Jazz On The Bletchley Bandstand
VENUE : The Bandstand, Queensway, Bletchley
LOCATION : In the pedestrianised centre of Bletchley.
TIME : Saturday mornings, 10am – 1pm, and afternoons, 2pm – 5pm, May to September
TRANSPORT LINKS : Trains run from Euston to Bletchley. Coaches run from Victoria to Milton Keynes, where you can pick up a day ticket on MK Metro buses. There are many services to Bletchley, although none of them are quick.
COMMENTS : The bandstand in Bletchley is home to a jazz season which runs from May to September, providing free entertainment to shoppers from 10am to 1pm every Saturday.
I have long been an advocate of building bandstands in the middle of shopping precincts. If the system was worked properly, a town could have bands on Saturdays in the high profile shopping centres, and then bands on Sundays in the green surroundings of a gardens. As of yet, no Council in the country has yet followed my vision.
Bletchley’s season is long, with a band every Saturday for five months of the year. It does suffer from a lack of variety, as the same bands keep coming back once a month. Nevertheless, some of the bands, especially the Fenny Stompers and Stackyard Stompers, are regulars at the paid jazz seasons, and that makes the Bletchley season a bargain by anybody’s standards.
If you are coming, don’t worry about bringing a chair, as there is plenty of seating provided in the precinct around the bandstand. The Council are missing a big trick by not having an ice-cream van or anyone providing refreshments during the events, but there are plenty of shops nearby where you can pick up some food.
The events for the season are prominently displayed on a board by the bandstand, but, disappointingly, there is no promotion of the events through the Internet. If, like me, you don’t live in Bletchley, you would be grateful if you could get a bit of information.
MARK : 6/10
WHAT BLETCHLEY COULD DO TO IMPROVE : Vary the bands just a little bit more. To be honest, the bands themselves could probably vary their programme just a little bit more, but there are so many bands in the local area who could appear on the stand that there really should be a bit more variety.
Provide a bit of catering, so that shoppers can grab their dinner and sit and listen to the band. At the moment, there is not even an ice-cream van. Providing food would entice people to stay listening longer, increasing the size of the crowds, and would also help raise revenue to pay for the bands.
The one gaping flaw with the Bletchley season is the total lack of publicity for the events, as is the story in so many places. They are advertised on a board by the bandstand, but who wants to pay a £9 train fare just to look at a board which may not even have been updated yet? Use the Internet to promote the events to a wider audience, at no significant expense.
To be fair to Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Council, they responded extremely quickly with a fixture list when I managed to find the right email address. The problem, as ever, is finding the right email address, or, in this area, even the right Council!
UPDATE 2010 – For some reason, Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Council have chosen to ignore my request for a fixture list this year, when they were perfectly happy to provide one last year.
I do have the fixtures, as they were provided to me by one of the bands who play as part of this season. However, I really don’t see why I should spend hours copying the fixtures off a printed sheet when the Council could easily email them to me for easy copying and pasting.
If you want to know what is on here, contact Bletchley and Fenny Stratford Council and complain about the total lack of available information.