Hacklands Festival of Technology happening on 14 to 16 August 2015 in a field in Kent

It has been action stations at my end, what with Swedish Beers Midsummer Edition in London last month and the upcoming Hacklands Festival of Technology happening next month. In case you haven’t heard about it already, let me tell you a bit more about my new event lovechild – Hacklands.

 
WHAT: Hacklands is a new hackathon and festival happening on a farm on the border of Kent and Surrey brought to you by Helen Keegan (Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival, Swedish Beers and more) and James Tagg, (author, farmer, entrepreneur, physicist and CTO & co-founder of Truphone).

WHEN: From 5pm on Friday 14 August to 5pm on Sunday 16 August 2015.

AUDIENCE: We welcome adults and children who have an interest in technology either because they like building it or because they like to use it and are interested in future uses of technology. Under 18s will need to be accompanied by an adult. You do not have to be a developer to come. We will have sessions and space for both developers and non-developers and can cater for children too.


TELL ME MORE: It is a community oriented festival where we will combine elements of a hackathon (you can code and build stuff), an unconference or barcamp (you can talk about stuff) and a festival (you can chill at our campfire by our stone circle, camp under the stars, talk until the wee hours and enjoy the music and performances).

And we have glamping too courtesy of our friends at Sleeping Bells. We actively encourage you to get involved to build something, talk about something, perform something or learn something.

Interested in doing something - leading a session, giving access to APIs, arts and crafts, something else? Please tell us when you buy your ticket or you can fill in the form here.

WHAT'S ON: We have several areas available to use for unconference sessions, workshops or hacking (that's what we call the software and hardware building bit). There are undercover spaces, tented areas and outdoor spaces. There's wifi across the site (even the fields) and part of the farm is solar powered. We have some flat concrete floors which will be particular good for playing around with robots or landing drones. We have room for camping and plenty space for parking. We can look after 100 people comfortably, and we can make more space available if more people want to come.

Weekend tickets available now with or without camping. Food included in both tickets and a pay cafe bar available outside of meal times.

Find out more at our website, Facebook page, Twitter or our Eventbrite page. You can also buy tickets by clicking below.

If you'd like the glamping option, please find out more here and contact Gavin directly to book. Prices start at £80. Festival tickets must be bought separately.  

See you in August in a field in Kent!

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Glastonbury Goes (even more) Digital

In case you hadn’t heard, it’s the annual pilgrimage to Glastonbury Festival of the Performing Arts next week. And it’ll be my 7th visit. It is the largest green field festival in the world and has over 175,000 visitors.With that many people, there’s a lot of infrastructure to put in place – sanitation, water, waste, food, parking, camping, entertainment, power, connectivity… those last two are important for the administration of the festival but also to us lowly festival-goers.

Even though one of the delights of the festival is going back to basics and, if you spend your time in the permaculture garden, the green fields, or the tipi fields, then it’s also rather lovely to spend time in nature and living ‘off-grid’. However, you still need to find your friends, find out what band is next on your ‘to see’ list, when and where your woodworking workshop is on, or when your appointment with the reiki healer is. We also use our phones for telling the time. When you don’t have a mirror, the front view camera is also useful to check you don’t have mud smeared across your face! Over the last 15 years or so, our day to day behaviour has been subtly and not so subtly changed by the mobile phone. And because of that, at the very least, we expect to be able to power up and to have connectivity. We also expect our favourite festival to supply us with an app to fulfil all our festival line-up needs.

So connectivity – it’s always been an issue at Glastonbury. So many people, in a small amount of space, all wanting to connect at the same time. It’s fair to say that coverage has been flaky over the years, SMS turn up days later, if you get a call, you can’t hear what people are saying anyway as there’s always a lot of noise, and if you get a text or email, and it’s sunny, you can’t read it anyway. Still we try. And we expect it. How else are you going to find your friends?! We are so unused to saying ‘I’ll meet you at 4.30pm by Gandhi’s Flip Flop (it’s a rather good veggie curry stall) and sticking to it. We’re reliant on SMS and other messaging services to keep our friends and colleagues updated as to where we are and how far away we are from them.

The festival has had on-going sponsorship from Orange, and now EE since the merger with T-Mobile, so for me, connectivity has never been much of an issue. And EE does have exceptionally good coverage on the site, including 4G and also, there’ll be Wi-Fi too. We allegedly had Wi-Fi last year but I never spotted it in action. I can’t say that coverage for O2 or Vodafone customers is as good.

Then there’s battery life. Oh what a joy to have the very basic phone last year with a battery that lasted for several days! At best, you’ll get a day out of your smartphone. A lot of phones these days do not have replaceable batteries so you have to either have a charged up battery pack (extra weight in your backpack – albeit small) or you have to queue for hours to sit by your phone that charges up way more slowly than it ever would at home.

This year, there’s a solution. You can buy an EE Festival Power Bar and swap it for a fully charged on on the site each time yours is drained. Well, you could… they sold out a while back. Hopefully people will be nice and share theirs around but who knows. Fortunately, I’m volunteering this year and at our camp we’ll be able to charge up our phones without queuing for hours. I’ll still be taking my extra batteries and battery pack.

And now for apps… there’s a Glastonbury app. There’s been a Glasto app for at least 7 years and it’s never been much good. It has improved somewhat, but there are still usability issues with it. I think they’re probably trying to get too much into one app. And the app is only any good if you have a higher-end smartphone with plenty memory left. It’s a chunky old file. And it’s only Android and iOS. So for BlackBerry or Windows Phone users, erm, tough.

