Strawberries & Creem: the UK’s youngest team leading the way for independent festivals

With an average age of 22, Strawberries & Creem are the youngest music festival team in the country. The team represents a diverse cross section of backgrounds and has only two full-time members of staff - Louise Young, 24 and Chris Nnochiri, 23. The rest are either juggling full-time jobs or at university.

Their lofty ambitions are fuelled by a desire to prove that their young, independent festival can thrive in a tricky, competitive climate - without the help of corporate investment and within a city which is renowned more for its academia than its music.

With a true understanding of how millennials think (with the team being that very demographic themselves), the festival has also garnered an impressive array of fast-moving, suitably aligned partners - such as Deliveroo and Uber - alongside providing a platform for smaller local food and drinks companies to ply their trade.

It’s been described as ‘a mainstay of the underground festival circuit’ - and that’s exactly what the team are aspiring to create. Just as grime has stubbornly paved the way for successfully-independent UK music, Strawberries & Creem are flying the flag for independent festivals - and, most importantly, young people across the country.

It’s no secret that 2016 was a year of substantial change. Ignoring the obvious, one landscape which has been severely affected over the last twelve months is the UK music scene. Historically a stalwart of unity and an outlet for political reflection, music has recently been under attack - from both external and internal forces.

One of the biggest moments of 2016 was the closure (and subsequent reopening) of iconic London nightclub Fabric. Youth culture and music were publicly attacked in a high-profile dispute that - whilst on the surface was about drug use - seemed motivated by far more cynical and financial reasons for a cash-strapped council.

Within the industry itself, mainstream music has become increasingly homogenised under the directive of major record labels. Despite the vast changes we’ve witnessed across politics and society, most music in the charts is remarkable only in its banality.

In the UK festival scene, we’ve seen an increasing number of independent festivals competing against the superior power of large corporations - many of them losing.

Yet there are those that are those that are providing a strong resistance. Grime is a proudly independent music genre that has risen from the streets of London over the past few years and is now at forefront of the UK music scene - representing British youth culture on a global stage, and becoming a beacon for independent musicians.

Coinciding with grime’s meteoric rise is a small independent music festival in, of all places, Cambridge. Strawberries & Creem Festival played host to genre-defining artist Skepta’s first UK festival performance in 2015, just months after his UK top 40 single ‘Shutdown’ swept the nation. Since then, he’s gone on to win a number of awards including the 2016 Mercury Prize and is nominated for this year’s Brits.

Where better to champion musical independence and diversity over corporate control and homogeneity than Cambridge? Traditional, quaint, predominantly middle class - and an academic headquarters providing the next generation of bankers and thinkers. Against this refined backdrop, Strawberries & Creem Festival are pushing the sounds of the UK’s cities and streets - and having phenomenal success with it.

Proudly independent in food as well as music, the festival has grown incredibly quickly since its inception in 2014 - doubling in size every year, culminating in last June’s 5,000 capacity sell-out, and hosting some of the most respected and exciting names in music (Kano, Skepta, Nelly, Sir David Rodigan, Grandmaster Flash). For 2017, they are scaling to 10,000 - and even have plans to launch a second festival.