CROWD-FUNDER:
Dance Floor and New Toilets
THANK YOU!!
to everyone who chipped in
work has begun, we’ll post updates soon
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Summary
We are reaching out to you because you are amongst our friends, family, loyal festival attendees, performers and crew. We have some ambitious plans this year and we’d love your support. Our goal is to complete two large infrastructure projects to massively improve the experience of festival goers like you.
WHAT ARE THEY?
Awesome new permanent dance floor in the courtyard (AKA Main Stage)
The courtyard is so uneven and hard to dance on with abandon. It often floods and becomes very muddy, as well as being unpleasantly dusty when it gets really dry. We intend to resurface it and put in drainage so these things don’t happen and we can all dance the night away together unhindered for years to come.
Shiny new permanent compost toilet block
Our existing temporary ones have come to the end of their life. Rather than build another set of temporary ones we’d intend to install permanent compost toilet block in the main camping field for us all to enjoy. These toilets will be eco, low impact, beautiful, easy to clean and maintain for many years.
WHY ARE WE CROWDFUNDING FOR THESE?
As a small, independent, and intimate event we do not generate enough profit from the festival and camps. We have had to make a choice between starting to pay all our crew (who have volunteered for many years) using our radical Universal Basic Wage system - more on this later, OR doing big and permanent infrastructure projects.
We have spent over a decade improving the farm itself, volunteering our time and skills to make this wonderful event happen each year. Times have changed, and it is now time to look after the crew. Whilst we could continue with lower cost temporary infrastructures this does not align with our ethical low impact values. This is where you come in.
It’s time to step up our core infrastructure, and we want it to be better you us all - long term! We can not raise the funds for these two big projects without your help.
Fire in the Mountain Festival LTD is a not-for-profit company, set up to run a folk and roots music festival and to help maintain the farm on which it is held. Below you can read more details on the evolution of the festival and the work we have done on the farm to date.
A Brief History of the Festival
2011 - 2018
Fire in the Mountain started 12 years ago as a fundraiser and means to gather volunteers together to help maintain the farm where it is held, which was in a very run down state. The festival was initially run completely voluntarily, with all profit going on improving the farm, with hundreds of volunteers helping with the work. After around 5 years, thanks to the efforts and generosity of countless people, too many to mention, the farm got to a stable place with roofs and barns repaired, junk cleared, land sculpted and well kept. See below for some of the larger projects we did; repairing the arches roof and turning a massive pile of rubble into the magical Dragon Fire Pit.
See below for photos of
Roof Repairs to The Arches, c.2014
Alan and Mike make The Dragon Fire Pit 2011.
2020 - Present
Post Pandemic, and as the event has became more established and cherished, we sought to become more sustainable and nourishing for our crew. As people have got older and more professional in their fields of work, the needs of our crew have changed. We are now no longer able to run the festival voluntarily, and indeed, it has grown larger in ambition and professionalism than a small group of friends can run. The first festival in 2011 had a total budget of £25,000 to produce. Now, in 2023, we paid over 3 times that in wages alone, at £80,000. The festival now helps support the livelihoods of the wonderful creative crew who are able to put in the time to run it. A massive success.
In addition to paid roles, the festival still utilises over 500 volunteers to run: they are asked to do only 16 hours of work for their festival ticket, and are given food and drink.
Universal Basic Wage
We introduced a Universal Basic Wage across the whole festival: everyone is now on the same deal regardless of what they do. This is set at the £10ph + food and drink + travel, although in truth, people still put in way more hours than they are paid for. We thus have achieved wage parity and transparency across all our teams. Recently we have focussed more on anti-burn out strategies and welfare for our crew - running events can be stressful! Everyone does a minimum of 16 hours of work for free for the festival in return for their ticket to the event - this is how everyone gives back to the festival.
Below are photos of:
1. The Compost Loos built 2015 - 2016
2. The Muddy Courtyard in 2011 - let’s make it a lovely surface to DANCE on!
The Future
We now find ourselves in a situation where we would like to future-proof the festival with a couple of substantial infrastructure projects on The Farm. These will reduce our annual costs to host the festival, as well as making the festival more accessible and enjoyable for all. We are unable to fund these projects from event income alone, and do not want to go into debt to a bank.
The Courtyard
Firstly we would love to resurface the courtyard where the main stage is, so it dries faster when it rains and is less dusty when it’s hot.