There are a couple of new digital innovations this year. First up, the 100 page programme is now available as a free PDF download or as an interactive app for iPhone or iPad. I can’t imagine the PDF rendering particularly well on a small screen but we’ll see.

Download the programme here.

More interesting is the fact that they’re using contactless payments on site this year. This can be with a contactless card or with the Cash on Tap app. Of course, this will only work if the connectivity holds up for the terminals and you haven’t drained your battery or lost your phone in the mud on your way home from Shangri La at 4 in the morning!

More about EE’s Glastonbury services here.

Last year’s post in the same vein: 2013 is the year of Glastonbury Mobile.

Right, must dig out my wellies and give them a bit of a clean before I head off next week!

12 Reasons to love Wychwood Festival

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Wychwood Festival for the third time at the weekend. It was their tenth birthday to boot. Due to commitments at #Regenttweet, I was only able to go for the last day but it was a great day and I still got to camp and do all the things I wanted to do. Plus I got up close and personal for Sunday’s headline act, The Boomtown Rats, which was one of my main reasons for going. I last saw them a very long time ago and although Johnny Fingers is now enjoying life in Tokyo, the rest of the band were definitely up to the mark and Sir Bob was on top form.

But that’s not the only reason to love Wychwood Festival. If you’ve never been to a festival or not sure about the whole camping at a festival lark, let me reassure you that Wychwood is a great place to start, especially if you have children. It truly is one of the best festivals in the UK for children as my friend Jane has written about over on her blog.

Let me give you 10 more reasons to love Wychwood Festival

1. Clean toilets. No really. They were kept really clean, fully stocked with toilet roll – even on Monday morning as we were leaving, and they had plenty of flushing toilets too if you were so inclined. Seriously the best festival toilet experience ever.

2. It’s a manageable size. You can pretty much see where everything is, you’re not far from the car park, the stages are just a few minutes from each other so there’s no tramping for an hour in mud between stages to see your favourite bands. It also means it’s a quick nip back to the tent or Happy Camper, in my case, to pick up a sweater for the evening or drop off purchases made at one of the many stalls.

3. Free lock-ups. They have these at Glastonbury Festival and I volunteered for them there one year. They’re great. You can leave whatever you like there – whether that’s money you don’t want hanging around your tent, spare phone, your bike, your rucksack – seriously, you can leave anything there. They’re open 24 hours a day so you can drop off and pick up at any time and all they ask you for is a donation to charity. £2 is probably about right. No more worrying about leaving your valuables in your tent or your car.

4. It’s the easiest camping ever. Also accessible if you’re in a wheelchair. There’s lots of space for starters so you’re not sharing tent nylon with your neighbour and you can really make it home for the weekend. Not only that, as the festival is on a racecourse, there are concrete paths everywhere so even if it has been raining, you don’t get the levels of mud that you get at other festivals. I even brought my suitcase and could roll it along the paths rather than lug my backpack out of mothballs for the night. I also spotted a fair few people in wheelchairs. As the terrain is so flat and there are lots of paths, it makes it that much easier if you’re in a wheelchair. Brilliant all round!

5. Arts and crafts – there’s stuff to do for grown ups as well as kiddiwinkles. I made myself some enamel earrings, joined a drumming workshop, and if I’d been there the whole weekend, I would also have done some yoga, ukulele playing and maybe even some wood-carving and had a massage afterwards to boot. As it was, there’s only so much you can fit into one sunny afternoon in Cheltenham.

6. Hot showers – this isn’t such a big deal for me at a festival. Why queue when you could be doing something else so a combo of a folding washing up bowl and a ton of wet wipes is how I usually manage. But it is nice to be able to have a hot shower to revive yourself. And if you pick a time that isn’t 9am in the morning, the chances are you won’t have to queue at all.

7. Excellent range of food – and it’s well priced too. Whether you want festival favourites like Pura Vida (Tex Mex), Asian, Lebanese, pizza, chips, crepes or a bacon butty, it’s all there and it’s all very well priced.

8. Beer – for those reading this who like proper beer, then you’ll be delighted with Wychwood Brewery and their Hobgoblin Beer Festival at Wychwood. They had all kinds of beer, pale ales and bitters on offer so for beer fans, it’s really rather good.

9. Superspa DJ Festival Hot Tubs – I wish I’d known in advance they would be there (I’d have brought a swimming costume) and I wish I’d had more time so I could participate. Basically, there was a big chillout tent of hot-tubs with DJs, bean bags for relaxing, a stint in the hot tub, with a drink in hand, and a hot shower afterwards. Nice one!

10. The music – There’s a really good mix of music genres and a great mix of old-timers and new-comers. Despite its relatively small size, there are several music stages, each with a full line-up across the three days. That means there’s plenty to choose from. Here’s my best shot of Bob Geldof.

11. The comedy – when the music is finished in the Hobgoblin Bar, it reverts to a comedy venue and it’s brilliant. It’s always a blast and to be highly recommended.

12. Bonus for the mobilists amongst you. Mobile payments were spotted in the wild. I spied one of the stalls advertising that they used iZettle

.

And you could also donate to the lovely people at charity Toybox via SMS text:

Text ‘STREET WEB’ to 70555 to donate £3.
Text Costs £3.00 plus network charge. Obtain bill payers permission.

And what an interesting charity they are – I had no idea that not having a birth certificate could cause so many problems in countries like Brazil.

