In a couple of weeks’ time we’ll be making our first lineup announcements. We can hardly wait. In the meantime, we thought we’d let you in on some of the feverish tinkering we’ve been doing to reimagine stages and spaces…
If you go down to the woods…
We’re creating a brand new venue in the woods between the main campsite and the Wilderness this year. It’s going to be called The Rebel Rouser stage, and its vibe and ethos will be punk-inspired. Expect DIY, expect rough-around-the-edges, expect inspiration and creativity. We’re working with a great grassroots punk artist to curate this new stage and we couldn’t be more excited to stretch the festival and make a space where, perhaps, we can see the wood for the trees.
Going up in the world…
We’re producing our Playhouse theatre venue a bit differently this year so that we can accommodate more aerial work. This means we’ve been able to book some shows we’ve longed to for years and, again, we couldn’t be more excited about that! We’re so pleased and proud to continue to invest in bringing you wonderful theatre in our festival setting.
Beside still waters…
We’re relocating the Shelter, Chapel and Grove venues and spaces down towards the Star Pond this year, and away from the other side of the big lake. This is to ensure that people can get to these spaces and their programmes more easily (the trip over to the other side of the lake required real commitment, and there were no toilets when you got there!). There will still be the peace, quiet – and water – you’ve come to love in connection with our worship and spirituality programming. But definitely less of a hike to experience it.
Coming out into the open…
Perhaps most exciting of all is that after a few years of hunkering down in the shade of the Glade Big Top, we’re going back outside with our mainstage for this year’s festival. We’ll angle the new open-air stage so that the ‘throw’ of the PA is more towards the campsite and not directly at the Wilderness venues (like The Hot House and Foundry).
In addition, we’re able to hang the PA higher and we’re spending more on it to focus its sound down into a more concentrated area – again, really helping with noise-spill. So, no more insiders and outsiders at the Glade mainstage. We’ll all be outsiders – where all good Greenbelters should be.
Now all that remains is for us to tell you about the riot of talent you’ll be able to see on these stages and spaces – and you only have a couple of weeks to wait for that now.
Photo: Brass Against tearing up the Glade stage at Greenbelt 2019.