Site Search

The biggest issue for EMF is to find a good site. Here are our requirements, in order of priority:

• At least 3-8 hectares/8-15 acres/30,000-60,000 sq m (this should fit at least 1500 people but this isn't indicative of our planned capacity)
• Available for around 11 days (including a weekend) between mid-July and mid-September 2014.
• Good access for setup vehicles (no low bridges, for example)
• Ability to get a good internet connection (1 gigabit+) (but please let us know of any potential sites - NOC team can work this out)
• Pleasant enough you actually want to spend time there
• Previous event history at site
• Some kind of water supply/sewage connection
• Good transport links
• Located centrally to the UK
• Well drained
• Space for parking
• Near largish shops (e.g. large Tesco)

We don't care about:

• Most existing facilities (especially electricity). Providing them ourselves is frequently easier than trying to deal with existing services, so they're not a major consideration.

Candidate Sites

Site Name	Details
Colerne Airfield, Wiltshire (nr Bath)	Owned by a company of a friend of London Hackspace
Profound Decisions location, Banbury	Quite a lot of existing facilities here which we may be able to use. These guys provided our tents in 2012 and seem pretty keen.
Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate	Site of the Great Yorkshire Show which has massive farm equipment so access is probably fine. Has event spaces, big outside areas, loads of parking. Sainsburys effectively on site. From memory, drainage is OK.
Turnpost Farm, Leicestershire	Location of Glastonbudget. About 4 miles from Loughborough. Not sure of parking and amenities, but Glastonbudget has about 12,000 people so likely to be plenty of space if we can use some of that as car park
Peterborough Arena and Showground	Seems very accessible by all sorts of vehicles and good public transport links. Arena has internet, so should be easy to roll out to the showgrounds. Close to Peterborough for shops and things.
Newark Showground	Similar to Peterborough I guess. Perhaps a tad large. 84 acres, fenced, good drainage, a range of indoor spaces (max 4000 capacity), 2 miles from train station (2h15 from kings x), lots of parking, in house catering available
Doncaster Racecourse	Facilities look strong, including digital region connection via a very friendly local ISP. Maybe too small, and races on all the time?
Pickering Showground	Looks like a nice spot, hosts a music festival.
Overstone Scout Campsite, Northampton	Got water, showers and toilets. Not the flattest. May be too small.
Baldersby Park, Thirsk	Location for deershed festival. Finding out more details..
Three Counties Showground	Has a camping area which is 7 acres and available to hire separately. It has power, toilets and showers already on site, and plenty of other space to hire alongside it.