So if you fancy going to a festival next summer, then I can highly recommend Wychwood. They’ve even set up a special price for ticket sales for next year and you can pay in instalments. It’s currently £99 for an adult weekend ticket including camping and there’s a 2 for 1 offer for disabled visitors – details here. Not only that, you can spread your payments and never pay more than this year’s ticket price with the innovative Ticket for Life scheme.  Pay 25% deposit and then 9 monthly payments by direct debit. What a great idea.

So well done Wychwood. Another great festival under your belt and looking forward to 2015.

p.s. could we have some more female artists please? Thanks ever so.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.

Heroes of the Mobile Fringe 2014 are Go!

I can hardly believe this is going to be the third year of organising the Heroes of the Mobile Fringe Festival in Barcelona. And on top of that, it will be my eighth Swedish Beers party in Barcelona. It has been quite the journey and certainly one that isn’t over yet.

The success (or not) of the festival is really down to YOU. I’ll be organising Swedish Beers (the bar is booked for Wednesday 26 February and I’ll have more details coming soon but feel free to connect on Facebook and Twitter to get updates). I am also organising an event with the UKTI aimed at investors on Sunday 23 February. And maybe one or two more things. But everything else is up to you and for you to make of it as you will. My goal in this is to help the right people get together and to help you make the most of the week.

How to get involved?

Create an event. Whether it’s a small round-table, a panel discussion, a lunch, a dinner, a party or something else entirely, as long as it’s related to mobile, falls within the 23 to 28 February 2014 and is interesting*, then it’s in. It does not have to be held in Barcelona either – if you’d like to put something on in your town or city during those dates, then feel free. There were events in London and Helsinki last year – can we add any more this year?

Once you’ve created an event, please add it here so I can include it as a listing. There is no charge to list your event. I repeat, there is no charge to list your event!

If you need a venue, I may be able to help. I know some people locally who can help source, or I can recommend a few places. Barcelona is full of lovely bars and restaurants and many of them are very happy to welcome new guests.

If you have an event idea, but need some help fleshing it out, then feel free to run it past me – just add it to the list or drop me a line. I charge reasonable rates for organising events for clients. And if I’m not the right person to do it, then I probably know someone who is.

If you’re not up to organising your own event, but would like to sponsor something, then please get in touch. There are a couple of sponsorship slots available for Swedish Beers and there are a couple of other events I’d like to see happen subject to sponsorship.

If you have an event and would like to give it a bit extra marketing push, then get in touch. I can offer paid-for marketing services in this respect. Or I can make some recommendations.

Alternatively, you can offer your services as a volunteer or as a media partner.

And before you ask me about how to score an exhibition pass for Mobile World Congress, that’s the subject of another post. I don’t have a secret stash of them. In fact, I don’t even have one for myself.

See you in Barcelona!

 

*I have the final decision whether or not to include something in the festival or deem it interesting. Avoid the sales pitches and we should be good to go!

A little bit of Glastonbury goes to Oxon

This September a little piece of Glastonbury comes to West Oxfordshire with the first ever Battstock Music Festival.

Battstock is a 1-day event sponsored by Wychwood Brewery and hosted in the grounds of The Batt School in Witney and is being held in order to raise funds for The Batt School Association.

Some of the best live acts around including, Danny & The Champions of The World and The Epstein are lined up to play along with Oxfordshire bands Les Clochards and Quadrophobe. Also on the bill are singer Daisy Chapman from Bristol and the perfect pop of London-based Jonathan Haselden plus there will be an appearance by youngsters from the Witchwood School of Rock.

There will also be food, stalls, a bar, music workshops, a bouncy castle, face painting and plenty of things to keep children entertained apart from the music.

Battstock is the brainchild of dear friend and online music promoter Adrian Phillips of TunA the Day http://www.tunatheday.com and Graeme Merrifield who runs the prestigious and rather wonderful, Wychwood Festival which I visited for the first time this year (and thoroughly enjoyed). All profits will go to The Batt School Association. 

Battstock

Sat 11 Sept - Gates open 1pm - Live music from 2pm – 9.30pm

Adults £5  |  under 16s £2

Tickets available from http://www.wegottickets.com/event/86482

And if you purchase online before the end of august you could win tickets to next year’s Wychwood Festival, £100 of CDs or cases of Wychwood beer.

You can also order by phone on tel 0845 257 4938 or from Rapture Entertainment record store in Witney.

Want to know more? Then check out the Promo video

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: festival,music,UK,Witney,Oxon,Oxfordshire,Batt School

The Festival season has begun with Wychwood

  Yes, it’s festival season folks. And some of you may know that I’m pretty keen on the whole festival vibe although I don’t get to go to as many as I’d like to. Glastonbury is a main attraction for me as it has simply become too expensive to go to the Electric Picnic these days. And this year, I was lucky enough to kick off the festival season with the lovely Wychwood Festival.

I happen to know someone who knows Wychwood’s organisers which meant I got invited to join the bloggers team on site. So with a free press pass in my mitts, I headed off to Wychwood last Friday.

First off, this is a relatively easy festival to get to. It’s held on Cheltenham Racecourse which is not far from Cheltenham town centre so if you’re on public transport, you can get a bus from the train station, or a taxi. And if you arrive by car, there’s loads of parking available. You can even drive to where you want to pitch your tent so you don’t have to lug your stuff everywhere. That’s a first for me. And even if you didn’t drive your stuff to the campsite, it’s only a five to ten minute walk from the festival entrance anyway. This is easy-peasy, hassle-free festival-going.

