Festival Welfare Services
Festival Welfare Services is a United Kingdom voluntary organisation established in 1972 to improve welfare services at pop festivals. Prior to formation of FWS a variety of voluntary groups were providing services at festivals which, at the instigation of Release, came together to improve their cooperation and effectiveness. Following the Windsor and Watchfield festivals the government provided funding, from 1976, for a full-time worker (Penny Mellor) to coordinate FWS activities, although the majority of work remained voluntary. Volunteers often came from a festival-sympathetic background and thus were quite relaxed with even some of the wilder events but also sometimes distrusted by the authorities. Government funding was withdrawn in 1995.
Publications
- Healthy festival sites: environmental health guidelines for open-air festivals - John Stollery, Festival Welfare Services - 1980
- Community festivals handbook - John Hoyland, Community Projects Foundation, Festival Welfare Services - Social Science - 1983 - 84 pages
- Festivals: a survival guide - Festival Welfare Services - Festivals - 1987 - 12 pages
- Festivals: safer drug use : a users guide - Trevor McCarthy, Festival Welfare Services - Youth - 1989 - 4 pages
- website: Festival Welfare Services
Bibliography
- Clarke, Michael - The Politics of Pop Festivals - 1982
External links
- festival welfare services website
- Penny Mellor's early experiences with FWS
- FWS report on 1977 Stonehenge Free Festival
- FWS report on 7-7-77 Glastonbury Free Festival: Street, Somerset