CREAMFIELDS
It’s been a tricky few years for music festivals but thankfully overall many have proved to be remarkably robust. This despite all the issues they have faced around rising costs and the cost of living crisis, both of which hit hard after the pandemic.
I think this is down to the fact that there is nothing quite like enjoying the unique togetherness that only comes with being in a field, with the sun shining down (hopefully!) and enjoying that real sense of community with 1000s of other music lovers. At a festival you can enjoy loads of amazing music, make great new friends, have the time of your life, and sometimes you might actually be having so much fun that you forget who you came with, where your tent is, and why you really should try and sleep rather than staying up for three days straight (just me?).
In Liverpool we are lucky to have an incredible range of festivals which is constantly being reinvigorated and refreshed by newer arrivals such as So Long Good Friday, Outer Waves, and No Art. But the backbone of our festival season is long-established events such as Africa Oye, Sound City, Baltic Weekender, and of course Creamfields.
The rise and rise of Creamfields is an amazing story. It’s now a four-day celebration of all that’s good in dance music, with huge audiences and more big names than you can shake a handful of glow sticks at. This year’s line-up is the usual staggering array that includes Calvin Harris, Swedish House Mafia, Disclosure, Amelie Lens, Tiësto, Armin van Buuren, Ben Helmsley, my old favourite Carl Cox, as well as local legends CamelPhat.
I was lucky enough to be around at the start of the Creamfields phenomenon so have been able to witness the incredible rise of this cultural giant.
Of course it all began with the legendary Cream nights at Nation in the early 90s when Cream quickly became the biggest club brand in the world. What was so great about this was that Cream was so firmly rooted in Liverpool and it played a major part in changing the perceptions of the city nationally and globally. People travelled from all over the country to come to Cream and quickly realised that there’s nowhere else like Liverpool if you want to party.
The team behind Cream have never stood still and by 1998 they came up with the idea of a dance festival. At the time this seemed really odd—dance music was, you know, all about night time and being inside a dark, sweaty club. Outside in a field, in the fresh air, in the sun—that just seemed bizarre. Who would want to go to that?
For some reason they did the first event in a field in Hampshire but quickly realised the error of their ways and brought it home to Liverpool in 1999, where it has stayed ever since.
The festival took place on the site of the old Liverpool Airfield site in Speke. In those days it was just a one-dayer but they packed an awful lot in!
I loved those early years of Creamfields. It was brilliant being able to have the best of the dance music of the day on your doorstep. It was a wonderful day out with other music lovers who came from all over the country to enjoy what was always a special day.
To be honest my memories of these early days are vague at best. But I do recall performances by huge names like The Pet Shop Boys (a great way to start in year one), Fatboy Slim, Gorillaz and of course the magnificent Carl Cox.
Every year it got better and sometimes weirder with innovations like a five-a-side football tournament and a swimming pool filled with Evian water—in Speke!
I vividly recall the year Massive Attack delivered a stunning set on the new outdoor stage while the sun set over the Mersey. Absolute bliss. The rest of that particular night is a bit of a blur to be fair but I know I had a jolly good time.
Another memory from those Speke days is the hilarity and chaos of the journey home at 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. Someone would suggest that maybe we should think about going home at some point. Tired but happy you would somehow get your weary body onto a bus that would take everybody back to town. On the bus you made a whole bunch of lovely new friends and swapped stories about the highlights of your day and the people you’d met. Sometimes these stories involved friends you’d lost somewhere in a tent several hours ago and never found again but who you were sure were OK.
Town, when you got there on the bus, was beautiful carnage! I was lucky in that I could just get a taxi home when I fell off the bus. However lots of my fellow bus travellers had no choice but to huddle down in Lime Street station waiting for the first train back to wherever they came from.
In 2006 Creamfields moved to its new and permanent home just a bit further down the road to a lovely new site in Daresbury, Cheshire. But essentially nothing changed apart from the line-ups getting even bigger and better.
One of the amazing things about Creamfields is that Scott Barton and the Cream team never just sit back and enjoy their success. They are always looking at how they can do more. There is a real ambition to always keep improving, not just with big names but with better audience experience and bigger productions.
Of course the numbers have got bigger too. 2008 saw the next major change with the expansion into a two-day event because one day just wasn’t big enough any more. Almost a decade later it settled into its now established format of four days over the August Bank Holiday weekend. And for those who don’t want to experience the joys of a bus trip back into Liverpool in the early hours, you can stay on site and camp for the whole long weekend.
A decade ago, still pushing on, Creamfields added Steel Yard to the site. This 20,000-capacity structure became the first of its kind in Europe. Standing 20 metres high, this unique structure redefined festival production and typifies the relentless creative ambition of the festival.
The last couple of years have seen the addition of the lovely outdoor Forest Stage and the emergence of the HALO stage. HALO is an incredible 45-metre-wide circular arena which, with its 360-degree lighting, sound, and visuals, delivers an immersive festival experience which just emphasises why Creamfields isn’t just the original—it’s still the best.
Last year saw another new arrival with the unveiling of Downtown, a dedicated village for campers. It’s a recognition that even though the music is always great, at some point over four days you may want to get away from it all just for a bit. There’s all sorts of stuff there including a sauna and a gym (really not sure what sort of weirdo would want to go to the gym while at a festival but each to their own). If you are one of those trendy bendy people you can do yoga, pilates and all that healthy stuff. Much more fun in my opinion is the fact that the footy is back, alongside a darts tournament and a padel court. Apparently the gym is even bigger this year which, to be honest, makes me a little sad. I just don’t understand what is wrong with young people these days.
No gym or pilates for me. I’ll see you in the fields. Or on the bus.
Kev McManus