The campsite was well organised. Plenty of clean loos with toilet paper *at all times* (and if you’re a regular festival-goer, you’ll know that fully-stocked loo paper is a rare sight) and frequent water points. And showers. Yes, showers. And where we were camping, it was kept very clean and tidy by my neighbouring campers. There was a 24-hour cafe tent in the camp site, a 24-hour property lock-up run by Birmingham Friends of the Earth (like the lock-ups I volunteered for at Glastonbury last year) and a shop selling everything you might need at a festival from batteries to Mr Kipling’s cakes.

And then on to the festival site itself. Now this really is easy festival-going  - concrete pathways, flushing toilets in the grandstand, loads of food stalls, including festival favourites, Pura Vida and even a Pizza Express. Waitrose was also prominent on site with trailer where kids could learn how to make smoothies and a rather lovely cocktail bar (£4 for a cocktail isn’t bad value at all and the chairs were really very comfy). The Pimms bus was also very popular and the English Tea Bus serving cream teas with china cups. It was delightful. And if you were in a wheelchair, then disabled access is really rather good.

There were also three other bars run by a local brewery with bitter at £3 a pint and lager at £3.50 a pint. One of the bars, The Stagefright Bar, also hosted the BBC Introducing Stage which was really rather good. They showcased bands from the neighbouring counties hand-picked by the BBC team.  There was definitely some up and coming talent on show there. I particularly enjoyed The School and Kill It Kid. Two bands to watch.

If you have young children, this festival really is for you. In fact, if I were to criticise the festival in anyway, and this would be a mild criticism, I would have liked to have seen more non-music entertainment that had adults in mind. Yes, there was comedy in the Stagefright bar between 10pm and midnight, and there were some films in the film tent but there wasn’t the usual performance sideshows you might see at any number of other festivals. Maybe it’s not needed and maybe my expectations have been coloured by other more adult-orientated festivals.

But back to the children – smoothie-making workshops, funfair rides, music workshops, circus skills training, story-telling, silly science, Mr Tumble in person, arts and crafts, there was more than enough to keep your under-10s entertained and engaged for the whole festival. And what a safe place for children to run around and make new friends.

And for the grown-ups there was shopping, food, drink, the healing area (which was a little tucked away and I only found it on the Sunday afternoon) and of course the music. It’s an eclectic line-up – and deliberately so – with a world music and slightly folky/bluesy vibe with a bit of retro thrown in for good measure for the 30- and 40-something parents. Big names included The Levellers, The Lightening Seeds, The Leisure Society (they were on in the wrong slot – they should have been on Saturday early evening or Sunday afternoon I think), Pauline Black of Selector Fame, Seth Lakeman, The Happy Mondays (or should I say the Happy ‘one of us was once in the band’ Mondays as it was Shaun Ryder with session musicians, but fun nevertheless) and my favourite of the weekend (as I missed the Leisure Society), Dreadzone.

So what were my highlights? Friday night was my best night without a doubt. I ended up chatting to lots of new people randomly in the beer tent (including the lovely Kevin from the Box Steam Brewery), and just when the comedy was finishing up, three ukulele players (or more specifically, Tony and the Ukuholics – podcast here) started playing and carried on playing for about an hour and a half. They got quite a crowd together with their style of ukulele karaoke and covered classics including Ernie which I haven’t heard since I was a nipper listening to Tony Blackburn and Arnold on Saturday mornings. (If this is your thing, then you might also be interested in the Ukulele Festival of Great Britain happening in Cheltenham this weekend). The ukuoke was followed by a magic couple of hours in the Headphone Disco. The samba workshop was also fantastic, as was the drumming circle late on Saturday night. Thrill Collins were great, headlining on the small but perfectly formed, Pomme Stage – think 80s and 90s choons in a skiffle style and of course, festival favourites, Dreadzone were spot on.

So, if you’ve ever considered going to a festival but weren’t sure about the whole camping and mud thing, then I’d say go to Wychwood and cut your festival teeth there. It’ll be a breeze!

So overall, thumbs up for Wychwood Festival 2010. I’ll be back (if they’ll have me).

More info:

Wychwood Festival site 

Wychwood tweeting: wychwoodfest  and wychwood  and the official feed @wychwoodfest

The Independent’s review of the festival

And the rather marvellous Wychwood Files from my pal Adrian from TunaTheDay

Wychwood Festival on Posterous

And when my broadband permits, I’ll upload all my pictures and video clips and add them here.

Technorati Tags: festival,wychwood,cheltenham,music

Orange Glastonav review

Yes, I admit it, I'm overly interested in mobile gizmos and when I heard about Orange's Glastonav mobile service, I thought I'd give it a try. The blurb says:

"GlastoNav, the must have mobile application for you and your friends at Glastonbury

• view the complete line-up from The Guardian Guide
• build your own schedule and share it with friends
• find your way around with a detailed festival map
• broadcast your location on the map and send alerts to find friends"

It was promoted heavily before the event via email (neither the URL nor the text in to the shortcod e worked - FAIL) to everyone who was on the Glastonbury ticket database. I finally managed to download it (why I was still trying to do this, I don't know!) and on taking a look, it showed all the bands and which stages they were on which was useful. There was also a map which was handy too I guess.

The option to add your location and the time you'd be there didn't work for me. It wasn't precise enough and there was no interactivity around it to confirm to your mate that you would meet them at that point at x time.

The gig finder was marginally useful, but what would have been more useful would be to set up reminder s so that your phone went off 30 minutes before you needed to be at whichever stage you wanted to be at - either linking in with the calendar/alarm system, or using SMS alerts (provided they could be timely). As it stood, it was confusing so I reverted to using the old skool paper guide. I also spotted typos on times and some bands which didn't exactly inspire me with confidence.

