Dispute halts Deeply Vale Festival 40th anniversary exhibition

A planned exhibition of the 40th anniversary of one of Rochdale’s historic music festivals will no longer go ahead, following a dispute between the trademark holder and the museum.

Deeply Vale Festival was held for four years at the top end of Heywood/Rochdale’s Ashworth Valley, although the only road approach to the site was through Bury.

Starting with 300 people and local bands in 1976, it grew to an audience of 3,000 in 1977. By 1978 and 1979, it attracted 20,000 who flocked to see over 50 bands, including famous faces, play for free.

Deeply Vale was unique as it was originally pulled together in under two weeks back in September 1976 by soundman Chris Hewitt and four people who lived in a Rochdale commune, who frequented the Heywood hippy music pubs of The Dressers and The Seven Stars.

Chris Hewitt later trademarked the Deeply Vale name to preserve its history.

This year marks the 40^th anniversary of one of its largest audiences, but, following a dispute between organiser Chris Hewitt and Touchstones, the planned exhibition will no longer go ahead.

Initially, a Heritage Lottery Grant of £29,900 was awarded to the museum, owned by Link4Life, for an exhibition and educational project about the festival.

However, Chris Hewitt says he was "expected to provide information for free", and his requirement to be paid has resulted in he funding being transferred to a project about Rochdale’s music scene in general during that era.

Chris Hewitt said: “I have worked on a couple of previous exhibitions at Touchstones, Rochdale as co-curator and researcher and supplier of exhibits from my extensive archive.

“After members of Touchstones saw my archive collection in 2017, they confirmed a Deeply Vale exhibition would take place in summer 2018 at the museum.

"I have always been paid an access fee for use of my archive and co-curation fee for working on previous music exhibitions at Touchstones.

“I was approached in October and November 2017 to supply information for the project, and was emailed by Touchstones to say they had been awarded Heritage Lottery Funding for a ‘community element’ of the exhibition.

“I later discovered Touchstones had applied for and received a HLF fund of £29,900 for the Deeply Vale exhibition and education project without any reference to myself, the archive and trademark owner.

“I don’t believe a professional museum service should be applying for funding and putting in no budget for supply of objects or information from the archive holder and trademark owner, nor should they not inform that person that an application has been made solely for that archive.

“How can the funding be allocated to do something else? It should be used for a Deeply Vale exhibition and educational project as it was originally granted for. I would be prepared to run this with colleagues, who work in the educational sector.”

He added that since his complaint, all materials referring to the festival, such as his book, DVDs and CDs, have since been withdrawn from the museum shop due to ‘slowing sales’.

A Link4Life representative said: “Link4Life can confirm it has received and considered a complaint from the trademark holder relating to the planned exhibition. We are very sorry that the complainant feels this way, however we strongly dispute any allegations of wrongdoing or infringement of intellectual copyright issues.

“We regret that we were unable to fulfil the request for fees following the confirmation of the investment from the Heritage Lottery Fund. The funding obtained had a specific purpose to develop education and participation with young people around musical heritage.

“Following the complaint, we have worked closely with the funding provider to agree revisions to the project. This will ensure that the trademark holders’ rights are not infringed but will mean that Link4Life can continue to deliver the project enabling young people to develop heritage skills and explore the links between music and youth culture. 

“Link4life is really proud of the heritage of the borough and wish the trademark holder success should he decide to develop his own exhibition in the future.”

A spokesperson for the Heritage Lottery Fund said: “In September 2017 the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) awarded £29,900 to Link4Life for a project called That Festival Feeling under its Young Roots grants programme, which aims to work with young people aged 11-16 to explore the heritage of music festivals in the Rochdale area since the 1970s.

“Since being awarded the grant, the project has changed heritage focus slightly following a request from Link4Life due to copyright issues. HLF has since agreed a change of approved purposes for the project.

"Young Roots is a small grants programme designed to engage young people in exploring heritage through activity-based learning, encouraging them to build skills, confidence and have fun, and as such we are happy that the revised project still meets HLF outcomes for this programme.”