Long Division seeks crowdfunding for book to commemorate 12 years of Wakefield music festival

The final festival was held this year with the decision made over money troubles alongside fallout from Covid and Brexit.

But festival director Dean Freeman wants to gather words and images together in a book to commemorate all the years when the festival punched well above its weight.

The crowdfunding page for the books says: “From its humble fanzine roots it grew, against the odds, to become an award winning organisation dedicated to energising grassroots culture and championing the power of music.

"But this book isn’t about the stats and the slogans. It’s about how it felt to be there."

Arab Strap, The Lovely Eggs, Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly, The Orielles, bdrmm and The Research headlined the final show.

Over the years other highlights include Billy Bragg, Asian Dub Foundation and Wakefield’s own The Cribs.

Describing the plan for the book, the crowdfunding page said: Focusing on images, objects and stories, the Visual Compendium will celebrate the power of DIY culture.

"We’ll use Long Division’s archive, reflections from the people that were there and unseen items from the Wakefield Museum archive to capture the essence of LD.

"Photos, posters, unseen designs, records, merchandise, works-in-progress, art, recordings, films, poetry, floorplans, graphs, scripts, testimonials... anything we can find from our vast digital and physical archive to tell the story of our festival and all the community work we did!”

To contribute or hear about other ways to promote the project click here for the indiegogo page.

In June, following the last festival Dean said he would offer support to anyone who wanted to fill the gap in Wakefield’s music calendar left by Long Division, but the model for this festival would be difficult to replicate.

He said: “Long Division doesn't make sense as a business or business plan. It would be difficult to do again. I hope someone takes what we did and does what they want about it.

“But Wakefield needs to build back up its grassroots again.

"We need lots of smaller things going, lots of different perspectives on live music.

“I don't know if anyone would step in and repeat it but if they do we would help them if they wish.”