Sketch Events

Tuesday 9 August 2011

Festivals: The Secret Ingredient

There have been an explosion of new so called 'boutique' festivals in the last few years. Alongside the big money makers such as Glastonbury, Bestival and Latitude there are so many more 'independents' making a name for themselves. Standon Calling, Blissfields, Lounge on the Farm, End of the Road but with one of these happening seemingly every weekend from May through to September, what really makes a festival special?


If you were to ask the Secret Garden Party, the answer would be simple: the people. The team behind this festival have spent years cultivating and maintaining that truly magical vibe that takes a public event from good to amazing. It's all about participation and they hammer it home at every opportunity...


 'The Secret Garden Party is a temporary community that is as free, irreverent, friendly and engaging as it is possible to be. It is conceived as a moment in the year where you can connect to your creative powers, explore your wildest fantasies and meet thousands of people who all want to meet you. It is a gathering that exists for only four days - away from cities and schedules, brands and boundaries – founded on participation and with the potential to change your life. It is a festival of the arts…where everyone is the artist.' Roots & Shoots: What is the Secret Garden Party all about?


And this is where something great happens. You get some of the best artistic, musical, fun loving and creative minds together in one place and you tell them that the only rule is 100% participation... the result? Imagination and creativity on levels you won't ever have experienced before. 


Self styled 'Fun Scientists' Bearded Kitten curate the 'Collisillium', an amphitheatre that houses mud wrestling and mass participation 'Guess Who' games by day and circus acts and general rave ups on the hay bales by night. The almighty Kigu Crew (who are responsible for the tribes of cute Japanese animal costumes seen at UK festivals) hosted a 'Super Kigu Land' where they drove around the site 'poaching' Kigu wearing animals and taking them back to HQ to party. There is nothing as funny in the animal kingdom than watching Pandas dance to Dubstep...


Bearded Kitten's 'Collisillium'

'Super Kigu Land' at this years Secret Garden Party (www.kigu.co.uk)
We even got the chance to go a 'Dirt Banquet' hosted by Guerilla Science which featured a 3 course meal (in a field?!) with speakers during each course exploring the nature of dirt, how we taste and perceive food and even the idea of sexuality as dirty... eye opening and delicious. The meal began with pickled Martinis and ended with the dissection of a jelly brain! During the rest of the weekend they also invited gardeners to...
'Acquire the wisdom of whores, embody the drug, race a cockroach, listen to the sun, smell an orangutan, feast on filth, count to infinity, cradle a maggot, speak to aliens, draw the intestines, dine in space, and come ponder how remarkable it is that you are reading these words at all'
'Chemistry Vs Physics by Guerilla Science at the Secret Garden Party
Of course it helps that Secret Garden is blessed with one of the most stunning festival sites in the UK. A sparkling lake that is fit for swimming in on sunny days (and which also hosts a floating island structure, accessible by boat), rolling green hills and the most beautifully lit trees we've ever seen. 
They don't just stop here though, with knitted tree jumpers, a shoe tree, pianos, tree houses and four poster beds hidden in the woods... the attention to detail is astounding. Paint fights, laughter workshops, dance offs and the most fantastical fancy dress you ever saw... you could almost forget that Blondie, Andy C, Alex Metric, Yasmin, Mylo and the Mystery Jets were playing!
http://www.secretgardenparty.com


SGP claims to be 100% independent of corporate partnerships and refuses to cover the site in banner sponsorship (they feel that 'sitting in the countryside under a giant Pepsi logo can be a little disconcerting'). Instead the presence (if any) of brands involved with the festival goes seemingly unnoticed. 


An amazing giant pedal powered punch machine (see below) from the clever folks at Courvoisier sat atop a hill like it had no other more natural home in all the world, just as last year the fabulous 'Hendrick's Carriage of Curiosities' brought electrocuting cucumbers and bedtime stories on red velvet blankets to a crowd who come to the garden each year to indulge in jelly wrestling, laughing workshops, bands hanging from tree tops and discovering hidden worlds inside fireplaces in the woods...
The Hendricks 'Carriage of Curiosities'


When it comes to magic, Secret Garden is off the scale. Such thought, love, imagination and downright insanity goes into the production of this festival each year that no two experiences are ever the same. With it's love of community creation and arts based spectacles such as 'Burning Man', the Secret Garden Party has earned itself a fiercely loyal following and the word is spreading fast. 
This year tickets sold out in record time, all the way back at the start of June. The audience asked for the festival not to get any bigger and rare as it may seem, the powers that be listened. The Secret Garden party will remain how it is; of the people, for the people and by the people and because of this you can guarantee that this festival won't be losing it's magic any time soon. 


http://www.secretgardenparty.com