Devauden Festival ends with burning of baked potato effigy

Devauden Festival is known as the 'small festival with big ideas' and attracted thousands of people over its three days.

Run entirely by the community, it has come a long way since it was launched in 2010 by village resident Jeremy Horton as a way of raising funds for the village hall.

This year the festival was staged over three days and included a live music from new, emerging and established artists, many of whom are home grown in Wales, with five performance areas.

One of these was the Badger's Den stage - which is often one of the most eclectic areas of the festival.

So it proved this year too, a homage to the Chepstow Baked Potato among the attractions.

Chris Dickens and Carla Jefferies are the brains behind the Badger's Den.

Formerly of Thornwell in Chepstow, they have been involved in Devauden Festival in one way or another for years – but have run the Badger’s Den stage for the last two years.

"We saw the potato being shared in the Chepstow groups on Facebook and thought “we have to do a take on it for the festival"," they said.

Unlike its metal-coated counterpart sitting on the riverbank in Chepstow, the Devauden replica potato is more arts and crafts.

"It’s a corrugated cardboard skeleton, with plaster of Paris ribs – reinforced with chicken wire, newspaper and papier mache," Ms Jefferies explained, though it is unclear whether any copies of the Argus were harmed in the making of the potato.

"It took about 15 days in total – more effort than organising the rest of the stage, except maybe the line-up," Mr Dickens said.

"It gave us the creative focus for this year’s event, although it was nearly too big to get through our front door at home.

"It was a labour of love, everyone at the festival really got it."

Events at the Badger's Den culminated on the Sunday night with a ceremonial 'sacrifice' of the potato (above - video from Phill Wesson @ Bad Noise).

The potato effigy was carried atop a plinth, before being burned in the fire pit in a tounge-in-cheek ritualistic ceremony.

"It was always the plan to do a potato sacrifice at midnight on the Sunday," Mr Dickens said.

"Burning Man has their effigy burning at the end, we have the potato."

-

Burning Man is a new-age music and art festival held in the Nevada desert in the USA. It finishes with the burning of a huge wooden effigy.

-

As well as the potato effigy, "loads of normal potatoes" were hidden around the festival site by the Badger's Den crew "as a treasure hunt".

"We were walking around asking people “have you seen my potato?”," Ms Jefferies said.

Away from legume-based entertainment, the Badger's Den bill also included a last-minute addition which turned out to be a hit.

Hip-hop karaoke was part of a packed roster at the Badger’s Den stage, but only came about after a hip-hop act dropped out.

“We spent all night printing off hundreds of pages of lyrics for it," Mr Dickens said.

It featured renditions of songs by Coolio, Eminem and Newport’s own Goldie Lookin’ Chain.