Forbidden Forest Festival organisers vow to be safe as event at Grimsthorpe is approved

An application to hold a music festival in the estate of a historic castle has been approved after organisers pledged to make sure the event was safe.

The Forbidden Forest Festival will be coming to the Wild Oaks Forest at Grimsthorpe on May 5 after South Kesteven District Council’s licensing committee approved plans for a premises license, subject to a number of conditions, earlier this month.

An earlier festival held at Wymeswold Airfield in Leicestershire in September last year attracted criticism and the committee heard from Sergeant Kim Enderby of Lincolnshire Police that there had been evidence of drug use at a previous Forbidden Forest event at Donington Park.

He cited issues with traffic management at the Wymeswold.

He said he felt ‘not enough had been done to facilitate a safe and crime free event.’

The meeting heard from Arron Moss, the event organiser from Exurbia Events, Brian Clearly and Emmett Halsall, who all spoke in favour of the application.

They said they had been ‘further work undertaken to mitigate concerns and issues raised’.

Furthermore ,a new traffic management system had been put in place and the security provider changed.

They also felt the police’s findings were ‘all negative’.

Exurbia Events had put forward some conditions in its application but the committee said they were ‘not enforcable’.

Their conditions included ‘proactive and preventive audience management teams’, no alcohol allowed outside of the licensed area and lockers will be made available to revellers.

Exurbia have also pledged to ensure the site ‘is as safe as possible’, put up warning signs about drink and drug misuse, carry out security checks and a have traffic management plan to provide safe access to and from the site.

A phone number will be circulated locally for residents if they have any concerns, litter picking will be carried out, there will be good lighting on site and signs will be put up encouraging the festival goers to leave the estate
quietly.

The capacity had also been reduced from 10,000 to 6,500.

The Forbidden Forest is described as ‘an intimate underground music festival’. It will be the first time it’s come to
Grimsthorpe.

Joe Quinn, the founder and co-owner of the Forbidden Forest, previously told the Mercury that ‘anything less’ than a safe event would be ‘damaging’ to them as a business.

He added that ‘customer experience’ and ‘offering a safe place for people to escape their normal daily routines’ is ‘paramount’.

Click here to see our previous story about the Forbidden Forest.