On the Monday prior to the event, the festival co-ordinator, Angela Porter, received a message from the only members of West Lindsey council staff employed by us on the day - the technicians from the community department - saying that they had been informed that due to a health and safety issue that bands could not be on stage past 9pm, as had happened in other years. This would mean that we would have to cut 90 minutes out of the programme of events at short notice to comply with the health and safety instructions from the council.

I came to a compromise with the technical staff that a line-up until 9.30pm would be organised but this still meant a cut in the programme. The easiest and homogenous part of the stage events to move (which had only been given the go-ahead in the past month) was the Local Band Showcase to another time/ venue. I am still not satisfied that this was very fair on the bands involved and want to organise another event (showcase or battle of the bands) for later in the year. I am aware that this will have to be done away from the Trinity Arts Centre as these type of events are not run there any more after some “threats” made by a band a couple of years ago.

Both communication and health and safety issues had been a concern of mine that I highlighted with the lead officer of the community department in an e-mail to her I had sent when the part time arts development officer had to resign her post in the spring due to the pressure of the workload. A workload that had massive support from across the council last year, in very difficult circumstances, if not some heavy handed last minute management decisions with the cancelling of the Sunday event, on anther health and safety issue.

Unfortunately both health and safety and communications were problems between the Festival Committee and the local authority this year with no officer of the authority attending the last couple of months’ meetings and so these difficulties arose. Problems that I will report to the chief executive of the council in a report over the summer.

In the end the music that was on stage only finished after 10pm due to technical difficulties during the day which extended the running time by just over 30 minutes. Before the article in the paper last year I had been asked why we did not run right up to the fireworks like last year.

David Dobbie, chairman of the Riverside Festival Committee