There was a news feature included in the app, but this was dependent on you having the app open at all times and checking it for news. As I only opened it from time to time (it was a real battery drainer), it meant I got the news that Hot Chip were dj'ing up at The Park 2 hours after they finished their set and that Franz Ferdinand were a replacement for Pete Doherty the day after they played. These alerts would have been much better done via SMS and actually, I probably would have paid a nominal amount to be included to get those alerts.

The service was promoted very heavily on site - it seemed to be on everything - the cups, posters and everywhere Orange was, they were promoting the application.

The biggest bugbear about it though was that it was a memory hog and a battery hog. As a memory hog, it meant I couldn't have anything else open at the same time on my T-Mobile Nokia N95. And battery life is critical at a festival the size of Glastonbury for your mobile phone. I took a spare battery with me *and* I got to charge my phone every day at a pal's market stall on site which meant I didn't have to wait around the orange tent for 2 hours every day to charge up. Most people won't bother to charge their phones up unless it's an emergency, and they're certainly not going to use up the battery on an iffy mobile application that drains your battery quickly to boot.

I hear along the grapevine that they got about 15 to 20k downloads which isn't bad going. I wonder how many of those were actually on site rather than armchair viewers? Let's say they did get 20k requests, of which, being generous, 65% successfully downloaded so we're down to 13,000 and of those 40% turned it on more than once which is now down to 5,200. And this is out of a total audience of around 178,000.

It seems we still have a long way to go with this kind of service. Firstly, don't rush a mobile service - do it right or don't bother. Secondly, make it easy and ubiquitous to charge your phone up on site. Thirdly, make data cheap/free so that there's no fear about downloading and using it.

10/10 for concept. 6/10 for implementation. Verdict: Could and should do better.

Technokitten's back from Glastonbury

And it was quite an experience. Arriving earlier was a good thing as it allowed time to settle in, but the lack of sleep really got to me by the end this year at which point I was exhausted. It was good to catch up with some pals from last year and to make some new ones too. And having less mud was a bonus on one level as it made for much easier movement around the place, but on the other hand, I think it made the crowd lazier and I missed the 'Dunkirk Spirit' or was it just that I didn't have an excuse to sip hot cider with a brand in it?!

Verdict on Shangri-La was that it's pretty good and bigger than Lost Vagueness. And The Diner is always guaranteed good fun late at night. Trash City was pretty spectacular. But neither area lived up to it's 'up all night' billing and when the plug was pulled on the power at The Diner at 5am on Monday morning it was a disappointment. Last year, the party went on until after 9am - maybe we got away with it because it was muddy last year or something? Anyway, once the plug was pulled that was it and was the end of the festival.

The music was brilliant and particular highlights for me were Crowded House, Duffy, Spiritualised, Neil Diamond and the awesome awesomeness of The Verve. Richard Ashcroft totally rocked my world that weekend and it was worth the ticket price to see The Verve alone.

On the downside, food and drink seemed more expensive this year (but maybe I just didn't notice the prices last year). Security was much more evident and noticeable and there seemed to be at least 2 security in every tent and they were enforcing the smoking ban pretty vehemently (no bother to me since I've never smoked but their presence was felt). I know they're there for our safety 'n all but not all of them were terribly friendly - although I did spot one girl in the Igloo tent swaying from side to side to the music whilst the rest of us were dancing which made me smile.

I was also unfortunately witness to several folks being stopped and searched for drugs before they got in and saw a couple of men being cuffed on Monday lunchtime. I also heard along the grapevine that there was a drugs bust at the Stone Circle on Friday night/Saturday morning. Maybe it was a rumour as I can't find anything online about it. I also saw a girl being carried off in an ambulance after falling unconscious in The Diner in the early hours of Monday morning. Tent crime was up significantly which was a great shame and maybe a reflection of the fact that it wasn't hard to get a ticket this year - in fact you could get a ticket right up until the event itself. And drugs arrests were up too apparently but that's no big surprise when police and security presence is so much greater.

Overall, there was good music, plenty to eat and drink, lots of folks having a good time and places to play after dark. Glastonbury, you did it again!

Normal service will resume shortly

Yes, I know I haven't blogged very much over the last couple of weeks, but life is just a bit hectic at the moment with a big project to finish off and about to take on a big project too (all being well). And trying to do all the other stuff that one has to do day to day.

Anyway, please bear with me a little longer. I'm off gallavanting in Ireland this weekend at the Electric Picnic music festival where I shall be getting lots of fresh air and exercise and will come back knackered refreshed and ready for work next week. Should be a good 'un, especially if the last two I went to in 2005 and 2006 are anything to go by. The forecast is for drizzle and sunshine so pretty much like London right now then. Still debating as to whether or not wellies will be required (I have a fetching pair of pink croc wellies so maybe I *will* need them...)

So I'm off to pack my rucksack now and then it's an early night as it's a hideously early start in the morning. And then the fun begins at around tea-time once the tent is up and the main festival site opens for business. Yes, it's a schlep of a journey to get there with camping equipment in tow, but it will be worth it I'm sure.

See ya'll when I get back from the land of my forefathers.

More linkage

I guess it's one of those days - so much to write about, so little time, so a few more links are just going to have to do you...

• The Mobile Goldmine event looks an interesting one where you can explore how to make money with mobile content. It's on October 17th in the evening and limited to just 50 places. And the price? Absolutely FREE (but you do need to book in advance).

