A cracking day at Crosfest!

By Glen Screeton

IT promised to be a day of fun and music and Peter Aramayo and his team certainly delivered yet again at the recent Crosfest!

The predicted early downpours didn’t stop the crowds coming, and armed with their trusty camping chairs and brollies they were determined to set up camp and have a good day out. After being greeted by the friendly gate staff and entering the fenced-off training field of Crosfields Rugby Club, you were struck by a myriad of brightly coloured flags fluttering in the breeze, a very nice looking stage with adjoining DJ booth and two fantastic digital screens linked to a mobile camera, skilfully operated by Graham for crowd and stage filming.

Organiser Peter had clearly set out to impress and Crosfest resembled a miniature Glastonbury with a lovely local vibe.

This festival was super-organised with plenty of bars and hardly any queuing for very reasonably priced drinks – a crowd pleaser indeed! However, the families were not forgotten as children’s craft tents, sweeties and plenty of food stalls with choices ranging from simple chips to gourmet burgers and even a very quaint tea and coffee caravan with lovely cake kept everybody happy.

But what about the music? Crosfest is a day for crowd pleasing covers performed by solo singers with backing tracks, electro acoustic performers and five-piece bands. There was even a very good Ska band (01482Tones) with their own Monkey Man to keep the crowd bopping along to the sounds of Madness, The Specials and many more popular tunes which were well received as the sun finally set.

Sadly yours truly had to leave at this point and missed the headline act – Indy Britpop covers band ‘Haze’ but it was reported that they were excellent and had many of the festival-goers up on their feet dancing off the excesses of the day!

Overall, Crosfest was a huge success for the rugby club and the town of Warrington, and let’s hope Peter and his team repeat it for the fourth time next year.