A glorious summer’s evening in the picturesque setting of Wollaton Park near Nottingham saw No Tomorrow as an addition to the UK outdoor festival calendar. Some 10,000 attenders flocked to the Nottinghamshire venue to see London Grammar, Sam Smith, Clean Bandit and chart-topping DJs such as Duke Dumont.
Showsec as the stewarding and event security contractors helped the event to emerge from under a (meteorological) dark cloud as all the forecasts of severe weather – thunderstorms, hail and torrential rain – only caused minimal disruption. By the time the one-day festival was in full swing, the rain of early afternoon had given way to sunshine.
Joe Milner, Showsec’s Area Manager for the East Midlands, said: “You couldn’t ask for a better setting on a night like this. The biggest challenge was responding to situations caused by the weather, particularly conditions under foot. We were braced for the very worst, but you would hardly have known there were any concerns by late afternoon.
“All the feedback has been extremely positive about the event and everyone seemed to have a fantastic experience. There were two important factors in us getting this opportunity; our close association with Nottingham City Council and our familiarity with the venue as a result of the Splendour Festival held here in recent years.
“That provided us with a footprint in terms of how we planned for the event, even though it was a different type of audience.”
The event may become annual. “The intention is to go again with the event next year,” said Rob McCutcheon, Team Leader for Health and Safety at Nottingham City Council.
“The venue lends itself really well to this size of festival and what we are looking at is two or three high-quality events each year. They bring people in, they have a good time and that says something good about Nottingham as a city. We would aim to improve this event and increase numbers, but generally it would only require tweaks here and there.
“In some respects, the plans for No Tomorrow were very similar to Splendour in that we used Wollaton Hall – or Wayne Manor as it is known – as the backdrop for the show fields because that is its biggest selling point. But from an operational point of view it was very different. That is where the input from Showsec has been so valuable. Whereas Splendour is a family event where people come along and pitch down their picnics in one place for the whole event, No Tomorrow is for a younger audience and there was a high level of migration from one stage to another. We also had more formal search procedures and tighter restrictions on what people could bring into the event. But generally speaking, this was all managed extremely well and contributed to the success of the festival.”