Every year we spend days (equivalent of one person working 300 days) cleaning, spraying, patching up, and making good the courtyard - and we spend around £700 annually on “shingle” to fill potholes and try and get a smooth surface, another unnecessary expense. Our aim is to also install drainage pipes under the new concrete, and put gutters on all the buildings in the courtyard. This, along with a French drain down the middle of the courtyard, will whisk water safely and quickly away. Having good drainage will also prevent the build up of mud and grime all winter, cutting hours and hours of work getting the festival ready. Getting this work done will save some thousands in labour and materials every year… BUT! the best bit about the whole plan though, is a lovely smooth and clean surface for festival attendees to dance, sit and party on!
Budget: £10,000
Compost Toilets
Secondly we want to replace our current temporary compost loos with a well constructed permanent design, reducing nasty niffs and coping with current capacity.
Our existing compost loos are great and have served us well over the years, but they are too old, and too small, now. Our aim is to build beautiful and functional permanent loos, with a tanked and leak-proof composting chamber with urine separation. Using blockwork, we will construct an air tight underground “composting tank”, with a second chamber for collection of liquids. These liquids get pumped out and taken away. Our intention is to increase the number of cubicles as well, reducing our need to hire in portaloos, another large annual expense. Once finished, our new toilet block with be beautiful, have no nasty smells, and should generate useable compost with a couple of years.
Budget £10,000
Total Target £20,000
2000 people come to the festival. If everyone put in a tenner (one hour of work!), we would hit our target and get this work done.
Fire in the Mountain Festival LTD - Where does your money go and how is it spent?
Fire in the Mountain Festival LTD is a NOT-FOR-PROFIT company limited by guarantee. This means there are no shares or shareholders, and thus, any “profit”, over and above reasonable wages, can only be re-invested to pursue the aims and objectives of the company as enshrined in the Memorandum and Articles of Association. These are as follows (as per 2012 when the company was formed)
(i) To organise cultural events and festivals.
(ii) To promote local, national and international music and culture, and provide platforms for collaborations, development and greater cultural understanding and exchange.
(iii) To promote greater understanding of environmental responsibility and sustainable living through education and practice.
(iv) Further our objectives through collaborations with carefully selected partner organisations, festivals and promoters.
As we are a cultural event, we are not liable for VAT on ticket income, and are thus not VAT registered.
GOVERNANCE
For many years FITM has worked towards operating as a non-heirachical Organisation with a flat management structure, as a form of cooperative influenced by the work of Frederic Laloux in his book “Reinventing Organisations”. This form of working together is perhaps best suited to those who work together on a very regular basis, and not so suited to a disparate group of wonderful individuals who come together to focus on one event per year. Although embodying a lot of the principles espoused in his treatise, we now operate with a consensual governance framework consisting of a Steering Committee (responsible for year round management, and open to all ops team member to join), and an Operations Team, responsible for running their specific area at the festival, with principles of Self Management and Autonomy. The principle of TRANSPARENCY is still at the very core of the organisation, with all information, budgets, decisions, available to all crew to input on - in the form of a shared online folder. For many years The Festival operated as a completely Volunteer Run organisation, where people mostly worked for expenses, with all surplus being reinvested to renovate and help maintain the farm on which the festival is held. Over the years the facilities have improved and many infrastructure investments have been made, and there is not much more we can do.
UNIVERSAL BASIC WAGE
This year we introduced a Universal Basic Wage across everyone who works at the festival. As the event has become more and more established and popular, the amount of work required to deliver a safe and legally compliant event has increased. In addition, it has become much harder for the majority of our crew to dedicate the amount of volunteer time needed to run the event. To solve these issues, and to achieve transparency and parity, we’ve introduced a Universal Basic Wage across the entire organisation; (1) To honour the Not For Profit element of the event, EVERYONE volunteers 2 Days, or 16 Hours of their time, to the festival for free. If you volunteer for us, this is what you will do. (2) If completing your role requires more time, we pay Area Managers £100 per day for pre-event planning and “paperwork/spreadsheets”. (3) Once on site and at the event, all our crew are paid £80pd please 3 meals a day. It is true some people now get paid more, but that’s just because they have spent more time to complete their role.
THE TIME IT TAKES TO RUN A FESTIVAL
Total Days Needed: 1395
Total Free Days Given: 320
Event Days: 702
Planning Days Needed: 373
Crew Travel: £7520
Planning Wages: £37300
Event Wages: 56200
Total Wages: £80,000
Quite a lot of work goes in it! It takes a year to organise a weekend!