Thursday 19 June 2014

Keep it Up (Swab Geldof)

Following on from the huge success of Sex & Bugs & Rock ‘n Roll in 2013 the BES Roadies returned with our beautiful blue tent to Cheltenham Race course in May for Wychwood 2014. This years' BES Roadies team saw the return of Sarah, Catherine, Iain and Kate, and first-time Roadies Eduardo, John, Matt and Phil.

For the Lancaster-based Roadies, the weekend started with a journey in a moderately packed car with our famous bees safely between Eduardo’s legs (he is the bees knees!). En route we stopped off for a romantic picnic at the picturesque Frankley services before arriving at a rather muddy festival site!

Setting up before the rain hit
Thankfully, we got both the blue tent, located in the new lush Green area of the festival and our ‘palace’ of a sleeping tent up before the monsoon weather set in. Somehow the only things to get wet in the process were the entire contents of John’s bag (oops)!

Luckily, the rain stopped overnight and after a quick run through on Friday morning we were ready to go with our activities, giveaways and busks, including the new posters and ladybird game, alongside the old favourites #poogame, bug hunts, bees and swabbing. We had a great first afternoon in the tent with so many visitors it was a struggle to get out of the tent at the end of the day. Once we managed to get away we went back to the ‘palace’ for a debrief before heading back to the festival site for food, The Real Thing and The Stranglers followed by a bit of Headphone Disco.
Aphid fishing

Over the weekend we had hundreds of keen visitors to our stall to try out the poogame, find out how gross their festival kit is and see our bees. We also had special appearances from La Cucaracha (The Cockroach) and the Ladybird, although it was a little bit too hot to wear these costumes all weekend!

As with last year, we had several regular visits over the weekend from particularly enthusiastic kids who didn’t want to stop bug hunting or chatting about ecology. One boy in particular had to be pulled away from Matt by his parents when we were enjoying dinner on the Saturday evening whilst asking "Are you having dinner in the same place tomorrow?"

Busy times at the stall
A highlight for us was dancing at Craig Charles’ funk and soul DJ set on Sunday, after which Phil and Sarah were lucky enough to meet him backstage! Other highlights included  spending our evenings in the Comedy Tent, especially the audience participation, and Matt’s extraordinary appearance as ‘The Scorpion’. 
With The Boomtown Rats headlining the festival, we were half expecting Sir Bob to rush over to the BES stall, slam his fists on the bee hive bench, and shout “Give us your honey, NOW” (like at Live Aid), Needless to say, he did not, and we didn’t succeed in our attempts to Swab Geldof.

The festival came to an end with an early start on Monday morning before the long journey back up to Lancaster, with us both playing the role of the sleeping children in the back of the car, with Eduardo keeping John company in the front!
Roadies relax at the headphone disco
Clockwise from top left: Eduardo, Iain,
Phil, Kate, Sarah, Catherine


All in all, another great weekend for the BES Roadies!

Post by Phil and Catherine

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