For nearly a decade, Mote Park in Maidstone has proved itself to be an essential location in July for lovers of hard rock, southern rock, blues rock and prog. Maid Of Stone festival is embarking on its third year, hitting a very sweet spot indeed, and long may this continue. MetalTalk had the pleasure of spending some time in the company of Chris Wright, Head Of Marketing, to get the behind-the-scenes lowdown.
When Maid of Stone announced its first lineup in 2023, punters across the board assumed that this was Ramblin’ Man Fair under another name. However, Maid Of Stone shares the location and a tendency for attracting some of the most entertaining rock acts on the scene, but that is all.
The company behind Ramblin’ Man Fair is no more, having filed for bankruptcy, so Lucus Live stepped into the gap to keep rockers satisfied.
Lucus Live has been around for a while. They are notable for hosting large-scale events of twenty thousand people or more, mainly in pop, dance and tribute festivals, with Maid Of Stone their first all-original rock event.
Chris Wright did not have a background in the music industry previously, but he understands rock fans and what we want from a festival. He is one of us and has experienced all the highs and lows first-hand over many years of attending.
“I came across Lucus Live a couple of years ago when they were doing a rock tribute show in Mote Park,” Chris told us, “and I wanted to get involved. My background is actually marketing, but when I connected with Lucus, I realised that the same things that I do to market businesses, products and services, it’s the same – selling tickets.
“There is nothing really magical about the music industry. It’s just capturing attention, getting eyeballs, presenting a good offer, which has to do with price and billing and so on.”
So far, so conventional. Chris’s route to actually getting on board was a bit more unusual, however. “All right, I’ll tell you the story,” he says.
“One day, I was having a down day. I don’t know why. I was doom scrolling on Facebook, and I saw this advert for this rock tribute show in Kent. I live in Essex, and there isn’t much going on festival-wise, so I would go to Download or Bloodstock.
“This is an hour away in Kent and looks like fun. You’ve got Bon Jovi, you’ve got Guns N’ Roses, but the Facebook ad was really bad. Now, Facebook ads are one of my specialities so I wrote some snotty comments on there. If any of you losers want to know how to do Facebook ads properly, let me know. Press enter. Scroll on.
“I’m a big keyboard warrior. Someone saw it in the company, and they came back and actually tagged me and said, ‘Do you think you can do better?’ Yes. Fighting talk, I know. I had a phone call with the boss, then I went through all the ads for all the shows they were doing, and I wrote this three-page report of what was wrong, what was good and what could be done better.
“He came back and said, right, we’re doing five hours a week self-employed, you’re doing our ads for these shows. So that’s how I got the job with Lucus. Being passive-aggressive and snotty on Facebook. I don’t recommend it. It was a bad time for me.”
Fortunately, things have gone well since then, and relationships have remained harmonious, professional, and most importantly, successful. A year later the news about Ramblin’ Man Fair’s demise reached the company who were ideally placed to take over the date which had come available and were invited to do so.
“Obviously, being the chief rocker in the company, I was dragged forward and asked, ‘What do you think?’ Yeah, absolutely, of course you want to do a rock show,” Chris says. “We had no idea how it would go down or who we would book, but we started doing the designs.
“I was handed one of these databases of agent’s contact details, which are usually wrong. I was working with a girl called Holly, who’s since left, but she booked most of the first year with me helping her. We did it. It seemed to go down quite well, so we planned for 2024.
“I guess the rest is history, really. It’s grown every year. We’ve made money on it every year, and apparently, outdoor festivals have to make a loss for five years. We were just, no, we’ve got quite a good business model, and this works.”
It seems that the biggest issue was dealing with the punters who had attended the previous rock festival and accused Maid Of Stone of hanging on to money for tickets for an event that never happened.
A lot of time was spent on getting the message across that Lucus was nothing to do with what happened and just happened to be in the same park, along with five or six other promoters doing shows, and are putting on a rock show.
It’s a good job that Chris has a strong character and the constitution for this, as, after a relatively smooth run in the first year, 2024 threw up a couple of curveballs over the weekend with last-minute rescheduling and a headliner that could have looked very different at the eleventh hour.
Big River frontman Adam Barron was taken ill. A family emergency meant These Wicked Rivers had to pull out the night before, and Mr. Big vocalist Eric Martin fell down the stairs of the tour bus and spent most of the day at Maidstone Hospital. His appearance was in doubt right up to the last minute.
The latter was really high stakes – a headliner on a farewell tour, not the easiest of things to try to arrange a last-minute change. Fortunately, Eric Martin decided to take to the stage in the absolute nick of time. But it was touch and go for a while, requiring a flurry of behind-the-scenes contingency planning, including asking Danny Vaughan from Tyketto if he would be willing to step in.
“My fiancé always jokes that I’m alive when that kind of shit goes down,” Chris says. “I take it in my stride, and I think I was almost the coolest person on site when I heard that Eric Martin couldn’t come on.
“We did actually suggest [Danny] to the tour manager, but I don’t think they seemed that keen. I did actually get my eye on the set that [the remainder of the band] were planning on doing if Eric hadn’t come on and I would have been a bit disappointed. All of the hard-to-sing classics would not have been in that set.
