The team behind Eden, which takes place every June at Raehills near Moffat, say they will not be following in the footsteps of Electric Fields Festival, which is quitting the region for Glasgow this year due to spiralling costs and logistical issues.
Festival fans were dealt a huge blow last week when the creators of Electric Fields revealed the event will be moving from its historic home at Drumlanrig Castle near Thornhill to the SWG3 events space in Glasgow.
But now the region’s other large scale home-grown camping music festival, The Eden Festival, has offered comfort to disillusioned music fans by vowing to stay in their Dumfries and Galloway based home.
Eden’s first incarnation was as part of Kirkcudbright based Wickerman Festival in 2002.
In 2009, after seven years of hosting the Eden Zone, the time came to step out of the Wickerman Festival and go it alone and such was the birth of Eden Festival.
It was first held in the Forest of Ae before moving to Raehills Meadows, near Moffat, and settling on an annual June date.
Last year for its tenth anniversary, the festival opened their gates to over 9000 people.
But it has not all been plain sailing for the festival and founder Adam Curtis knows first hand the strains and stress of organising a compelling multi day event.
In 2016 he revealed he had to re-mortgage his home to pay the cost of spiralling policing fees and save that year’s event. Police fees had jumped from £11,000 in 2015 to £37,000 the following year – despite the festival remaining the same size.
Officers defended the increase, saying that the fee jump brought Eden Festival’s costs in line with other major events in Scotland.
Speaking following the news of Electric Fields move, Adam said: “As a volunteer run community event we have no plans to leave our community.
“Certain factors have made it more difficult to host an event in Dumfries and Galloway, but we will all work longer hours and innovate new ways of reducing production costs to ensure we can continue to host our event in our home county.
“There is absolutely no commercial sense in doing something like this but we are all masochists with a love and passion for our area and the essence of festival – to bring people together in celebration.”
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