Festival is outgrowing Valleys back garden venue

WHEN you think of an ideal setting to host a music festival, a residential area near Pontypridd may not be the first place that springs to mind.

But a group of men managed to pull it off by converting their back garden into a huge DJ booth and inviting hundreds of people from across the UK to join them.

The festival, dubbed Glyncfest, has been running every summer for the past five years. But this year they went big.

The party had more interest than ever before this year after one of its organisers, Dale Vincent, started making viral videos.

His posts on social media reach thousands of people all over the UK, and when he said he was organising a party, hundreds wanted to attend.

Dale’s best friend, James Wilding, said: “I organised the first party when Dale was in the army.

“He was about to do his fourth tour of Afghan, and I wanted to throw him a party before he went away for six months.

“Originally, it was just going to be us, a few friends and a beat box in the garden but then we thought, we may as well use the equipment as I DJ.”

In 2012, the first party saw a few dozen people squeeze into a little garden at a house in Glyncoch.

But now, with a bigger garden and sound system, the boys were able to turn it up a notch.

More than 100 people attended this year’s event, and many more had to be turned away when the garden became too crowded.

James, 23, explained: “When Dale released the promotional video, people said they were coming from all over the place.

“A bus came from Pembrokeshire, people flew from Dublin and I have friends coming from Hull.

“We think some local hotels were fully booked because so many people needed somewhere to stay. “People were so excited about it.” As for the neighbours, James said people who live in the street are always “pretty sound” about the event.

Most of them join the party, and if they don’t the music gets turned off at a reasonable time to avoid causing trouble.

He said: “To be fair, people in Glyncoch have been sound about it.

“We start the music at 12pm and turn it off at 6pm because we don’t want to upset anyone.

“Everyone then jumps on the local bus and heads into Ponty for a night out.

“It’s such a tight-knit community that if there was any drama, people would just come to help.”

But, due to the fact that the event has become so popular, the lads want to take it to the next level.

In 2018, they hope the festival will take place somewhere other than their back garden.

James said: “We haven’t thought about it properly yet, but we hope to work with the right people to organise a proper festival in our town.

“It would be good to organise a proper event somewhere – even if it’s just in a field.”