“There would be a lot of covers because Billy and Paul do not have the range of Eric. That was why I wanted to convince them to do a few with Danny, so we got the more popular songs. But I didn’t have to have that fight, that conversation.
“I would rather not go through that again, even though I did come alive dealing with it – you can dial it down a little bit, that would be all right. Just because I can handle the stress doesn’t mean I want to be in the stress.”
Understandable, especially after having to rejig matters earlier in the day, which saw Oli Brown & The Dead Collective swiftly recruited, Oli conveniently being on-site already with his jewellery stall, Sam Wood returning to the site having recently left after his set with Wayward Sons, and Wayne Proctor arriving in the morning.
It absolutely confirmed that there is one vital item needed in the festival organiser’s toolkit.
“I need to make sure I’ve got a band on site,” Chris confirms. “I almost did because Absolva came with Blaze Bayley, and they were going to stay the weekend. But they had a European date on Saturday, so they did Blaze’s set and then shot out to Europe, which left me empty.
“Oli’s part of the furniture now with everything he does at the event. But yes, I will make sure I’ve got some bands around, it’s safe to say.
Thankfully, it is not all stress, and there are opportunities to enjoy the achievements, too. The biggest satisfaction for Chris is when the lineup is finalised. There are highlights throughout the weekend too.
“It’s hard when you’re in the middle of it to sit back and enjoy,” Chris says, “so I don’t get those moments. But last year, when Mr. Big went on and Eric Martin was finally on stage, I was in VIP. I sat down with my fiancé and my kid. I opened up half a can of lager, and I just sat back and thought – Nice.”
So far the 2025 lineup has seen one headline change already, with Richie Kotzen no longer able to attend, replaced by co-headliners Joanne Shaw Taylor and Dirty Honey for the Friday night. So, hopefully, that’s the chaos out of the way for this year.
Tickets are selling well, and if anyone is undecided, they are advised to get them sooner rather than later as it’s shaping up to be the best yet, which is interesting as the festival is a stage down this year while increasing the number of bands and avoiding the main sod’s law of festivals – the stage clashes.
As with all other elements of the festival, it has been well thought out.
“I’m not saying I want to force people to watch smaller bands,” Chris says. “That doesn’t make any sense. But I want to give them the biggest showcase that you can.
“But then you stick Massive Wagons on the other stage, and they end up playing to three hundred people, whereas they might have been playing to one or two thousand people. It came about because, in the first year, we actually had an event prior, the weekend before Maid Of Stone. So the site was already up, and all we did was tinker with it, building extra camping.
“So the stages are up. Let’s just put some bands on. We did that just in case Maid Of Stone struggled with the tickets – less of a financial hit because some of the costs would have been in the show previously.
“It didn’t need it. It stood on its own, and the second year stood on its own. This year, we’re literally building that site just for that weekend, and it’s gonna come down again.
“I was all set to fight and say we need to keep it as it is, but when I sat and looked at the schedule because we had staggered the two main stages, some were sitting empty for eighty minutes, so what’s the point?
“You can get way more bands on those stages with a good crew. I think we had thirty-nine bands last year on three stages, and this year we’ve got forty-one bands on two stages and no clashes at all apart from with the VIP acoustic sets.”
It is this willingness to learn and be prepared to change things up year on year to get the best possible experience now and in the future that makes Maid Of Stone what it is along with having good staff, treating people well, and getting the vibe right. And listening to feedback both direct and across socials.
There are some surprises to look forward to. “The secret set is going to be quite interesting this year,” Chris says. “I’m hoping that will pull a lot of people to Friday because if people miss it they will be gutted about it.
“It’s a new band starring quite a name in the British music scene, so I’m not going to say anything more than that. On the day, the rumours will start, but no one, in theory, is going to know about that until they walk on stage. So that will be quite cool.”
Festivals are fragile creatures. Every year, there are reports of more and more throwing in the towel as it’s unsustainable to continue. Chris is confident, however, that Maid Of Stone is here to stay.
It is a confidence that is based on hard evidence, and it certainly feels secure. There is clearly a demand for an event where you can experience great heavy music in the open air with like-minded souls without all the hassle and schlepping about of the massive festivals.
“I really hope that people come out and enjoy it,” Chris says, “because we’ve worked so hard to do things like keep the prices held at £150 for three days. We’re growing year on year in ideas and in raising the bar, so I hope people jump on board and come along with us because I know where I want it to go.
“I want to get it to that nice 10k, no higher than that. That nice number that will bring us bands like Shinedown, Slash and Judas Priest. That sort of thing.”
Maid Of Stone: A Festival That Rocks
Now in its third year, Maid Of Stone has firmly established itself as a must-attend event for rock fans. With a wide variety of music styles covered, their festival’s reputation continues to grow.
Set to be a highlight of Festival Season, MetalTalk will have more news very soon. All our coverage for 2025 will be found at MetalTalk.net/maid-of-stone.
Tickets Available Now. For full details and to grab your tickets, visit MaidOfStoneFestival.com.
MetalTalk’s Maid Of Stone 2024 coverage can be found at https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/maid-of-stone-festival-2024.
For MetalTalk’s Maid Of Stone 2023 coverage, visit https://www.metaltalk.net/tag/maid-of-stone-festival-2023.
