About The Cosmic Puffin
Jamie
The Cosmic Puffin festival started in 2008 and wasn’t really supposed to be a festival at all. A close friend of mine’s small daughter was taken very ill and spent 3-4 days in a critical condition in St Mary’s Hospital in London in intensive care. A charity based at the hospital provides funds to enable parents of sick kids to stay in lodgings nearby so they can visit easily and regularly. I decided to do a ‘benefit’ gig to raise money for the said charity, COSMIC (Children of St Mary’s Intensive Care). By a pure stroke of luck the children’s ward at Basildon hospital where she was transferred to convalesce after coming out of intensive care was called Puffin ward and so the name of the festival was handed to me on a plate!
Cosmic Puffin 1
I put the word out to the many bands I knew and have worked with over the years and so many were up for it (about 25 I think) that we decided we had enough bands to make a weekend of it. We started off holding the festival at Easter which, in 2008, was the weekend of 23rd March (very early!) and on the Sunday morning I staggered out of my chalet after about 45 minutes sleep to be attacked by kids with snowballs! Definitely a first for me at a festival. Those that were at that first one will remember that the snow did not detract from the enjoyment we all got from the weekend, in fact, it seemed to make it even more magical. Against all the odds and with only about 100 paying punters we managed to clear a profit of about £1200 which was fantastic.
Cosmic Puffin II
The second year we added another stage and had about 40 bands in total over the weekend clearing just over £3,500. The charities which we decided to support that year, and continue to do so, were Bliss (for babies born too soon) and the National Autistic Society and we split the money between the two.
Cosmic Puffin 3 Poster
And so, onwards and upwards, Cosmic Puffin 3 was even better and, although overheads were creeping up, we saw a handsome profit of over £7,500!
Here’s a great film of Cosmic Puffin 4 in 2011 – A bit of a tough year for festivals with the double bank holidays of the Royal Wedding.
Bands For Cosmic Puffin 5
Cosmic Puffin 5 is back on a bank holiday this year and we have high hopes that this year will be the best one yet and we will be back on track. Over the years, we have built up a really good core team of people to help put this festival on and I would like to say it gets easier every year but I think I would be fooling myself. From the word go, everyone involved has taken no money for what they do. This includes bands, equipment providers and everyone else. It has been suggested we spend money on getting one ‘name’ band to pull people in but I am against this. If one band gets paid then I think all the bands should get paid.
I could waffle on for hours but I won’t, hope to see you all at Cosmic Puffin 5
