Miscellaneous - Interview With Stuart Mackay

  by Helen Tipping

published: 23 / 4 / 2011

intro

Helen Tipping speaks to Stuart Mackay, the organiser and founder of the annual indie pop Indetracks Festival, which is now in its fifth year, about his plans and the line-up for this year's festival

The Indietracks Festival is now in its fifth year. Set up to raise money for the Midlands Railway at Butterley, the festival combines indie music with trains and beer - what could be better? This year's headliners include Jeffrey Lewis, Edwyn Collins and the Hidden Cameras, and the festival takes place on the 29th, 30th and 31st July at Butterley in Derbyshire. Pennyblackmusic caught up with organiser and founder Stuart Mackay, who found time to answer a few brief questions. PB: Indietracks is now in its fifth year. Are you going to do anything to celebrate with special guests, bands or trains, or surprises? SM: The whole festival is a special treat! PB: With the festival being more firmly established has this brought any problems, for example better known bands requesting to play that might attract a much larger or different crowd than you would like to see? SM: No, it's made it easier as everyone's got the hang of what we're doing at last. PB: Given this is a charity event, do you have any corporate or local sponsorship involved? And will you be having the Just Giving page again this year? SM: We've never looked into sponsorship. It could be interesting - "British Rail Indietracks Festival" or whatever name modern train companies are called as they'd be an obvious choice. The Just Giving page is always active at http://www.charitygiving.co.uk/donate/donate_b.asp?charityid=2488. PB: Do you foresee a time when the festival outgrows the site? SM: Not really. Any bigger and it's something we wouldn't really be able to do as a hobby, so we deliberately keep it small. PB: Do you still get excited about organising the festival and the different bands that will be playing? SM: Picking the bands and DJs is the only exciting part (other than the weekend itself) - the rest is just routine now. PB: Thank you.