Bickershaw festival
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The Bickershaw festival was a festival held in the village of Bickershaw, near Wigan on 5-7th May 1972. The festival was put together under the auspices of a collection of local businessmen, but the primary organiser was Jeremy Beadle before he became known as a television presenter.
Although the organisers put together a line-up of United Kingdom and US acts such as The Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, The New Riders, Dr John, Hawkwind, The Kinks, Country Joe McDonald, The Incredible String Band, Donovan, Wishbone Ash and a host of mixed media acts such as high divers and clowns, the festival suffered from several major deficiencies.
Firstly, there was the site itself. The fields were prone to flooding and there was standing water on the site. Secondly, the weather was not good. It rained before the festival opened and then on random occasions for most of the three days of the festival. Lastly, those who manned the security on the gates were corrupt as well as inefficient. Tickets were taken and resold back to those who were coming into the site, or were not checked on entry at all. Thus those inside simply got a passout and then sold their ticket at half price to punters just arriving. As a consequence the organisers lost huge amounts of revenue. They also made the mistake of paying the security force, who promptly left, leaving the site open.
By the Sunday, all semblance of organization had disappeared and locals wandered freely onto the site to watch the Grateful Dead deliver a show of their European tour. By this time much of the site was awash with mud due to the weather and lack of cleanup by the organisers.
No other festivals have been held at the village site since.
