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Camden New Journal - by DAN CARRIER
Published: 20 September 2007

‘Glastonbury danger’ if pop music crowds are allowed to grow

Fears for Kenwood event ahead of debate on future

THE Kenwood Concerts will turn into Glastonbury-style pop music festivals causing chaos in Hampstead and Highgate if plans to expand its capacity go ahead, according to London Assembly member for Barnet and Camden Brian Coleman.
The future of the Kenwood Concert season is due to be thrashed out at a public meeting on Tuesday before licence applications are lodged with Camden Council in October.
The crucial decisions over the size and content of the summer season have yet to be decided.
The concerts were cancelled this year after English Heritage and organisers IMG were told to cut the series from 10 to eight.
Mr Coleman has written to the chairman of English Heritage, Lord Bruce-Lockhart, accusing the Kenwood managers of dumbing down the series and has called on the conservation body to hand over the running of the house to the London Assembly if they cannot make it pay without holding massive concerts through the summer.
He said: “We have seen them transformed from wonderful classical experiences to trawling the bottom of the barrel with performances such as Sing Along to The Sound of Music. If people want pop, they should go to Hyde Park.
“The addition of fireworks at the end of each performance has made life hell. This new style of concerts attracted a totally different audience causing massive traffic congestion more akin to a pop music festival than the pleasant evening of music and a picnic.”
English Heritage chief executive Simon Thurley said the accusation that the concert series had been dumbed down ignored his duty to help as many people as possible enjoy Kenwood.
He said: “Mr Coleman’s point about classical concerts has been addressed many times. Any concert programme at Kenwood would, of course, include classical concerts, but we seek to appeal to a wide range of tastes.
“A purely classical programme is simply not financially sustainable as these concerts lose money and it is the more popular concerts that subsidise the classical concerts.”

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