Big Day Out Festival of Music & Contemporary Arts

In 2005, when Big Day Out began there were the following objectives — to develop a sustainable festival of artistic innovation, mount remarkable new musical and theatrical spectacles and nurture outstanding artists within the region. Remarkable artistic contributions to the festival since that time have come from the London Breakbeat Orchestra, Spoke In The Wheel’s Burning Ambition, Spiral Flight’s The Caravan of Love, Radio Gagarin’s Kronstadt Mutiny, The World Famous’ Squib and Mimbre’s The Bridge amongst many others.

In 2008, a major site-specific commission was Tim Hill’s Pandemonium summons The Beast of Bracknell, a surreal carnival based his vision of a mythical ’Dreamtime England’. That year was also a bumper year for emerging artists with The North Sea Radio Orchestra, Nancy Elizabeth, Stornoway, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba and The Destroyers vs The Dhol Blasters all featuring. This was also one of the last performances of one of the UK’s great outdoor performance institutions, The Strangelings!

In 2009 Big Day Out took another spectacular turn, with a focus on Street Band culture. They featured 2 of the world’s best groups, La Fanfare en Petard and The Hot 8 Brass Band alongside two emerging community bands from the SE region, The Horns of Plenty & Drum’n’Brass.

Big Day Out is organised and directed by William Trevelyan in collaboration with South Hill Park Arts Centre

http://bigdayout.webs.com/