Well now with this year’s always rewarding London Proms season almost upon us maybe it is time to search out a slight alternative or two? I mean, did I hear someone on the Radio Four Arts programme trying to tell me that getting on for four hundred quid a ticket is “good value” for Glastonbury?!  Okay, so the Proms aren’t exactly an alternative but we do meet so so many people who have no idea about them or who think it is all about the awful jingoism of the last night when really it is about far far far more than just that. Do people really know what the Proms are about and how brilliant most of it is? The announcement of the programme is always an exiting day here, any John Adams this year? Where’s the Strav?  

So the various Summer seasons of festivals are upon us, soulless football stadiums are full of giant wallet-bursting corporate music festivals, there’s big Summer art shows opening, people are starting to talk about Frieze Week, alas there’s no sign of Upfest pulling us down to Bristol again this Summer (there is ArcTanGent though). What else is there? What else is out there while Metallica are stinking out West Ham’s place? No doubt there’s a punk picnic or two, hopefully there’s an alternative cash-on-the-gate festival to be found here and there, if not a free festival or two? What else is there though? How about we go way left field with a touring exhibition on a train or something called The Greatest Gathering?  

You may of may not have noticed those red 200 pennants dotted around railway stations? This year we’re celebrating 200 years of the railways and The Greatest Gathering is a festival celebration that is happening in August. Tickets sold out faster that Glastonbury, those hot cakes were all gone within hours (£30 a shot, a far cooler deal that the cost of enduring the sight of Rod Stewart shaking his Tory-voting butt at bloody ‘Glasto’). We’re promised the greatest gathering in one place of locomotives, of railway engines big and small (see, told you we were going left field here, you thought we were going to tell you the Ozrics wre getting back their roots and playing a four hour set in a field for free. Although is it really that unexpected, some of you might have noticed those paintings that were on show at Huddersfield Railway station not so long ago, trains are cool). The Greatest Gathering happens at the Alstom works in Derby, a three day celebration, a festival of railway engines and more, it happens in August.  

“As part of this year’s Railway 200 celebrations, Alstom’s historic Derby Litchurch Lane Works will be front and centre, as it hosts the largest temporary gathering of trains, engines and rail-related exhibits in a generation – The Greatest Gathering – between Friday 1st and Sunday 3rd August. This three-day festival will feature more than 100 vehicles from the past, present and future of the railways, and marks the first time in over 50 years that the train factory has been open to the general public. Derby Litchurch Lane is one of the world’s largest rolling stock factories, and the only UK facility that designs, engineers, builds and tests trains for domestic and export markets. The factory was opened by the Midland Railway in 1876 and the city of Derby has been building trains continually since 1839″.

For more information visit Alstom’s website or visit railway200.co.uk. There is also a touring art exhibition, on a train naturally more of that later..

Now how about The Proms as some kind of alternative? Come on! Hw much more establishment could we get? Hang on though, do you know what the Proms are actually about? Forget all that flag waving Rule Britannia nonsense that happens on the nauseating last night, that isn’t what the Proms are about, no no no, throw that idea out of the window right now, the Proms were originally, and still are, for the people, for the masses…

The BBC Proms is a classical music festival with daily performances held over a couple of months every Summer, The Proms (mostly) happen at the Royal Albert Hall in London – forget about the watering down in recent years and things happening in parks or with pop bands or whatever, the real Proms is about the Albert Hall and the best in classical music both traditional and experimental, The proms are about taking that music to the widest possible audience, something that actually does remain true to founder-conductor Henry Wood’s original vision of 1895. The Proms are about Promming and Promming is brilliant fun, 

Promming is the tradition of just walking up and standing in the Arena or Gallery areas of the Royal Albert Hall, it is, in terms of classical music something rather unique, the polite informal atmosphere is wonderful – we’re not talking mosh pits or jumping about here although when the Rites of Spring gets going it is hard to keep completely still.

Essentially the vital bit of The proms is in the way the tickets work. You can only get Promming tickets on the actual day of each concert and it seems like so many people have no idea that this is the case. Yes, there are far more expensive tickets in the posh seated areas and such on sale in advance and if you look on line then that is probably all you are going to find, but crucially you can only get a proper Prom ticket on the actual day of each event and very importantly they really don’t cost you that much…   

Promming tickets cost just £8.00 (including all fees) and yes, I know, the price has gone up a little bit in recent years, for a long long time it was about that fiver and that glass ceiling being broken not that long ago was a little bit controversial. These days tickets are bookable from 9.30am on the day of each concert, Covid killed off the fun of having to queue up and paying cash on the door as well as the delicate art of timing it so you don’t get there too late on the more popular days. Hey, the ritual isn’t quite the same with the having to book on line bit but hey, you do still have to be quick on some of the more popular days, The Planets and such, although most of the time you can just walk up ten minutes before hand and find plenty of tickets and space to stand in.

And this is the thing, you get the big performances, the aforementioned Planets that everyone should surely hear the Holst masterpiece performed live at least once in their lives – believe me, listening to it on record is absolutely nothing compared with the power and emotion of standing down the front of the Proms and hearing it performed live, hearing the different parts of the orchestra coming at you, it really is worth getting there and getting down the front. You think Heavy Metal in powerful? Get down the front for some serious Stravinsky action, now that is hardcore.  So you have the Traditional pieces, the classical music everyone knows (without really knowing they know), Beethoven’s Fifth or his beautiful Sixth and, but do check out the whole programme that’s offered each night, the twenty minute experimental pieces that are offered and often premiered on the same bills, it really is worth studying the programme and doing a bit of research before hand, there’s some real cutting edge music waiting to be explored and yes, all for just eight quid. Hell, most of the time you can’t even see some shitty half formed alternative indie band on a Tuesday night down the Old Blue Sebright Shacklewell Brixton Windmill for a mere eight notes, The Proms, besides the hideous last night and the occasional dumbed down BBC bits of Doctor bloody Who and such, are brilliant (actually I will admit the dumbing down that was the Northern Soul Prom a couple of years ago was excellent – Real Northern Soul via some punk rock football, FC United and surely Northern Soul at The Proms will never work? Oh but it so did…) And yes, whatever you might think, The Proms are a serious Summer alternative. We can’t wait. 

All you need to remember with The Proms is the etiquette and to shut the flip up during the performance, pin-drop silence is expected, and if someone moves from their space to go to the loo, you don’t take that space, they’ll be back in a moment and they’ll expect that space to still be there. Phones and filming are a big no, as is the rustling of sweet papers, that will induce daggered glances from the old-school regulars. On the whole it is really politely friendly down the front, one one you figure out that you can get in for almost the price of a pint then you’ll want to go again and again and you’ll be waiting for next year’s programme announcement in the same way you wait for whatever it you wait for (probably not the announcement of the Glastonbury line up and all the nausiating mentions on the BBC)

The 2025 Prom season starts on Friday 18th July 2025 with a rather exciting bill that includes the music Ralph Vaughan Williams and a perfomance of Sancta civitas

The full Proms programme can be found here, the season runs daily until September 13th 2025