Category: Festival

Social Media Promotion Part of what we do is to promote festivals by using the videos shot on the previous year to enhance sales during the current year 2022 was going to be a difficult year for Wokingham Festival, and all the other festivals, because Covid 19 was rearing its ugly head again, and also people…

Chilfest 2022

Chilfest 2022 2022 is a medium sized 2 day festival that happens on the outskirts of Tring in the grounds of Pendley ManorThe first day features tribute acts, the second day is original artistsIt’s a friendly place with an audience that like dressing up and vendors who serve with a smile The weather was warm…

Festival Promotion – Management

Wokingham Festival Organisers When optimising Festival Promotion, the management of the event can add a different perspective in the minds of the potential attendeesWhat I mean by this is that the Management have a unique perspective about who is going to be performing, and the impact on the local community that cannot be gained using…

Bloodstock 2022 – Lamb of God

Dance Cult 10 We’ve been going to Bloodstock for over 10 years, Bloodstock 2022 was just as great as ever Bloodstock Festival was a game of 2 halves Before 6.30 in the evening – do anything to stay cool and out of the sun – cower in shadows, drink non-alc by the gallon, tell rubbish jokes…

Focus

Focus Focus headlined Wokingham Festival on August Bank Holiday Monday 2022They were amazing!My amazement started when I saw the mighty hammond organ being lifted onto the stage – it is huge and very very heavyFour very strong roadies grunted and groaned as they put it in place with great delicacy and reverence Sound Check –…

Spriggan Mist at Wokingham Festival 2021

Apr 4, 2021

Spriggan Mist Spriggan Mist are a Pagan band from Bracknell, UK. Formed by husband and wife Baz and Maxine Cilia in 2008, their music generally stems from folk rock but they are much more diverse than that, often extending into classic and progressive rock. Their live shows are quite theatrical, enhanced by Pagan costumes and the…

Rokefest

Rokefest 2019 – a great local celebration with fantastic people, music food and drink Rokefest is a lovely local, well-attended mini-festival. I’ve noticed a strong trend over the last 10 years to localise festivals and music events. In the same way that traditional restaurants are having a hard time, and are being replaced by “pop-up”…

Whitestar Records at Wokingham Festival

Wokingham festival was a great showcase for many of our acts Chris Hillman Serial entrepreneur, Chris Hillman, owns and manages a number of record labels As a long term friend of the main organiser of Wokingham Festival, Chris suggested to Stan Heatherington that the festival should be increased by a day, and that his acts…

Pennfest People

Pennfest fun Pennfest is full of happy peopleThe music is varied enough to attract many age ranges, but is mainly aimed at 18 to 40 year olds with acts that range from 80’s revival acts right up to current chart toppers What is great is that regardless of age of musical taste, the attendees get…

Wokingham Festival 2020 Publicity

Just for fun – and then a reminder of how great the festival is In line with every other major festival this year, Wokingham festival has been postponed to 2021, however, we decided that we would still do wokingham festival 2020 publicity to keep the event live in people’s minds To keep the spirit of the…

Wokingham Virtual festival 2020 acts

Remembering all the great acts at Wokingham Festival In line with every other major festival this year, Wokingham festival has been postponed to 2021 To keep the spirit of the festival alive, a live stream – the Wokingham virtual festival 2020 acts – published over the 3 days of the August bank holiday was created by…

Lockdown Festival Video Production

This really kept our festival fresh in people’s minds Chris Hillman – Organizer I started the year with 17 contracts for festival coverage. These included individual performance videos shot as live performance videos, or as band interviews after their performances, as well as full event promotion videos for the festivals themselves They all got…

Lockdown – Live Performance Videos

Stay in your fans minds Keeping yourself in your fan’s mind when all festivals, clubs and even pubs don’t allow live performances is difficult The concept of the multi-location “Home performances” never really worked – the technology made them difficult – and put bluntly, nearly all of them were, at best, amateurish, and boring So,…

Pure Acts – SOS – MRB

Pure Acts are the best Abba Tribute act that I have seen. As the organiser of Marlow Rock Bottom, I have numerous requests to get them back on the line up Richard Moss – MRB Organise Pure Acts are an Abba tribute band who have been performing for over 20 years, and have supported such…

Totally Blondie

An outstanding tribute band Totally Blondie have rapidly gained a reputation as the best Blondie tribute band in the UK!Blondie were one of the most iconic bands of the 70’s & 80’s, with posters of Debbie Harry adorning most teenagers’ walls, and they’ve continued turning out hits and great music right up to 2017’s Pollinator…

