This Saturday, 29 August, Brockholes Rec hosts BrockFest from midday until 9pm.
Live music all afternoon, ten Huddersfield ales on tap, a bouncy castle, and it costs nothing to get in. We're the main sponsor, and it's comfortably the most enjoyable thing we've put our name to.
What's on
STORM headline, with Universe Party Band, Daniel Chapman and Mason Whittle across the day.
If you're bringing kids, Crafty Devilz are running circus skills, and there's face painting and the bouncy castle alongside the community stalls. Burger Burger and Tin Box Pizza are handling the food, and the bar is ten local ales deep. Our fellow sponsor Accu, the precision components people just up the road in Brockholes, have covered the branded cups.
And when the Rec closes at nine, The Rock has a band on until late for anyone not ready to go home.
Free entry, all of it.
Why we got involved
One of our two bases is in Armitage Bridge, about five minutes down the road from the Rec, so this is genuinely our patch.
BrockFest is run by Tony McGrath, a former Kirklees councillor, and it exists because local businesses chip in to cover the costs. That's the whole model. Nobody takes a cut. Any profit goes back into local good causes, which last year meant things like the Brockholes Christmas lights fund and a handful of smaller village projects.
So the money doesn't buy us a logo on a banner so much as it buys a village a free day out, and then buys the Christmas lights. That's a straightforward proposition and we didn't need much of a meeting about it.
"This event is only possible thanks to lots of amazing local businesses."
Tony McGrath, BrockFest organiser
The honest bit
We could have spent the same money on ads.
Ads would have been easier to measure, and we're the sort of studio that likes measuring things. But we've never once heard someone say their favourite thing about a company was its retargeting, whereas a free festival on the Rec is the kind of thing a village actually remembers.
We've written before about why we're betting on places outside the big cities, and this is the same idea with better music. Being local to somewhere beats being remote to everywhere. If you're going to say that, you should probably turn up.
Come and say hello
Saturday 29 August, midday to 9pm, Brockholes Rec. Free.
Come and find us. We'll be the ones near the ales, and we're always happy to talk about a project, or about literally anything else, which on a Saturday afternoon is more likely.
There's more on the festival in Huddersfield Hub's write-up.
