2013 is turning out to be an absolutely blinding festival summer with this year’s Beat-Herder easily head and shoulders ahead of any of the previous 5 I’ve attended. The weather had a good deal to do with this, giving us blazing sunshine throughout, but as always a huge amount of credit has to go to the organisers for giving us new venues to play in and also for listening to punters’ concerns from previous years.

The small hilly field next to the woods which was home to the “Rajazzle” stage last year really didn’t work and so this was returned to camping space and replaced by a much larger and flatter field. Attractions here included the amazing new Chinese “Fortress”, complete with terracotta warriors and also galleries around the main central dance area. The indoor “Maison D’Etre” stage was also new here, together with the relocated “Perfumed Garden”.

The “Snug” at the top of the main arena became a much larger wooden structure and the real ale tent also increased in size with an improved selection of half a dozen or so beers all at a very reasonable, and unchanged from 2012, £3:50 a pint. Apart from a new late night hideaway with an illuminated dancefloor in the woods, the other venues were much as we remembered them from 2012. However the funfair increased in size to include a waltzer and a carousel, which seemed a little incongruous and meant that the excellent “Trailer Trash” venue became slightly isolated. However this was my only and really very minor moan.

The major delays experienced getting into the arena in 2012, due to the wholly unnecessary searching policy with too few security staff to conduct it, was nothing more than a frustrating memory this year. Bag searches were generally restricted to a cursory feel for glass bottles and the number of gate staff were probably doubled, so well done to the organisers for overcoming this issue and keeping queuing to an absolute minimum.

And as far as the entertainment was concerned well what can I say? Nile Rodgers and Jimmy Cliff on the same line-up has to be one of the coups of the summer and for a festival as small and relatively inexpensive (I paid a mere £90 for my early bird ticket) as Beat-Herder to attract artists of this stature only goes to prove that, although the big commercial festivals may be struggling to sell their tickets, Slamboree are absolutely right – “The Festival’s Not Dead!”