Bickershaw Festival

Bickershaw Festival
Genre	Rock music,
Dates	5-7; May 1972
Location(s)	Bickershaw (Wigan, Lancashire), England

The Bickershaw Festival was a rock festival held in Bickershaw (Wigan, Lancashire), England, between 5 and 7 May 1972. Except for the 1976–79 Deeply Vale Festivals, Bickershaw was the only major north-west multi-day festival with camping. The organisers of the Deeply Vale Festivals say it was the Bickershaw Festival that inspired them to put on a north-west music festival with camping.

The Bickershaw Festival was assembled under the auspices of a Manchester businessmen, a Wigan market trader and Jeremy Beadle, before he achieved fame as a television presenter. Jeremy booked the West Coast bands and was artistic policy maker. Chris Hewitt of Ozit Morpheus Records and manager of Tractor, worked with Jeremy and was involved in distribution of publicity and tickets. Although the organisers put together a line-up of United Kingdom and American acts such as the Grateful Dead, Captain Beefheart, New Riders of the Purple Sage, Dr John, Hawkwind, The Kinks, Country Joe McDonald, The Incredible String Band, Donovan, Wishbone Ash, Maynard Ferguson, and a host of mixed-media acts such as high divers and clowns, the festival suffered from several major deficiencies.

The artist line-up was inspirational to many of the audience, including teenager Joe Strummer, who said it was his favourite concert, especially the late-night set from Captain Beefheart, and to Elvis Costello. Costello stood in the mud amazed by the five-hour set from the Grateful Dead, the performance which convinced him he should start a band. Future rock journalist and rock biographer Mick Middles, then aged 16, travelled there on a moped just to watch the Grateful Dead on the Sunday.

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