THE organiser of a Swindon music festival hopes the way his team handled thunderstorms and a last-minute lineup change helped the event make a name for itself in the music industry.

Jack Summers leads the management team behind Live at Lydiard which welcomed 45 music acts and 10,000 festivalgoers to Lydiard Park on a wet and windy Saturday.

A sudden site evacuation during the event caused headaches but Mr Summers hailed the event as a success and is already working on plans for a bigger return in 2022.

He said: “In our first year, we were hit with weather that most established festivals never experience in their lifetime but we had a fantastic team in place to evacuate everyone, bring them back and deliver the performances from the remaining acts.

“It’s tough for a festival to establish a brand and identity as an event big names want to play at but this shows how competent we are, I’m so proud of the team.

“We had kind words from the live acts and we had a lot of good buzz from customers as well as some feedback we can take on board to improve for next year. As a foundation for the future, it was fantastic, I’m quite impressed.

“This shows people what we are about and what we are trying to do. We are not a flash-in-the-pan trying to do something overly ambitious, we set the bar high and hope to continue to meet that standard.”

The large metal structures of the main stage, dance tent and funfair rides posed potential safety risks when storm clouds moved closer and closer to the park.

After tracking the wet weather’s movement, the team temporarily evacuated the area when the dangerous conditions were around 12km away then allowed everyone back when the storm passed further south.

The stages have been dismantled and litter-pickers have been out in force to ensure that Lydiard Park is as tidy as it was before the festival began.

Beautiful Girls hitmaker Sean Kingston and his team of 15 could not come over to the UK in time for the festival because government rules on quarantining and Covid-19 vaccinations made the trip unfeasible.

Mr Summers explained to BBC Wiltshire: “It seems as though his camp weren’t fully vaccinated and there was no inclination to get them either."