So, I have just spent the last week at Boomtown Fair 2023, and I have a lot to say about it.
Taking place in the Matterley Bowl, a short distance from Winchester, Hampshire, Boomtown is one of the UK’s biggest music festivals and is unlike anything else on the planet.
In order to understand it, I recommend picturing a city, rather than a festival. Built out of artist’s energy, plyboard, scrap, and painted canvas, Boomtown is a fantasy land populated by a host of various actors all in beautifully elaborate costumes.
During the event, a parallel reality is created on-site, playing host to a complex plot, conveyed through art, theatre, and an extremely elaborate alternative reality game. Adding to this impression, a newspaper and local currency are printed and distributed, and punters are referred to as citizens.
Boomtown is split into a set of districts, each one of which has its own theme and preferred palette of music and art. At Botanica, Metropolis, and at the Origin Stage, a modernist and post-modernist look dominates, with the music, mostly booming commercial drum and bass and EDM, matching the aesthetics. In Letsbee Avenue, untrampled capitalism is the ideology of the day, and the ridiculousness of the modern world is lampooned through sideshows and actors.
As you venture deeper into the festival, this modernist capitalist ideology fades away as the aesthetic changes. Area 404 is a post-apocalyptic punk wonderland, with lots of smaller stages featuring heavy rock, tekno, hardcore, and more. A running gang battle takes place between the clown-themed Locos and the mercenary Guardians throughout the district’s cyberpunk streets. Water flies and splashes passing citizens as the gangs blast at each other with super soakers, while other cults and sideshows compete for your attention.
Further in, you find Old Town. This warren of alleyways looks like something straight out of a Dungeons and Dragons game and features an even higher density of activities and theatre than the rest of the festival. Obviously resonating with the “standard” hippy-punk festival aesthetic, and playing host to the most “small and festivally” bands, Old Town is a haven for people, like me, who love weird folky bands and odd live music.
Beyond Old Town, up a flight of seemly endless stairs, is Tribe of Frog. Playing consistent psy, and host to spinners and ravers, this final level of the festival is perfect for dancing endlessly, the stunning visual stimuli of the trees and the lights keeping the crowd entranced.
Throughout these districts, and more, the festival’s plot runs. Through completing the alternative reality game, role-playing with the actors, noticing the details scattered across their environment and watching out for key events, citizens can keep abreast of, and even potentially influence this story.
While the details of Boomtown’s storyline tend to change every year, it almost always involves the citizens of the city attempting to overthrow the villain of the week, who is always obviously a stand-in for the modern corporate world.
However, at the heart of Boomtown lies a paradox that’s hard to ignore. The festival, in its essence, is a celebration of creativity, individualism, and rebellion against the mainstream corporate world. Yet, the very fabric of this alternative universe is woven with threads of corporate capitalism. All this creativity and energy and fun lives within a high steel fence, guarded by drones, and is aggressively profited from.
Security is heavy, ever-present and yet still questionable. Attendees face intense searches upon entry, and patrols are regularly seen inside the event patting people down and confiscating illegal items. Rumours abound about some less than decent practices among some of the security team, and there is a strong undercurrent of distrust towards them among many of Boomtown’s Citizens, with many feeling unsafe in the festival. For some people, the paranoia this environment could induce is a decent reason not to attend.
On top of this, Boomtown’s cashless system, while aimed at reducing theft, can sometimes feel repressive. Every transaction is under the festival’s watch, offering a clear view of all vendor’s businesses, with some reporting being thrown out for taking cash. On-site prices are steep, and with strict alcohol limits upon entry, many attendees are nudged towards the bars. Additionally, with so much to see and do, finding time to cook becomes a challenge, pushing attendees further towards the vendors. This can lead to people racking up enormous amounts spent. To be honest, I’d rather pay more for a ticket and not have to deal with £14 burgers than go hungry grappling with the current system.
In addition to the very high food and drink prices, the festival’s unreliable phone signal complicated the process of topping up one’s cashless account— while there were designated stations for this, it was common to hear about cash-rich festival-goers ending up without enough funds for food.
Another issue, which would not occur if people paid with cash, is vendors, intentionally or accidentally, double or overcharging. Many people reported this happening on social media, but in response, Boomtown only offer advice to check your balance after every purchase (difficult, given the lack of signal across the site). This is fairly reasonable, as given the number of dodgy people attempting to get meals they actually bought refunded, Boomtown can’t reasonably make up for vendors double charging people, leaving those affected completely in the lurch.
Perhaps if you could hand over a token of value, and receive the difference between that token and the price you paid in smaller tokens of value, that would make the system a lot easier to trust and work a lot more smoothly. No, Live Nation, this is not an invitation to make your own company scrip— just let us use cash!
This approach to commerce in the festival is very different to the way many of the actors and crew are treated. Many of those who create parts of or perform at Boomtown receive no pay or even food. People contribute love and hard work and get nothing but the joy of the experience, and have to pay the costs of attending.
It’s as if Boomtown is a microcosm of the broader world it seeks to critique— art is consistently undervalued, and corporate influence penetrates everywhere. While this practice of heavily using volunteers is commonplace across the festival industry, it is arguably at its worst at Boomtown where the sheer spectacle of the event can convince many who would typically charge for their skills to put aside their concerns and work for a ticket. Thankfully, it seems that at least the misdeeds of previous years were not repeated, and the bar staff were not held hostage this year, indicating things might be improving.
The irony is that the festival’s narrative encourages attendees to rise against the corporate villain, yet the very infrastructure of the event is built upon these very same corporate principles. This duality, between the festival’s artistic spirit and economic body, is both fascinating and frustrating.
While this all-affecting irony is almost certainly inadvertent, and just a reflection of the challenges of organising such a massive event where certain compromises become inevitable, it adds a layer of cognitive dissonance to the Boomtown experience. This consistently irked me throughout my time at the festival and made the alternative world, which so many thousands of people had put hundreds of hours into, seem so much less immersive, and more obviously false, wasting some of its incredible potential.
The scale of the event also leads to another phenomenon. The “Bucket Hats”. Attracted by the mainstream dance acts playing on the big stages, these crowds of 18-25-year-old identikit ket zombies make up a substantial proportion of the festival’s crowd, and tend for the most part, to be somewhat absent and unwilling to engage with all the weirdness on offer.
Now, amidst the chaos and wonder of Boomtown, I met Dan, a person who seemed to be a typical “Bucket Hat.” However, Boomtown had started to get under his skin, he had grown weary of his extended group of normie friends and was on a quest for adventure. Our paths first crossed at the bar, where we got chatting. Frogmarching him into Oldtown I introduced him to the raw energy of a punk show’s mosh pit. After that initial encounter, I let him wander off, hoping he’d find his own path in this eclectic world.
Later, in a serendipitous twist, I spotted Dan again. This time, he was engrossed in an impromptu poi spinning lesson, guided by a long-time festival crew buddy of mine. It was heartening to see someone like Dan, who might have been written off as just another mainstream attendee, diving deep into the unique experiences Boomtown had to offer.
This I feel is the core point of the event. Denormification. By attracting people whose creative appetites are being barely sustained by the mainstream, and then letting them experience all the art and creativity, and even neurodiversity the country has to offer, it can inspire them to become more than they are.
I loved my time at Boomtown. I will be going back. I would recommend everyone who likes music and parties, wants to take part in a big immersive experience, and can cope with huge crowds, overzealous security and corporate bullshit attend.
At least until the festival’s plot convinces you that you can’t any longer.
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