• New research out from Netimperative in conjunction with Q Research about 'Young Minds'. They interviewed 3,000 eleven to twenty-five year olds for the four reports including two on mobile - Mobile Music and Mobile Advertising. A synopsis of what's covered can be found over at the Netimperative website. Reports are usually £1,000 each, but you can get all four for £2,500. I don't s'pose the nice folks at NetImperative would like to give me a copy of the mobile reports for review here maybe...?

• Barcamp Mobile London is happening on Saturday 29th September in Soho. Aimed at designers/ developers/ entrepreneurs/ artists working on mobile applications, devices, and experiences. From FlashLite and mobile Processing to openMoko, Green Phone and the iPhone. "The idea is to create a camp where hackers and designers can come and play together. If you do stuff with small screens, voice, or something in between, come and share. mobileCampLondon is about big idea evangelism, and nitty-gritty details. We’ll look at what matters most: well crafted code, and a solid understanding of how people use their phones."

So if this is your thing, then Mobile Bar Camp London is well worth a look. Find out more about the whole Bar Camp movement over at wikipedia to get a flavour of what to expect.

• Mobstar joins up with this weekend's V Festival to offer a virtual mobile flame amongst other things. I would tell you what they are, but they're exclusive to Virgin Mobile customers. You know what, you've missed a trick here guys 'n gals... A chance to make extra revenue (charge non-Virgin customers more), ask someone if they want to know more about the advantage of being on Virgin vs whatever network the customer has come in on (for they know the operator in 9 cases out of 10 so could personalise it), a chance for data capture, a call to action to check out a Virgin shop or the Virgin Mobile stand at the festival. Come on peeps, it's not good enough to simply say 'This is only for Virgin Mobile customers' and alienate the 10s of 1000s of customers of other networks who've paid good money to attend the V Festival. Mr Branson would *not* be proud methinks. Grrr.
  

Bloomin' Marvellous Bloom Festival

As if Glastonbury and the Electric Picnic wasn't enough this year, I've managed to fit in another wee festival in the interim and toddled along to the Bloom Festival with festipal Lisa. Lisa's done a marvellous write-up of the festival with pictures to boot. So I won't go into as much detail here but will give you a little run down of some of the highlights for me.

• Glorious sunshine - all weekend (well, ok, a little bit of rain overnight a couple of times, but that was refreshing after the heat)
• No mud - after Glastonbury mud, this was totally ay-may-zing
• The Whip
• Crazy P (this was my musical highlight - she was great)
  
• Soul II Soul Soundsystem
• Coldcut Soundsystem
• Aim
• Dancing to reggae on Sunday lunchtime to the Trojan Soundsystem
• Beardyman - the human beatbox
  
• Dancing at The Funk Bar - every night - great music, great vibe.
• Meeting loads of people especially Emily, Hannah and pals, Kate, Carla and the rest of the crew, Circus girl Lou in the White Hat, the man with the blow up hula hoop (that was hilarious fun), the man with the weird kaleidoscope thingummy (v cool), Chris - the man in the nightie, the 3 graduates from Nottingham University, Ella from Chai Wallahs, Crazy P, Nick and Jim (our tent neighbours), Simon and Alan and their useful spanner, and loads more folks whose names I just can't remember! Big up yo'selves.
  
• Fancy Dress night dancing at Beats Bubble alongside the dancing zimmer frame and various other creations
• The Lounge
• The Burrito Bus and the Choc Star chocolate brownie place
  
• And the very friendly security guards who got the tone just right for looking after us all
  

For a small festival, it punches above its weight and is great value for money and it'll be on my list for next year.

Technokitten goes to Glastonbury

Well, I survived it. It's way bigger than you can imagine, even though you've seen all the photos and seen it all on the telly, it's massive. There are more people there than you can imagine and tents and stuff everywhere you look. And then there's food and drink of every kind, art, performance, music, random entertainment, burlesque and weddings at Lost Vagueness, circus and cabaret, trapeze lessons, clay-model making, chanting, yoga, dancing 24/7, comedy, political debate, rain, mud, sunshine, wellies and smiley, friendly people from all walks of life with one common theme of being at Glastonbury and leaving behind their day to day lives for just a little while.

[The picture is of me dancing at sunset at the sacred space on Friday night (I'm in the middle with the hat on) - as taken for The Guardian by Martin Godwin]

So what did I do at Glastonbury...

Thursday. Arrived, after a 6 hour journey, and wondered what on earth we'd let ourselves in for when I saw how busy it already was. We trekked for ages to find a spot to pitch our tent (all the maps we'd been given were worse than useless), were directed to Paines Field eventually and pitched tent, had a recce (is that how you spell it?) and some food then trekked back to get more stuff from the car. You soon learn that when someone at Glastonbury says something is about 5 minutes away, they're on Glastonbury time!

Then we went back to the tent and waited for Sarah and Lozza who were massively delayed due to National Express uselessness, I was wiped out so I skipped the Stone Circle and had a relatively early night instead awaiting Sarah's text message to tell me when she'd finally got through (it came at 5.30am).

Friday. [6 hours sleep - see I said it was a relatively early night]. Breakfast (smoothie and apple crepe for me) with Sarah, Sheila and Lozza. Sunscreen sharing with a lovely lady on the same bench as us. Found Merrell's (the trainer people where some pals were) and clean loos (oh, how wonderful that was). Then lunch and hot cider and brandy (a wonderfully warming drink when it's bucketing with rain). A bit of leftfield stage and walking on water (at least that's what it looks like inside the leftfield stage).

