family to help, and things went a lot more smoothly again!
Now we’re back on track and looking forward to 2024!
I imagine this has had a great impact on the local economy?
Yes, a lot of local businesses benefit from the event – hotels, guest houses, pubs, restaurants, taxis, cafes are all booked up and do amazingly well, even the hairdressers and make-up artists offer glitter tattoos and hair braiding in the run up to the event.
We’ve had some fantastic feedback from local businesses and by using an economic impact calculator we estimate that the event brought in around £1.8m to the local economy in 2023.
We’ve taken this a step further now, and in Dec 2022 we started COMET CIC (www.cometcic.com) a not for profit, community interest company. We want to create a GlastonBARRY fringe event that benefits a lot more of the local pubs / clubs and music venues as well as encouraging local young people to get into music, and to encourage people to shop local.
We’re in talks for a big project next summer that we’re hoping to announce soon.
When does planning for GlastonBARRY 2024 begin?
It started before the 2023 event took place! It really has become a full time job now, we start looking at sponsors and line-ups before the event this year took place and then aim to get the tickets out immediately after the event. It’s all go from there, it has become a major operation, and we still have a relatively small team doing all the organising so it’s pretty full on!
Running such a successful event must rely on the kindness of volunteers, will you be looking for volunteers for the GlastonBARRY 2024 event?
Yes we always welcome volunteers at our events and now that we’ve partnered up with Value in the Vale, they can claim some rewards for their time – from a free meal, archery, a carwash or a coffee. It’s a great incentive to get involved in a community project and if you are interested in volunteering at one of our events we encourage you to contact us via the website (www.mackevents.com)
What sort of volunteering roles will you be asking people to undertake?
It depends on their expertise and background. In the past we’ve had young students and retirees who are looking for some hands on experience in videography / photography / sound and lighting / stage management. But also the practical things like litter pickers / car park management and stewarding. There’s a wide range of things going over the weekend so we welcome anyone who is interested, I’m sure we can find something to suit you!
Can you remind us how we can purchase tickets for GlastonBARRY 2024?
You can find out all about our events and purchase tickets at www.glastonbarry.com