STORY!

GOCSTOCK STORY

The little wooden house that is next door to the land where GocStock was originally held was Goc’s family home throughout her childhood. With no central heating, the only way to keep warm was by logging up the fallen trees in the surrounding woodland.  As the winters were long and cold, this proved to be a rather large yet crucial task.  So, for several weekends during the warmer months friends would come up to the land for ‘working parties’; days spent logging up fallen trees and putting them into the wood store to dry out, and the evenings spent sitting around a campfire playing guitars, eating BBQ food and dancing until the early hours of the morning. This was the earliest inspiration for GocStock and came when Goc was seven years old.

A series of smaller, similar events that Goc started way back when she was in year 9 at school became the building blocks for GocStock. As a philanthropic fundraiser, Goc and her classmates camped out under the stars in the GocStock forest with nothing but cardboard boxes for shelter. The weather was unforgiving and stormed persistently throughout the night. Despite the extreme weather, and the serious matter that was being addressed, the night turned out to be an immense amount of fun and raised some good money for the charity Shelter. This then became a tradition, every Easter Goc and her friends would camp out under the Big Beech Tree, with plenty of drinks, acoustic guitars and story telling. The Big Beech Tree later became the area for the GocStock main stage.

Over the summers leading up to the first GocStock, several evenings were spent around the campfire, playing guitars and entertaining friends. It became and increasingly regular event and the enjoyment had by those in the forest was something not to be ignored. Towards the end of the summer 2005 Goc began planning a ‘sleepout’ that would last a couple of days, friends who were of a musical disposition would be asked to prepare a set to play to the rest of the group around the campfire, while others would prepare food and the forest would be enjoyed for a couple of nights. However, this sleepout was not organised in time and the autumn xset in. The idea was not lost, it simply grew…

Come November 2005 at a rather ridiculous house part in Bournemouth, the idea of a mini-festival in the forest was presented to friends. The thought of a few nights out in the middle of the sticks with friends entertaining friends had nothing but a positive response. The more people that heard of this (at the time) hypothetical event, the more people who volunteered ideas and help. Enthusiasm and word of this event spread like wildfire.

One night the event was being discussed in true ‘Waterloo Road’ fashion and the name WoodGoc was thrown about, as a joke-able, low-fi version of Woodstock. This then progressed into GocStock and it was decided that this was a much better name for the event. The name stuck and planning began!

In its first year GocStock was single-handedly arranged by Goc. Contacts that were made socially and through working as a freelance music photographer were called upon to make the festival happen. In 2006 GocStock was free to attend – one of the reasons the festival was able to be free was due to the many bands and DJs offering their equipment, time and skills for free.  Many of the bands and DJs stayed for the entirety of the weekend enabling them the chance to party as well as perform. Further inspiration for the idea of a free-festival was that it was a great excuse to get friends from all over the country together and enjoy the things that are so very important in Goc’s life: friends, music, fire, the forest and partying! To allow people to appreciate all these things for free was not only an opportunity to test the water with GocStock but more importantly not to exclude anyone due to their financial situation. This was also the first opportunity that Goc had to put into place her dream of one day becoming a ‘trustafarian’.

GocStock had done exactly what it intended to do, bringing together all of Goc’s friends together in one place at one time to party together as though they had all know each other for years. Friends of friends becoming friends.

This ethos, attitude and love has grown and been the fuel on the fire for the four previous GocStocks and the GocStocks yet to come! Watch this space!