Then I went off and did random things for the rest of the day. Wandered over to see Trish at Youth Music. Met up with Joh and Ed from Brighton and had rum punch and mead, saw the trash city statues, had a bit of a lie-down, rocked at the circus stage and then silliness at Lost Vagueness - dancing to a fab clarinetist, the insect magic show and a wedding, as you do. Then hung with Adam for a bit (life is a miracle boy), met his mate Alex who was much better looking and spent the rest of the evening with him - dancing at the stone circle, a bit of Bjork, a wander through the Glade, very late night tea in the healing fields listening to a techno remix of Bright Eyes whilst watching the film Watership Down on an outdoor screen, catchin' up with Whatley Dude, Big Al and Caterina from Norway (Alex's sister's friend) at the stone circle, getting cold feet (I realised that at least 3 pairs of socks are essential with wellies now) and returning to my extremely cosy, more or less mud free (internally) tent at about 4.30am.

Saturday. 4 hours sleep. Breakfast with Sheila - a very large smoothie and a cake. Then off to the Leftfield and a long sit-down at Trish's as it was raining and she had deckchairs under cover. Then Sheila and I did the random thing together. A sonic art installation. The band in a caravan. Wading through mud and nearly getting completely stuck. Making clay models. Shopping for festi-gear. Lost Vagueness and another wedding and competitive wedding bouquet catching (I caught the bouquet this time!). Costume sourcing and customising for Lost Vagueness (using the bouquet). Back to Merrell's for food (all the best food stalls were near there) and then off to Lost Vagueness with Pimp Daddy, Eh Hombre and Lady Russell to see Madness (it was rammed) and The Beat and then all night dancing in mud (the mud was pretty bad in the LV field) finally leaving at around 6am.

Pimp Daddy was da man and was getting the love - the fake polar bear coat was a real hit and everyone wanted to touch the coat and the bling. And my hat was the biz - just need a better outfit to go with next year. I'm thinking I might finally get round to doing something with all the material sitting in my spare bedroom.

Sunday. 4 hours sleep. Got up around 11am. I think. Random wandering around and being very disorientated due to extreme tiredness and general dazed and confusedness. Food. Met up with Alex briefly. Watched Shirley (she was great and revived my flagging spirits for I was very very very tired by this stage), back to Merrell's for food, water and clean loo stop. Kaiser Chiefs, a walk round the back of the pyramid stage and random high fiving with Who fans. Random wandering with an off-his-tits scouser in a silly hat, helping him find Lost Vagueness via a bit of dancing at The Glade. Bought a flare and watched the end of the chemical brothers. Met up with the fab Merrell's crew and headed to Trash City where I met Random Mike, Welsh Alex, two mermaids, a very cute pirate and danced all night long and absolutely didn't want to leave.

Monday. No sleep. Finally headed off to my tent to pack it up at 7am, skipping and singing all the way. Got in, got changed into dry clothes, packed up (fortunately, most of it was already packed for I knew it might be a large one on Sunday night), trudged back to the car with Sheila. Got very wet and cold and miserable as I'd had to stand in the driving rain for what seemed like an eternity as the car was stuck in the mud and I was stuck with both our bags. I eventually got to the car and changed clothes again (not that anything was particularly dry but my Lost Vagueness PVC skirt came in very handy) and we had to be towed out of the first car park.

Waited, waited some more, waited again and one more bump later from the tractor to nudge us through another field and 5 or more hours later, must have been more like 6 or 7 actually, we finally got out of the car park and on to the road. I got home at about 8.30ish in the evening.. Happily exhausted.

So a big up to *everyone* I met there. A big up to Sheila for getting me there and back safely. And a big up to the whole Glastonbury vibe. Yes there was mud and it's evil and really hard work but I'll be back nevertheless.

Bring on 2008.

For more Glastonbury tales, then head over to Lisa's and Whatley Dude's blogs and check out Bluejoh's pictures too

Knock Knock The Future of Music was awesome

What a great time I had in Arhus in Denmark at the Knock Knock conference and accompanying SpotFestival. A fantastic conference, interesting speakers and content, great venue (Musikhuset - a bit like the South Bank in London), top atmosphere, yummy food and lots of music. A winning combo!

[If you don't want to read the whole post, but look at the webcast instead, then here are the links:

Morning: Nicolai Wammen, Eric de Fontenay, Les Ottolenghi, Henrik Bodker and Anne Holst
Afternoon: Steve Gordon, Claus Pedersen, Magnus Eriksson, Mirai, John Buckman, Pieter Betist, Richard Heidenreich, Tue Lund-Christensen, Martin Buck, Steve Myer, me and Martin Spenner.

And pictures on flickr from Innovation Lab and my own pix]

Right, back to the post. The day before the conference, I arrived to be greeted by a radio journalist who wanted to interview me for Danish Radio (their BBC equivalent). They were covering the conference and festival and interviewed some of the speakers. You can hear the stream live here and also download the podcast of the whole radio programme here as an MP3. How exciting to be on the radio! Then it was a quick freshen up and off to a local restaurant for a speaker's dinner where we got to know each other a bit better. I love the Danish way of restaurant dining where the waiting staff actually announce what's in everything that you're eating thus building up the anticipation and the tastebuds.

The the day of the conference we (I was there with my pal Gillian) headed down to the venue ably guided by a man with a map and another man with a GPS and both of them got lost so we ended up asking a local anyway! So much for men, maps and technology ;) When we get there, we are greeted by coffees and nibbles and a DJ mixing choons. There was also a small exhibition going on alongside showcasing innovation in music.

