Psytrance festival blocked after local residents complain music is "form of torture"

A Gloucestershire-based psytrance festival has been blocked after locals compared noise from the festival to "a form of torture."

Goa Cream Festival had been set to take over Yewtree Farm, close to Thornbury, South Gloucestershire across September 12 - 14 for its ninth edition.

As reported by BBC News, organisers were denied permission by local councillors to hold the festival at the site - which has been its location for the last two editions of the psytrance-focussed event - due to complaints from nearby residents.

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The decision came following concerns from environmental officers from Avon and Somerset police, claiming they had received 11 complaints following last year's last year's edition of the festival.

In documents seen by BBC News, residents had complained of headaches and shaking windows, with one resident writing in a letter of complaint: "It was non-stop heavy bass music; it was almost inhumane and a form of torture."

Goa Cream Festival's organiser Piers Ciappara claimed that monitors had been pointed toward a nearby motorway during the event, admitting that previous editions had not had a sound engineer on-site, with organisers monitoring sound levels themselves.

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However, an environmental health office claimed they were given no readings from the event, instead organisers submitted "screenshots of equipment readings" and "numbers scribbled on pieces of paper."

"Last year we only had handwritten notes and photographs because the week after the event my colleague who had the sound system had a bad accident," Ciappra told the licensing hearing.

"He nearly chopped his hand off cutting the grass so he couldn't put a spreadsheet together – but this year we have a professional team with us."

[Via: BBC News]

Megan Townsend is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow her on Twitter