There’s luck out there and it’s good to see competition winners receive their much deserved rewards. Since my article on the 2008 Bermuda Music Festival I received a wonderful Review with images from Tim Minter, the Evian Competition winner who won tickets to see Beyoncé perform at the Bermuda Music Festival. Take it away Tim…
“Putting a music festival slap bang in the middle of one of the most conservative\outrageous, opulent\humblest, organized\laid back places, must surely create something quite unique. Think Wembley shrunken into a little English village where every bus driver, ticket person and seat wiper (yes someone actually had a cloth to wipe our seats!) is a familiar face.
Try and buy a ticket for this event though and you’d better be quick. When we tried, from the UK they’d all well and truly been snapped up. The only ones remaining were allotted to a single travel company who was selling them as packages including hotel and hospitality at US$800 and over when I last looked. The only way we managed to get tickets was to win them!
Because of the money flying around this place I think they have managed to put on something only possible on a much, much bigger scale anywhere else in the world. From the tiny queue for the entrance, the handful of good food stalls (check out the huge veggie curry portions at the completely quiet curry stall rather than the queues for the fried chicken or fish and chips) to the neat rows of cable tied garden seats and the queueless toilets this probably wouldn’t be possible anywhere else with these acts. Although sold out, this place definitely wasn’t crowded. Production was great too with a second smaller stage while the main stage was changed over. Huge video screens and a massive main stage meant you felt like you could be any world class festival. It’s all outside except for some seats right at the back on the raised seating in the Hamilton sports stadium and in living memory it has always rained to some degree no matter what the rest of the day has been like. For the high rollers there are quite a few enclosed, raised, private boxes in hospitality type cabins in the arena which I assume pay for most of the event. No amount of rain will dampen the crowd though, just expect some brollies in the way! We got about 15 mins of rain then it was all good again!
We sat out the support acts except for some pretty cool street dance on the second stage. The others included a famous local comedian and what turned out to be Beyoncé’s sister.
As soon as the main act started, the non existent stage security couldn’t handle the small crowd, including us who pushed forward for a mosh pit view and they gave up shortly after, content with just making sure there was a gangway of some description here and there. If you’d paid upwards of US$1000 for a front row seat you’d be sorely disappointed (just a tip there!) If you have a ticket for the arena seating you’re free to move around. If you’ve got one for the cheaper stadium seating at the back you’re not allowed into the main arena.
Beyoncé herself was amazing. I’ve never really considered going to see Beyoncé I have to say. But if she was playing at Glastonbury one day I might consider toddling along now! She filled the huge stage not only with her sizable all girl band but with proper star quality.
Two costume designer\seamstress friends of the people we were staying with in Bermuda had been roped into this for two days straight before the big night as none of the costumes had been used before and they had done a good job for sure. Not sure how many costume changes there were but they were all fantastic. Apart from some stage mopping after the rain and some showbiz fanning of Beyoncé by a stage hand (maybe one day I’ll get someone to do that for me!) the weather was great and performance spot on. I’ll leave the rest to some pictures…”.
