History
Infest was born in early 1998 through the efforts of three students of the University of Bradford and the Students' Union Entertainments Manager, Floyd Peltier - the founding team of students being Gareth 'Gadge' Harvey, Chris 'Crusty' Molyneux and Max 'Maxi Slag' Niblock. The concept of the show was a one day event for local goth bands in West Yorkshire. Even before the first event however, it spiraled into an altogether bigger beast when the Students Union agreed that funds could be found to book some much bigger acts; most notably gothic/deathrock band Alien Sex Fiend. The student organisers were already fans of the Whitby Gothic Weekend and took the idea for Infest to the Whitby festival-goers and traders to gauge how popular the show might be. The response was positive and the first Infest festival was confirmed as 14th and 15 August 1998.
The following year (1999) the festival paid more attention towards the electronic side of the goth and industrial scene by booking Apoptygma Berzerk for their first UK show.
By 2000, the University of Bradford's Students' Union felt that they couldn't carry the costs of the festival any longer. In addition, the original students who had promoted the show had all but moved on. Fortunately, an independent goth/industrial promoter and DJ named Mark 'Gus' Guy (former drummer with the Indie band Kerosene), who had been advising Chris during the show's early years, stepped in to fill the void. As a result of the heavy involvement with Gus and his Terminal Productions company, another twist to the show's music style took place, defining Infest in its current form. The show's theme has moved from goth/industrial crossover to alternative electronic, with a greater emphasis on power noise, futurepop, synthpop and electronic body music. Occasionally more darkwave-style goth bands do still appear on the lineup.
Since 2000, Infest has gained an international reputation, with festival-goers travelling from as far as Canada, and acts flying from as far as Australia to play the UK. The show continues to provide a market for traders, which helps to bring the music and the lifestyle of the show's fans together. There is also a full festival program where nightclubs, DJs, bands and businesses can make their voices heard. Infest is supported by a number of electronic record labels, notably Ant-Zen and Hands Productions and has been sponsored by the online music store Music Non Stop, the drink Jägermeister and the software publisher Ableton.
The festival was originally known as "InFest" when it was started in 1998, however in 2003 its name was altered to "Infest" on all material produced by the organisers.
Read more about this topic: Infest (festival)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“If usually the “present age” is no very long time, still, at our pleasure, or in the service of some such unity of meaning as the history of civilization, or the study of geology, may suggest, we may conceive the present as extending over many centuries, or over a hundred thousand years.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“It is true that this man was nothing but an elemental force in motion, directed and rendered more effective by extreme cunning and by a relentless tactical clairvoyance .... Hitler was history in its purest form.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“When we of the so-called better classes are scared as men were never scared in history at material ugliness and hardship; when we put off marriage until our house can be artistic, and quake at the thought of having a child without a bank-account and doomed to manual labor, it is time for thinking men to protest against so unmanly and irreligious a state of opinion.”
—William James (1842–1910)