Then the conference began. About 200 or so delegates live and another 1000 or so following the conference's live web stream on the internet. All kinds of topics were covered from piracy, new business models, challenges and issues that artists face, music and mobile and lots more besides. The webcast is live for two or three weeks, so if this subject matter interests you, then it's well worth a look. Particular highlights for me were Eric De Fontenay from MusicDish, Steve Gordon, author of The Future of the Music Business, and Les Ottolenghi from Intent Media Works.

I was also very intrigued by the "downloan" service offered by Danish Libraries. Of course, it makes perfect sense. Libraries have been loaning music for many years so why not loan MP3s too and it seems to be a success so far. I wonder if we'll see something similar in the UK. I hope so.

I was also interested in the variable pricing model that John Buckman discussed, formerly founders of Lyris and now run their own record label, Magnatune. As a MP3 buyer, you can choose which pricepoint you want to pay for something. That means, if you're a real supporter, you pay the artist more money. And if you don't have the money, you don't have to. A neat idea.

And Henrik from Aarhus University was spot on when he said there was no 'one big thing' to look for but lots of small but important things that were part of the future of music (and IMHO can be equally applied to the world of web 2.0 and/or mobile).

Just before lunch, we were treated to a performance from Mirai, Ras and Keely (Ras had to leave as he was playing a gig with the Pet Shop Boys or something). Mirai was showcasing some new music technology which allows you to play different instruments just by moving different parts of your body. Think a Star Trek version of the old-fashioned one-man band routine but hooked up to a computer rather than having to carry a bass drum on your back.

In the afternoon, there was more talk about piracy, peer to peer and issues around DRM, Pim from Sellaband introduced us to his concept of fans being able to help finance a band without the need for a big record company. A real example of people power. Then later in the afternoon, Steve Myers from Theta Music in Tokyo and myself talked about the world of mobile and what impact it might have on music. And I'm quite sure I've missed a few things - it's not intentional, just a lot going on.

After that was another wonderful networking dinner and then the opening concerts of the SpotFestival with the Marybell Katastrophe and The National Bank.

The next day, Friday, was a gloriously sunny day, spent lazing around the festival, drinking, eating and chatting and listening to the odd band, but mainly putting the world to rights with Anna and the Icelandic Music crew. Then it was dinner with the gang - me and Gillian, Eric, Steve, Ricky G (a bona fide jazz musician and composer of music for Spike Lee), Rick and Lynette. Then underneath the very posh restaurant we were in, there was a ragga/dancehall club where we headed to afterwards and got into the groove (or whatever these youngsters do these days). When that closed, the American Boys were hungry so we headed to a late night pizza place, got chatting to some friendly locals, and ended up having a party back at their gaff. I love that kind of spontaneity on a road trip.

On Saturday, I managed to get up and explore a bit of Arhus and do a bit of shopping and picked up a few bargains. Then it was a lovely dinner with Gillian before heading back to the festival for the last night. We were tipped off that we should go and see Spleen United (think Kraftwerk meets Kaiser Chiefs), which we did, and they were great. So good, in fact, that I have bought the CD (couldn't get the downloads anywhere using English money). Then we headed to the after party, and as we were 'VIPs' we were able to jump the queue. Keith Harris had turned up over the weekend and I got to spend some time with him at the after party (he chaired a music tank panel that I was on recently) and eventually, after more chatting, we all headed home.

Sunday was spent packing, travelling and being delayed in the wi-fi-less Billund airport and reflecting on the previous days. I learned stuff, I made great new friends and thoroughly enjoyed myself (well you know me, I *do* like a good music festival and the Spot Festival is a rather good one).

I eventually got home in the early hours only to have to get up early the next day to go to Monte Carlo for MEM/Global Mobile Messaging Forum. I don't recommend back-to-back trips. It's a killer.

Anyway, a big-up to the guys at Innovation Lab for running the conference, Anders and his team did a marvellous job and made us feel extremely welcome. Keep an eye on this team, they're doing good stuff. I know a few organisations who would do well to take a leaf out of their book.

getting slightly obsessed by the weather

The latest Glastonbury mud index isn't looking good. It's gonna be squishy which might make dancing in a field a bit tricky, even if you're wearing wellies!

I'm praying we move down to showery and up to sun 'n fun - ever optimistic :)

The Road to Glastonbury

is getting ever nearer and I'll be heading off later this week with some of my mates, a trusty tent, a pair of wellies, a cosy sleeping bag and a smile to spend a few days enjoying life, love and music in a field in a farm in Somerset. Let's hope my stuff doesn't get nicked and my tent doesn't leak!

So for those of you who *are* heading to Glastonbury, some bright spark has done an excellent job of timetabling all the acts with a so-called Glasto Clashfinder so you can see at a glance who's on where at what time so you can argue with your mates as to which band you're going to see.

The weather report was looking ok-ish yesterday with showers and sunshine forecast but I've just refreshed and Metcheck's report is now not looking good at all with heavy rainfall predicted. So there's going to be mud and I'm going to need wellies and a waterproof jacket and patience.

And although I've invested in spare batteries for my phone, I doubt I'll be using it much beyond the usual texting and calling to find out where Sarah is to try and rendezvous with her. It's unlikely I'll be using it for blogging purposes as I have a feeling my mind will be on things other than mobile marketing and media, not least trying not to fall over in the mud!

So this does mean that the little burst of blogging today and in the next day or two might be all you get for a week or two whilst I play at being a hippy in the rain.