Show of Hands, a brand new independent festival focused on ‘jazz, soul and global sounds’, has been announced for the late May Bank Holiday on a farm near Bruton in Somerset. We spoke to Festival Director Alex Lane...

UK Jazz News: You and the team have a lot of experience working on summer festivals, and particularly Glastonbury, right?

Alex Lane: The team has experience from across the festival landscape. It’s a bit of an all-star cast with people from Green Man, Bestival and Boomtown as well as different areas of Glastonbury such as Block9, Shangri-La and The Glade. Getting to work alongside a team with such varied creative experience in building incredible shows has been amazing.

Dele Sosimi. Photo credit: Colin Moody/Show of Hands

UKJN: Why near Bruton? What are the virtues of this site?

AL: I’ve had my eye on Gilcombe Farm for about 5 years. Bruton is a beautiful limestone town surrounded by rolling green hills. It’s about 15 minutes from Glastonbury and is well connected in all directions which makes it a bit of a unicorn location.

Bruton has an incredible musical history, and Gilcombe Farm itself has hosted shows for years. I’ve been in conversations with the owners about bringing Show of Hands there for the past few seasons. Sitting above the town with views all around gives a real sense of possibility. Once I saw it properly, I knew we had to stage the festival there.

UKJN: Are there particular musical experiences you have had that have led to this particular musical focus?

AL: Two stand out. One was bawling my eyes out to Submotion Orchestra at Glastonbury, front and centre in a tent far too small for them – probably around 2015.

The other was watching Ezra Collective at Green Man during a rare sunny spell. Both moments made me realise there are only two or three camping festivals centred on this kind of music and how fun it would be to build something with that specific sound.

UKJN: So many festivals disclose their programme in “waves”? Is the line-up as disclosed final?

AL: Unfortunately it is, for this year at least. Though we’ve already started working on next year’s programme. The response from artists has been huge. We could probably have built three programmes from the interest we had this year alone.

UKJN: What generation (s) are you expecting to attend?

AL: A real mix. Most people seem to fall somewhere between about 25 and 55 – broad, I know! But there’s plenty happening beyond the music, including family activities, so there’s scope for people across generations.

UKJN: How big will it be? How many stages? Is there a maximum attendance?

AL: For the first year there will be three music stages, plus activity, workshop and making spaces. The capacity is 2,500 – I wanted the first edition to feel intimate and exploratory, and then hopefully we can grow it delicately from there.

UKJN: What are the accommodation options?

AL: There’s camping, bell tents and space for live-in vehicles. We’ll also have beautifully restored vintage tents from the 60s and 70s – the kind people remember from old school family camping trips.

UKJN: What’s the best transport option to get to the festival?

AL: It’s actually very well connected. You can drive and park on site, but trains from London take about 1 hour and 20 minutes, and from Bristol around 45 minutes.

UKJN: I keep on seeing hot air balloons in your promotional materials…what’s that about?

AL: Both my parents were hot air balloon pilots, so I grew up going to balloon meets and being surrounded by these incredible, physics-defying globes.

It’s becoming a bit of a dying art in many places, but Somerset and the South West still have a strong ballooning culture, which makes it feel even more special. Being able to bring that into the festival will be spectacular.

Until you’ve stood within burner distance of one, you don’t quite experience the same sense of awe. I’ve yet to see another festival doing it!

Photo credit: Colin Moody/Show of Hands