Campus A Low Hum
Author: Lydia Jenkin (photography by Ben Butcher & Rachel Brandon)
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Four days of live music at a former agricultural college campus, 1300 indie ‘students’, more than 60 official acts plus DJs, over 40 ‘renegade’ performances, a multitude of parties and extra-curricular activities…oh and it’s BYO. Lydia Jenkin headed off to the Manawatu for four days in late January to experience the Campus A Low Hum music festival first hand.
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CALH is like a great camping trip away with your mates – but some of your mates happen to be in excellent bands that will happily put on a show, and someone else has come up with all this awesome entertainment to keep you occupied. The absence of any visible security, no allocated bar areas, no queues, no back stage areas, no VIP sections, no sub-standard food stalls, no over the top branding or advertising, and no endless timetable clashes means that it feels entirely different from any other Summer festival experience.
You can have a drink (of your choice) whilst standing/sitting/lying/jumping anywhere you like; you can purchase wonderful food from the on-site catering or cook your own in the kitchen; you can jump in the car and head to the beach or the supermarket if you feel like getting out for a bit; you can pretty much do what you’d normally do on holiday, with the one provision being that you don’t behave like a total munter.
For the past four years, Wellington’s already legendary independent music champion Blink (aka Ian Jorgensen) has been tirelessly working to create a music festival that would be more than just queues and advertising and money churning corporate infrastructure. Starting out in 2007 at a scout camp in Wainuiomata with roughly 350 people, it has grown in size each year since and moved to different locations. 2010 saw it renamed as Campus A Low Hum – for the first time being held near Bulls in the grounds of Flock House (an abandoned agricultural college), and for the first time increasing capacity beyond 1000. The 1200-1300 punters attending this year seeming to be the magic number for Blink.
“I feel that the numbers were perfect. I’ve just been looking for that balance between enough people that all the bands get a decent amount of people watching them, yet not too many that the infrastructure can’t handle it. Also, a small enough number that everybody can get close-ish to the action.”
It’s not a festival designed for thousands, and this is what makes it special – Blink knows his audience, knows what they like, and places a hefty degree of trust in the fact that they will bring a laid back attitude, friendly smile, helping hand, and a decent dose of respect for the ethos of the Low Hum brand. Dedicated to his cause, after starting CALH, Blink has travelled the world attending various festivals over the past few years, in an attempt to collect more ideas about how to make a music festival pretty much as painless and as cool as possible. And he made the happy discovery that actually there’s nothing else out there quite like his Camp.
“At no event did I ever get the feeling that I could just do whatever I wanted. This is something that has been so important at Camp(us), that idea that if you want to throw a party... you can! If you want to throw a spur of the moment pass-the parcel party, why not? You want to play a show? No problem.”
He’s also an atypical festival organiser in his attitude towards money. Cool ideas for things that could happen at Camp are not evaluated on whether they will make any money, simply whether or not they are possible. The first CALH included an array of old-school party games and several pool parties, along with a craft room. Each year has seen the extra activities grow in scope and intensity, only constrained by the imagination of punters (box wars or wheel-barrow races anyone?).
“I never put money ahead of people’s comfort or enjoyment, this is what filters down to every aspect of the event. It’s the small things which make an event enjoyable and that’s what many festivals don’t understand. I try to offer complete freedom to people, they can come and go from the event as they please, they can bring their own food and beverages. There is always a ton of spaces to get away from the music when you want a break, activities to do”
One aspect very at odds with festival practice is that there is no line up announced before you buy tickets or arrive at the festival. Blink’s idea is that the audience are coming for the entire festival experience, not because there are major international headliners playing.
“The bands perform in environments that suit their sound, and they play at a time that reflects when their music works best, not according to their profile. I’m proud of the fact that I can put basically unheard of bands in typically headline type spots and it works. The simple fact that I don’t have to bow down to ‘names’ and headliners means I can format a playing order and schedule that works musically, first and foremost.”
