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INFORMATION.
General information from the programme
and other festival memorabilia.
The 1969 festival had drawn 12, 000 and there were few problems with logistics. The Bath Chronicle states that the St John's ambulance were initially given warning of 20,000 expected. A week before the festival they were told to revise the estimates to 70,000. The actual attendance was something between 150,000 to 200,000 and it is clear that whatever resources the promoters originally planned for were overwhelmed by the huge crowds. The unexpected crowds also blocked the roads feeding the resources into the festival, so it was virtually impossible to provide extra toilets and other facilities because they just could not be got through to the site itself. It is also likely that the main priority of the organizers was to get bands on and off stage as the festival teetered into lasting three days instead of the planned two. That in itself was a full time job.
Bath organization was still much better than most other rain affected festivals of this era. For a start, it was held at a permanent campsite, so there were roads , water and other permanent fixtures that did not fail because of rain. The grounds did not instantly turn into a quagmire as soon as rain raised its ugly head - as happened when festivals were held in farmers fields. There were adequate tents for the audience to shelter from the worst of the elements and there were films in these tents as well . Food was not too much of a rip-off and there was a fair variety- although queues were so bad that I existed mostly on food I brought with me .
Overall, although medical facilities were apparently fairly dire and the plans to show films on the screens on the side of the stage after the bands had finished never happened, the intentions of the organizers were good and facilities were far better than those of the Isle Of Wight festival - god knows what would have happened if we'd have had the same weather at the IOW as we had at Bath, it would probably have been declared a disaster area.
Audio- visual Records
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The artists
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Reviews, photo collections and general information
Articles
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Recollections |
Photo Collections |
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| 8 mm Film Archive Ross Mortimore's streaming Quicktime movie of the crowd features clear images of the stage PA , Colosseum onstage and bikers with Canned Heat at Bath as a soundtrack provided courtesy of Bob C . Bandwidth and copyright restrictions mean we cant host audio/video so you will have to do with stills at the moment until we can do an alternative stream elsewhere. Please don't bug us to add it , we will do it when we have the time.
External Links to Bath related merchandise ( with which we have NO commerical links whatsoever ) To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the 1970 Bath Festival we have brought out a special commemorative set. Anyone interested can view it on http://www.rockmusic-offer.co.uk/ A
limited edition of reprints of the 1969 and 1970 Bath festival posters
and Freddie Bannisters books on the Bath ,Lincoln 71 and Knebworth festivals
can be bought online from
the link below : Led Zeppelin at Bath photogallery Visit the 1969 Bath Festival pages. |