Eastern Electrics and Maiden Voyage 2023

Background

It was 11 years ago that Eastern Electrics held its first, one-day festival in Greenwich Peninsular, following a series of club nights around London. Today, it hosts 20,000 people and invites some of the most renowned talent on the Electronic music scene to Lee Valley Showground.

Maiden Voyage is newer to the scene, having been curated by Camden‘s Jazz Café in 2019. Yet the festival, which explores the extensive sounds of Jazz, House, Hip-hop and Techno, and takes place at Lee Valley the day after EE, has quickly gained speed, and is often found at the top of Resident Advisor‘s picks for the August Bank Holiday weekend.

The Fair has been working with Eastern Electrics since 2017 and manages production, operations and health & safety at EE and MV each year, alongside our sister agency, We Are OPS. Our hard work enables up to 40,000 festival goers to enjoy a range of music across the weekend.

This year’s EE headliners included The Martinez Brothers, ARTBAT, Ben Klock & Denis Sulta, while MV saw Jyoty, DJ EZ, Job Jobse, Dj Boring headlined across the stages.

While our teams are very familiar with the requirements of this festival, new and unprecedented challenges this year tested the team in new ways. The end result, however, showed our ability to rise to any challenge, and deliver services to the same exceptional standard…

Challenge

A lightning strike led to a temporary show stop, managed by The Fair and We Are OPS to ensure the safety of everyone on site. More details about how we coordinated this can be found by scrolling through the image carousel below.
A national rail strike took place on the day of Eastern Electrics, and was announced just two weeks prior to the event, leaving The Fair and OPS teams with the task of enabling 20,000 people to get home safely from Lee Valley Showground.
This site exists below overhead powerlines and pylons, meaning meticulous planning was needed to ensure the safety of attendees, as well as compliance with regulations.
The site is also located by a canal, presenting unique challenges for the ingress and egress route to ensure the safety of attendees.

Delivery

8 days on site
Health & safety management and consulting
Event liaison team chairing
Safety Advisory Group attendance
Event Safety Management Plan & other safety documentation delivered
Premises Licence application and the licence was granted
Event Liaison Team Chair & management

Results

Delivery

Brand new stage: A fifth stage was introduced to diversify the musical lineup, catering to a broader range of tastes and distributing the crowd more evenly.
Redesign of main stage and Switchyard: This year’s edition included a redesign of two stages to create a visually engaging experience.
Strike management: The team, along with our sister agency, We Are OPS, developed a contingency plan for ingress and egress, and secured enough coaches to ensure safe routes home for festival-goers amid train strikes.
Other vital services included: supplier procurement and management, production management, CAD site design and planning, health and safety auditing and management, SAG attendance, and stakeholder engagement.

Results

Capacity increase from 15,000 to 20,000 attendees each day
Attendees, artists and crew got home safely despite train strikes
Temporary show stop managed successfully, enabling the festival to resume and attendees to continue dancing
A brand new stage and a redesigned stage
Positive SAG and council feedback
Exceptional feedback from the client and incredible feedback from festival-goers

“Their expertise spoke volumes and the friendly team atmosphere made even the stressful times on site enjoyable – we couldn’t have asked for a better team to produce the show.”