He decided there and then he would put on a festival dedicated solely to tribute acts and hastily scribbled a few ideas on the back of the proverbial ‘cig packet’. The idea gained momentum and so, in 2007 a few hundred music lovers gathered in a rain-sodden field in Driffield and the magic of Tribfest was born. Advertisement Advertisement Did you know with a Digital subscription to Yorkshire Post, you can get access to all of our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more.
It’s still going strong and each year gets better. Now around 4,000 people of all ages make a pilgrimage to Sledmere House in East Yorkshire every August to spend four days listening to some of the world’s best tribute acts. It’s not all been plain sailing for Ed and his small but immensely loyal team of staff and volunteers.
Covid hit Tribfest hard - as it did the entire music industry. The festival was cancelled in 2020 and Ed was given just five weeks notice that 2021’s event could go ahead. He pulled out all the stops.
Although much of the infrastructure was in place, held over from the previous year, sourcing supplies was incredibly difficult and prices for everything had more than doubled. Advertisement Advertisement Ed said: “Covid knocked us back financially by 10 years. We couldn’t put our prices up enough to cover the extra costs so we took the hit.
“After Covid, the prices never really came down so, as we are a budget festival, we have r.