AT FIRST glance, there doesn’t appear to be any obvious Tayside connection with The Wickerman Festival, one of Scotland’s biggest outdoor music and arts events which is held in Kirkcudbrightshire, near the Solway Firth, writes Alan Wilson, Rocktalk writer.

But the festival, inspired by the 1970s cult film of the same name starring Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee and Britt Ekland, is organised from an office in a Dundee industrial estate by a woman who lives in Perth.

Helen Chalmers (27), who was raised in Inverarity near Forfar before moving to Abernyte when she was 13, is festival co-ordinator for The Wickerman and organises it all from her office in Faraday Street, Dryburgh Industrial Estate.

Helen, who attended Forfar Academy and Menzieshill High School in Dundee, has been involved with the festival since 2003, its second year, through her job with Perth company Audrey Fenton Events.

She only took over the reins as event co-ordinator in September last year after being head-hunted by the festival board when the company’s contract came to an end.

Dundee was Helen’s choice when asked where she wanted to base her operation.

“The original office was in Perth. I live there but I thought Dundee would be the perfect place for it, there’s a lot going on and I still have friends here,” she said.

Although it was a roundabout route from school to organising a major open air live music festival, Helen’s path has always been an agricultural one.

From a farm in Inverarity the family moved to Abernyte, then she went to Aberdeen University where she studied agriculture.

Now she’s organising a massive event in a field, one that has grown from an initial 1800 fans to around ten times that amount.

“The attendance is 18,000, with 3700 kids,” Helen said.

“It started when Dumfries and Galloway Council decided to put a festival on and Sid Ambrose from the Stewartree Music Initiative asked the local landowner, Jamie Gilroy, to show him how big an acre was.

“He offered to rent him the space and that was that. A lot of the scenes from the film were shot in the area so they took it from there and called it The Wickerman. To tie in with that they decided to hold a burning of the wickerman.”

Audrey Fenton Events was called in to co-ordinate the festival and Helen joined the firm shortly after the second event in 2003, and has worked on it ever since. “When the contract finished last year, they came to me and offered me the job.

“There’s also a committee which includes Jamie and his wife Patsy, who is convener of the council down there, and their daughter Jennie, along with festival founder Sid Ambrose.

“We started with one stage and now there are eight different areas and over 100 acts.”

The major acts confirmed so far include Alabama 3, Sonic Boom Six, Sham 69, Damien Dempsey and The Red Hot Chilli Pipers. See www.thewickerman festival.co.uk for details.