Rugfest 2019 – Promotion and Performance videos

Rugfest 2019 The Organisers of Rugfest have been increasing the impact of the event over recent years. It started as a 1 1/2 day event and is now 3 days full of fun and music This year they added in a friday dedicated to The Blues which attracted an enthusiastic audience, whilst keeping the Saturday and Sunday…

The Average Chalky White Band at Wokingham Festival

The Average Chalky White Band is affiliated with Wokingham Music Club – it’s organised by the same person Stan Heatherington One of the first bands that played at the club was The Average Chalky White Band, and have remained firm club fan favourites ever since Here they are playing Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” GigshotZ were commisioned to video them…

Tha I ban – Flutatious

Butcher’s Arms Big Bash 3 – an eagerly anticipated local event Rob Blues – landlord Flutatious wanted a video to promote their new album, so Tha I Ban – a promotional video was specially shot for that purpose Tha I Ban is Scottish Gaelic – depending on who you talk to, it variously means “She…

Pennfest 2019 Bands – promotional stills photography

Pennfest 2019 Pennfest Festival has outstanding acts The headliners are world class, including Suede, Jax Jones, Pete Doherty, Craig David, Happy Mondays, From the Jam and Scouting for Girls and the amazing sound and light system enable them to be seen and heard at their best We were commissioned to do the promotional stills…

Wokingham Music Festival 2019

The fans come as they are, or make their own statement with what they are wearing 2019 was the most recent of a series of annual events that have been running for many years running on the Saturday and Sunday of August bank holiday We were asked to shoot and edit both individual performance videos,…

Parklife – Marlow Rock Bottom festival

Parklife This was one of the first festival videos that I ever did back in 2015 for Marlow Rock Bottom. I was very proud of it then, and it’s still got some merit today, and is still being used by the organisers to promote each years event – talk about good value for money!!!, however….…

Ipsden Rocks 2019

Ipsden Rocks 2019 – a great mini festival Ipsden Rocks 2019 was such great fun. The barn at Ipsden is such a perfect venue for local bands to perform to a packed audience of enthusiastic music lovers who want to enjoy conversation, dancing wine, beer and great locally made food Such happy people doing their…

Unusual Suspects at Rugfest

Unusual Suspects play to a packed crowd at Rugfest One of our favourite bands to video are Unusual Suspects, who played to a packed crowd at Rugfest. We just love recording bands in a festival environment! Particularly festivals with large noisy crowds the get involved with the acts by dancing or singing along Rugfest is…

Fabulous Duck Brothers – Badge

Apr 13, 2018

Fabulous Duck Brothers – Badge The Fabulous Duck Brothers are a Capton/Cream Tribute band IThey wowe d their audience with their set of Clapton classics, and as well as great musicianship seemed to be having great fun on the stage, and that happiness positively affected the audience who really enjoyed the show Other similar events…

Rock around the clock – festival promotion

They are amazing musicians with a great show that amplifies and explains their tracks Over 3500 festivals of various kinds are announced each year. Less than 2000 actually happen and only 1200 make enough money that they are repeated the following year. Festival promotion should be top of the list of activities rather than left…

Rugfest and Bunkfest

Rugfest and Bunkfest Wallingford hosts 2 very different festivals each year Rugfest (So called because it is held in the rugby club) is a medium sized, standard festival with one main stage, food and produce stalls, and prides itself on having many genres of music from acoustic sets up to well known mainstream bands Bunkfest…

Butcher’s Arms Big Bash 2 – 2018

Butcher’s Arms Big Bash 2 – 2018 The Butcher’s Arms Big Bash is now an eagerly anticipated annual event that increases in scope and attendance by around 50% each year. The 2018 event had more bands, more food options, more bars than ever, and the real ale and Pimms dedicated bars went down particularly well.…

Kaiser Chiefs at Pennfest

Kaiser Chiefs at Pennfest One of the great things about doing my job is that you get to listen to bands that you aren’t a great fan of before you see them After just a few minutes listening and watching the Kaiser Chiefs at Pennfest – I became a fan! They were visually exciting, tight…

2017 in Review-Part 2-The Festival Season and beyond

2017 As soon as the festival season starts – we have no weekends! This year we videoed at 7 festivals and were the official stills photographers at a further 11 Most of these festivals, but some of them were in enclosed spaces, but regardless of the environment, the challenges were still there to enable the…

Butchers Arms Big Bash

BABB The Butcher’s Arms in Sonning has always had a charity fund raising ethos. Over the years it has raised 10’s of 1000’s of pounds with sponsored bike rides and many other activities. It was therefore particularly poignant when the landlady was diagnosed with bowel cancer. Whilst she was being cared for during the final…

