FireVolt Festival 2024 – A reviewer’s experience, an intro to FireVolt

Down on the farm at Whitebottom Estates set in the idyllic surroundings of Etherow Country Park, you’ll find the location of Firevolt ‘Rock’ Festival. Who promises you three days of Face Metlting ROCK!!

With an average of nine bands playing each day, the mayhem kicks off just after mid-day, giving you, the reveller plenty of time to have breakfast and get fresh-faced and ready for a full day of rock, be it if you’re staying on-site or off.

I thought I’d give you my viewpoint as a reviewer at Firevolt. It’s not all smooching and greeting rock stars. To make a band meeting happen you have to do a lot of pre-planning, and fingers crossed a little faint also helps.

Best laid plans, and all that, myself and Ant, head from base, we are not staying on-site. We head out to the Festival. The 20-minute drive over is pleasant as I take in the surroundings as we leave the suburbs of Stockport and head toward the quaint village of Marple. I assume all is good as it’s Year 3, so the festival folk and organisers must do something right not to pee’-off the locals. It is a really pleasant area to host a festival.

On arrival, there’s a bit of mayhem; Ant forgot to print his ‘parking pass’ and the gate staff don’t have a list of vehicle registrations, which is a bugger as we try to get phone reception in the black spot area we’ve parked at. The staff are helpful in our quest to gain entry, but I feel it would’ve been made easier had they had our details to hand. Hey ho.

As we take a short drive up the country road and pass over Marple Bridge, there’s a beautiful waterfall to behold as we journey through the serene surroundings. I spot the Big Top stage, and after getting directions, we park up and get ready for the day.

Sadly, we have now missed the battle of the bands winners We Three Kings, a great rock and roll band full of energy. Don’t let the flamboyant shirts fool you, Rich and Pete know how to bring the party and with the aid of the third King, Bonesey, the Skeleton. The fuzzed-up rock n roll party is nothing short of exciting. I had the pleasure of seeing them not once but twice at the Call of The Wild Festival. You can check them out here – https://www.facebook.com/we3kingsband

If you’ve opted to stay off-site, maybe camping is not for you, the festival offers a shuttle bus which brings you from the village of Marple into the festival. Note, the town centre is also the place you park and leave your car in the designated car park for the day/weekend. It’s a very well organised operation, as the main road in is one vehicle in, one vehicle out operation, so don’t feel bad you had to wait a short while to get to the site, health and safety and all that!

There are two main areas at Firevolt Festival, the barn area, hosting the Trooper main stage and the Big Top. In the barn, you’ll find a massive bar, where you go to swap pounds for beer tokens. The beers are priced between £5- £6 a pint. Reasonable if you ask me. At the request of the organisers, and to help keep the price reasonable ‘punters’ have been asked not to bring alcohol into the main arena, but you can bring some drink to camp!

Viewing the barn area which is partially covered, flags of bunting go between the spilt of the stage and barn space, which also hosts an access area and a separate area for those who wish to bring a fold-up chair and have a sit-down – but remember folks, it’s not Benidorm, so if your bum isn’t on a chair – do fold your chair up for someone else to make use the of space! It’s a nice idea indeed.

The barn area plays host to the late-night jam stage and also acts as a pre-gig stage, this year Jack J Hutchison makes his ‘Jam with Jack’ performance on Saturday and Sunday morning for those early rising festival goers.

The main barn area hosts a range of festival traders covering your food needs from meat to vegan, each trader offers something different, which is a great idea, I tried the Street Food, Gourmet burger and nachos/tacos. There’s also a bus bar, a double-decker bus with a bar serving area downstairs and seating upstairs of the topless bus! A great way to watch the bands on the main stage. Not to mention a separate real ale bar, that you lot loved so much you drank it dry by day 3.

Along with a range of trading stalls, selling festival clothing to jewellery and hats and all things in between. None had any fish-net tights which I decided I needed on day 3 and should have brought with me. But I did purchase a fabulous chain belt from Deb Bee Jewellery!

To test your skills, there was also axe and archery on offer!

In the main arena is also where you’ll find the main toilets, which are properly working porcelain thrones, which are very well maintained throughout the whole of the festival.

As you leave the main arena, you take a few minutes to walk downhill to reach the second, ‘Big Top’ stage. A great idea by the organisers so you don’t have any band clashes and can have a ‘comfort break’ before the next band is on stage.

Outside the Big Top (second stage area) there is an outdoor bar (handy). What I didn’t know but discovered on day 2 after Crash Diet finished their set, was the place the bands were selling ‘merch’ at the back of the big top! This was a somewhat disappointing discovery ( I might’ve been rushing to photograph the next band, so didn’t see it before). I’m sure the Festival guys have thought of many ways to encompass a band’s requirements to help them sell merch. Maybe a gazebo – next to the outdoor bar? Would that work, give it a light and bingo, you can see what’s for sale!! I know, it’s in a county park, but you, Stret & co are doing an amazing job, as well covering everything else!

Behind the ‘Big Top’ is the bands’ guest area, and for us ‘Press Folk’ is the area we entered to meet with the bands we had booked interviews with. It boasts a good set-up offering a food stall and a bar (important to the Thisty Rocker) and a relaxation tent offering various ball games, where we also conducted some of our interviews. There are also band-allocated cabins, nothing as glamorous as you may think, it’s all work for the band and the people behind the scenes, so you can enjoy ‘the show’

Back to the area outside the Big Top. There are bales of hay dotted on the hill, covered with plastic sheeting, so you can take in the atmosphere and enjoy the bands playing as well is a great space to meet up with friends and relax, it’s not all about going wild, Firevolt is a very chilled festival. So relaxed, even the dogs I met were having a great time. Thank you to the owners who said I could use their pictures.

And so there you have an overview of Firevolt Festival, Stet and Bev and co who do an amazing job to make each of you have the most special festival experience.

The next part of my review will be of the Firevolts bands, I didn’t catch them all due to ‘press duties’ but I’m sure you’ll enjoy the coverage I did.