Yes, it’s an Arts Festival – it’s also a Christian festival, and ALL points on the theological compass are represented. Those liberal/left-wing points are there, but so too, are evangelicals (many), Franciscans, Catholics, traditionalists, Methodists, charismatics – I too, raised my hands in worship, during Andy Flanaghan’s slot in the Big Top – and all shades in between.

Do get yourself along there, one year – I’m not sure that a credible argument, for or against an event, can reasonably expect a hearing when it’s not influenced by a taste of that activity, first hand. I’m nowwadays, a Theology Student in Chester, and Greenbelt is still a vital staging-post for me, on my pilgrimage through life.

The slavery rebranded as volunteering was a counter to your “willing to work” generality in the first part of your sentence -

“After all, if you’re a jobseeker then you are, at least theoretically, willing to work – so why not work for Greenbelt for the weekend?

The charitable third sector has helped promote and push the Governments rebranding of volunteering in the U.K. in the way of deliberately conflating the nonmandatory volunteering of the village fête with the mandatory volunteering of the political labour camp in the minds of the general public.

“If you refuse or fail to carry out this Jobseeker’s Direction and cannot show good cause for this or that it was unreasonable in your circumstances, you could lose Jobseeker’s Allowance/National Insurance credits.” – Maryanne McGoldrick (on behalf of the Secretary of State)

An aversion to forced labour would probably not be considered as good cause.

I have no particular beef about the ticket prices, in fact I have no idea what sort of profits they make or whether it would be possible to drop the prices further. People who found the price too high could try offering some positive feedback to the organisers and see if that has any effect. My observation was simply that it seems less commercialised than say Spring Harvest, which I know quite well and have been dismayed to see how it has evolved into a corporate brand over the years.

Actually what made me grumpy last night was the way some evangelicals insist on running the rule over everything to see whether they approve of it or not (usually not) and then telling off everybody who doesn’t agree. Greenbelt’s “inclusive” approach is bound to lead to a huge mashup of views and theologies, the woolly and downright heretical lining up alongside the pearls of truth and beauty. It’s not going to do a great deal for doctrinal purity, but on the other hand, it is an accurate reflection of how the gospel is received in the world at large, rather than in a carefully controlled corner of the church. It’s not a Bible teaching week, it’s an arts festival, for all love. In any case, whoever doesn’t like it can go play somewhere else.

That, as I say, is how I felt last night. This morning it doesn’t seem to matter quite so much but there you are.

On a more general note, the idea that reduced prices = more customers = more revenue is generally flawed anyway.

Hi Charlie, but the difference with an evangelical gathering, is that they would not be touting their ‘show’ as inclusive!

No specific mention of the poor is there, which is odd as this group seemed rather important to Jesus.

@Mark

Reducing the price for the poorer, might result in more attending and increasing revenue for the organisers.

I also have to ask you: When you were buying tickets at full price for yourself (at Greenbelt, Reading or anywhere else) would you have been happy to pay more for them so that those on benefits could pay less? Assuming you still had your job now, would you be prepared to do so? Because that’s what you’re asking here – it isn’t Greenbelt as an organisation which covers the cost of reduced price tickets, it’s the people who pay full price for them.

In the early 1980s it began to move in a liberal direction, accompanied by some decidedly dodgy choices of what to put one – the Sheffield Nine O’Clock Service dancers, a ‘white witch’.

The drift became clear when the Church Times began to give coverage to Greenbelt.

All very sad – evangelicals go thinking they’re being open minded (see the plug above), when they’re in no position to be discerning. Evangelicalism has not real critique of the arts – which was what Greenbelt set out to provide when it was first set up.

A handful of years ago I wouldn’t have thought twice about the cost of travelling and gaining admission to Greenbelt, because after twenty-five years of unbroken full-time employment I’d always been able to care for myself, pay my own way, and had never asked no one for nuthin’. (Although, a few years ago I wasn’t a Christian – and as an atheist I’d probably have chosen the Reading Festival over Greenbelt anyway).

But the point is; the cost of things meant little to me when I had my well-paid and highly skilled job.

The unemployed meant even less to me: I worked hard. I paid taxes. My taxes subsidised their rent and fag money… and then they ask for more… bloody cheek! Right?

My redundancy, and that of my colleagues, was a move by the company to maximise profits. The announcement came two months after the CEO had given himself a £5,000,000 Christmas bonus. I still wonder; if Mr CEO had decided to cream a paltry £4.5 million off the company’s takings, could my ex-colleagues and I have kept our jobs and not become such a burden to the welfare state?

My income is free hand-outs and I’m dole-scum asking for more – yeah; that’s what some people are thinking even if they lack the courage to put it in such frank terms while stood on their moral high-ground. My combined housing benefit (capped at an unrealistically low level) and jobseekers’ allowance just about pays my rent (no, I can’t afford somewhere cheaper because down-payments and legal fees are too high). The remaining £15 a week has to cover all living costs; gas, electricity, water, food, etc. I work hard – unpaid, skill-building, physical, outdoor voluntary work for an environmental conservation NGO – and I do like to have some weekends off to do other things… y’know; visit friends, go to Church, whinge about being refused entry at Christ-centric events because I’m living in abject poverty.