Noasis at Marlow Rock Bottom

Naughty Boys! Noasis are the premiere Oasis tribute band and as Oasis are the bad boys of Britpop, so any good Oasis Tribute band have to be at least as bad! I have both videoed and taken stills of them and I can tell you they absolutely are bad boys!, but it’s mixed with an…

Edward Chilvers

Edward Chilvers Edward Chilvers is an incredibly talented pianist that takes music to new levels Whilst most of us can appreciate 2/4 time, or 3/4 time, anything more than that is beyond many musicians Edward likes to play polyrhythmicly, that is to say, he will play with multiple rhythms – sometimes as many as 4…

Rugfest 2018 – Video fun

Rugfest fun! The strangely named Rugfest has nothing to do with rugs! Instead it is named after its location, Wallingford Rugby Football Club (RFC) Rugfest is the largest summer festival in the area, and is well attended by the local community. The organisers of Rugfest give much of the profit to local charities, and strive…

Ipsden Rocks

Ipsden Rocks It’s common to hear people bemoaning the closing of music venues – and it is indeed sad to see many iconic venues close their doors for the last time However, we are seeing a rise in “The micro-festival”. Small, once or twice a year multi-act events with proper lighting, food, bar and sound…

Bloodstock 2018

BoA Bloodstock, or Bloodstock Open Air (BOA) is an annual pilgrimage for us. We’ve been for 8 out of the last 10 years. Bloodstock 2018 was just up to standard with some amazing acts including Nightwish, Judas Priest and Gojira Judas Priest just didn’t seem involved with the show or the audience, and were just…

Evil Scarecrow at Bloodstock

Evil Scarecrow Evil Scarecrow are one of my favourite bands, and a “Must See” whenever they are playing at a festival or local venue. Famed for their unique stage show and lyrics, they are also great for getting an audience engaged Imagine 14,000 metal heads , all with massive hangovers doing the Robototron or Crabulon!…

Totally Blondie

Mar 30, 2018

Totally Blondie Totally Blondie are one of the best tribute acts I have seen. Note and word perfect, great at getting the crowd singing and dancing, really great entertainment They were headlining at Wokingham Festival 2019 Here are 3 of the tracks that we recorded for their publicity purposes Totally Blondie perform “One way or another”,…

Stormflies

Apr 7, 2017

Stormflies The Stormflies are a great covers band that actually cover hits that other bands don’t do, so it’s always a refreshing change to hear their work We videoed them in 2015 at Marlow Rock Bottom, and again in in 2017 at a gig in Bourne Ens The band are such nice people, and whilst…

Rocking out at Marlow Rock Bottom Family Festival – video

They are amazing musicians with a great show that amplifies and explains their tracks Marlow Rock Bottom is a lovely little family friendly festival It was originally conceived as a way of generating a few quid to support the local school’s playing field. These days it has grown and grown and now generates more than…

Download Festival 2016 Mud

Black Stone Cherry photography stills and video A lot of rubbish has been talked about in the media about how bad the mud was at Download 2016. This is what it was really like:On Wednesday and Thursday, it was glorious sun – I got sunburn even with Factor 50 suntan cream onOn Friday at mid-day…

Black Stone Cherry photography stills and video

Black Stone Cherry photography stills and video Black Stone Cherry are taking on the mantle of successors to the old rockers that are now getting past their prime and, and least to some degree, living on their laurels.We we asked to cover one of their festival appearances with photography stills, but have also done live…

2016 review – photography, video and promotion

2016 review 2016 has been a hectic year for GigshotZ – 8 festivals, 22 new bands that wanted live coverage. we produced 56 live performance videos – more than one a week!All of our live event music videos have had a different look and feel – after all it’s about what the bands want –…

Bloodstock Open Air (BOA) festival photography

Bloodstock Bloodstock (BOA) Festival is a medium sized (10-15,000) metal focussed festival held in the grounds of Catton Hall each year in August. It’s has a great reputation for friendliness and great bands, and is us “Must do event” for us here at GigshotZ. On this occasion we weren’t official event photographers or in the video crew,…

ZZ Top – Photography

Excellent young band full of great musicians ZZ Top at Download Festival We’ve photographed ZZ Top on 3 occasions and they never fail to deliver note perfect standards with huge amounts of southern swagger.I find it funny that there is an inverse nominative determination with Jim Beard – the drummer – as he is the…

Pennfest 2016 Video and Photography