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Power to resurrect Phoenix
By CMU Editorial | Published on Tuesday 5 July 2011
Ah, remember the days when a music magazine’s summer festival preview only needed eight pages – and that was one page per festival? One of those pages would probably have featured the Phoenix Festival, assuming the preview guide was published in the mid-90s. Well, the phoenix will likely rise again from the (air)field next year, because Vince Power is planning on resurrecting the event.
Power created the Phoenix Festival via his original company Mean Fiddler back in 1993. It ran for five years, but then disappeared from the calendar after disappointing ticket sales in 1998.
Power, back in expansive mode having recently floated his new live music company Music Festivals plc, revealed in the programme for his Prince-headlined Hop Farm Festival last weekend that he is planning on resurrecting the Phoenix Festival next summer, in much the same way he revived another of his former fests, Fleadh (albeit rebranded as Feis), in London this year.
In the Hop Farm programme Power says 2012 will be good for relaunching Phoenix given it is a fallow year for the Glastonbury Festival. Whether that means he sees it as a one off event to fill the gap no-Glasto leaves in the festival calendar isn’t clear, though one-off music festivals aren’t really a viable business. No word as yet on location, the 1990s Phoenix Festival was held at Long Marston Airfield near Stratford-upon-Avon.