Some arse is reading this and muttering “Well – get a job then!” to himself/herself. Please don’t be that moron. The jobs ain’t there. I’d be deleriously happy to do some minimum-wage shelf-stacking right now. My redundancy came out of the blue. It could be your job next, and then you might find how very uncomfortable it is to walk a mile in my shoes.

Greenbelt are under absolutely no obligation to cut the underclass citizens such as myself some extra slack. After all; the petrol stations don’t, and nor do Asda. Ah, but Asda and Murco aren’t making any high-minded or spiritual claims; they’re don’t try to hide their ‘give us all your money, and screw you!’ business approach behind liberal arts and leftist posturing.

But I would have loved to have been there Sunday – for the worship if nothing else; I could have stretched to maybe a tenner-or-so for a special pass that gets me kicked out at 1pm or something, and wouldn’t have felt hard-done-by. But £25 is a hell of a lot to ask anyone living on benefits for a day pass; a total absence of a concession price would have annoyed me less than this unrealistic, condescending and tokenistic pity-fuck. Perhaps the organisers don’t understand how tough things have got in the past year. Perhaps they’re out of touch. Or perhaps they all work hard, pay their taxes, subsidise my rent and think it’s a bloody cheek that the jobless sub-class would dare ask “Please sir, can I have some more?”

Or, if you simply can’t see it my way, consider this; a concession £25-at-the door-price means dole-scum like me cannot attend. A £12.50 concession would have seen me, and probably a few thousand more attendees of my unworthy ilk, passing through the gates; we’d all be jobseekers, granted, but as long as you don’t mind rubbing shoulders with the unwashed jobless then Greenbelt could have further inflated their profits with inappropriately-spent benefit money.

As it is; no matter how you try to explain it, justify it or excuse it – the simple fact is that the poor have been excluded from Greenbelt. I just can’t see Jesus in that, and in this respect Greenbelt has failed.

@Goy None of the volunteers that I’ve encountered consider themselves slaves. They do it willingly, and lovingly, because they want to give something to the festival. The fact that they get something worthwhile in return (a free ticket) is an encouragement, to be sure, but nobody was ever forced to volunteer.

@Mark,

Classic divide-and-conquer unemployed poor pitted against empolyed poor, and slaves rebranded as volunteers.

D-oh!
I think that may be classed as an own goal for the liberal left?

In any case, the festival doesn’t make a profit. The costs of running it are underwritten by donors. Without them, there wouldn’t be a festival. But the amount of donor income is limited, and beyond the control of the festival organisers – there’s nothing they can do to force donors to give more. So bigger discounts for those on benefits can’t be covered by a hit in profits, however slight – it all has to come from other ticket sales.

Having said that, there’s one way that anyone can go to Greenbelt entirely for free, and that’s to volunteer as an on-site helper (eg, as a steward or various other volunteer teams). OK, it means you will miss some things that you might want to see, as you’ll be working some of the time, but you’ll also get to see a lot for free that you wouldn’t otherwise have seen. Obviously, this isn’t for everyone (in particular, it’s practically impossible for single parents due to the lack of any childcare), but for the solo benefits claimant with no dependants then it’s almost a no-brainer – why pay for a ticket with money you can’t afford, or sit at home whinging that you can’t go, when you can work your way in instead? After all, if you’re a jobseeker then you are, at least theoretically, willing to work – so why not work for Greenbelt for the weekend?

(For avoidance of doubt, I have no connection with Greenbelt other than being a regular attender and occasional volunteer/contributor)

I’ve been on benefits, I know it’s tough, but that doesn’t mean that everything has to be free. £25 for the scale and range of opportunities at Greenbelt isn’t very much, and yes, it will be too much for some, but it’s hardly profiteering. Those artists, tents, racecourse hiring bills, toilets, speakers, comedians, discussion spaces aren’t free to use.
Yes, we live in a world where not everyone can afford to do everything they want. But, Greenbelt give about 200 free tix away to folks who couldn’t afford them.
On Saturday alone here’s what your £25 buys access to:
Music
Asian Dub Foundation, Charlie Simpson, Josh Osho, Rachel Semanni, Rams’ Pocket Radio, Bruce Cockburn Q&A
Talks
Frank Skinner, School of Life, Lucy Winkett, Christopher Barnatt, Rebecca Parker & Rita Nakashima Brock, Giles Fraser, Sir Diarmaid MacCulloch, Hannah Lownsbrough, Gideon Levy
Elsewhere
Opera UpClose, The Rend Collective, Simon Mayo, The Artist, Andy Flannagan, Mike Wozniak, The Dream Pill, Blunderbus

that’s a bargain!