Boomtown 2017: Chapter 9-Behind the Mask

Violet Field
Aug 22, 2017 · 12 min read

A 6ft tall drag queen, wearing a striking black and white PVC dress, emerged from a behind a small door by ‘The Red Rash Inn’ in the Downtown area, and invited us in to see a show. We took a seat on the carpeted field inside a dimly lit, striped marquee and the 10 minutes that commenced were among the strangest of my life.

The first act was a stripper, dressed as Marie Antoinette singing a slower (supposedly sexier) version of ‘Ave-Maria’. This was by far the most tame of the three, but nonetheless the oddity of her performance captivated the twenty something intoxicated audience members. This was then followed by a much curvier woman wearing a strap on grinding up against a pole, forcefully encouraging audience members to suck her prosthetic junk whilst lip-syncing ‘I’m a woman’ rather aggressively. Again, her performance demanded attention and certainly made me wonder how on earth I had ended up in this bizarre place. Finally, the drag queen welcomed a heavily tattooed man to the stage, who was wearing nothing but a frilly apron. He was carrying a bowling ball and some kind of attachment device. I prayed he wasn’t going to do what I thought he was going to do. But moments later, the Lion King’s ‘Circle of Life’ began to play, and he attached the bowling ball to his penis, then lifted his apron to reveal the stunt in all its glory.

It was at that moment a surreal flicker of reality washed across my conscience: it was early August, I was in Winchester SW England, it was about 2am, and a tattooed man was swinging a bowling ball from his penis inside a tent as part of a burlesque show, hosted by a drag queen in the Downtown of Boomtown, and I couldn’t have been more at ease.

Those 10 minutes were a microcosm of what Boomtown is, and what Boomtown means. It is a place where the weird and wonderful are celebrated, and a strong testament to the artistic, imaginative, unexplainable, creative and unique. A friend suggested that this festival can be whatever you make it, and that’s the truest way to explain it; you could choose to spend the whole time off your face under one giant stage set, or you could be sober and just follow the story line. I found a happy compromise somewhere inbetween the two. Boomtown offers something more to the UK festival market; it’s commitment to an original story line (this year was Chapter 9 as it was in it’s 9th year) makes it a wholly immersive weekend full of colourful escapism.

Left: Sector 6, Right, My Nu Leng @ Bang Hai Towers — Boomtown 2017

Whispers from some devoted Boomtown attendees suggested that this was the future of British Festivals, most likely due to it’s quirkyness. Some even said it was better than Glastonbury, which is a bold statement considering some of the best festivals in the world try to meet the Somerset standard. To me it felt like the crazier, bolder sides of Glastonbury, but on steroids. That being said, Boomtown holds its own place; it doesn’t feel like a Glasto knock off, or even a Creamfields attempt (music wise). Regardless of who you want to see on the lineup, where you end up camping, or where you find yourself Brummie skanking at 3am, you can’t escape the madness of Boomtown.

I was privileged enough to go for free as a result of volunteering for Oxfam. Lots of people, originally including myself, have misconceptions about what volunteering at a festival might entail. There is this idea that being tied to a shift is going to be a total drag, and that things are stricter because you’re working for an organisation. From my experiencing of stewarding both Glastonbury and Boomtown this year, I can assure any readers wondering whether it is really worth it or not, it is definitely, unarguably and 100% worth it.

Sat on the cold Sunday night inside one of the campsite hubs, Boomtown 2017

If you’ve been to a UK festival as a punter before, and are considering volunteering, it is worth knowing the type of festival you are signing yourself up for. But aside from that, my advice would be to dive head first in to the experience…just bring comfy boots and a decent waterproof. Personally, I think the experience as a steward is in many ways more enjoyable than that of a punter because of the privileges, and extra sides to the festival that you wouldn’t get to see as a member of Joe public.

To break it down, I’ve made a list of pro’s and con’s:

Pros:

  • Free food (Oxfam provide you with meal vouchers for every 8 hour shift you do)
  • Free entry- the usual exchange for volunteering your hours is that you are allowed free entry to the festival. (With Oxfam you are obliged to work 3 x 8 hour shifts across the course of the 6/7 days you are on site)
  • If you reaaaaaaaalllly want to see an artist and your shift clashes with it, you can swap! So there is freedom after all.
  • You get access to off limits to the public areas, drinks discounts, and are more trusted by events staff, bar staff, security and the general public making your life, generally, a hell of a lot easier.
  • Free showers- less queuing, more hygiene. What’s the downside?
  • You get to go on site before the general public so you get a glimpse in to set up, and the fresh clean site before the carnage ensues.
  • You make friends with like minded people from all walks of life. Especially volunteering with Oxfam I find attracts people from all over, and of all ages which creates a nice diversity. At least, it makes a change from sitting with the same people for 5 days straight, driving each other mad.
  • The campsite is 18+ only, so you avoid little Johnny experimenting with something unidentified for the first time and vomiting outside your tent at 5am.
  • Outside of meeting like-minded people from Oxfam, you also get in to the inner web of festival staff. It seems to be all about who you know in the industry, so knowing the laser rigger from Muse offering you a free ticket to climb one of the biggest festival stages in the country might not only be the coolest offer during your time at a festival, but will only come about if you volunteer!
  • You get to deal with all kinds of crazy, and if that is your thing, then it keeps your mind going and you learn how to deal with lots of varied situations in very high pressured circumstances. It’s sometimes challenging, but really fun.

Cons:

  • There is a chance you might not be able to find someone to shift swap with, so there has to be some understanding in terms of the degree of sacrifice.
  • um… yeah nope, that’s it.

There are plenty of ways to get involved with a festival beyond that of a punter, and if you are as passionate about the wonderful, creative collaborative mess that festivals are as I am, then you will no doubt enjoy being part of what makes it possible.

Whistlers Green, Boomtown 2017

Here are my top 10 highlights from the weekend (in no particular order):

1. Standing on a platform above 30,000 people at Bang Hai towers for My Nu Leng.

2. Watching the Downtown strobe and sparkle from Campsite Hub 9 whilst talking to Liam, one of the lights and laser riggers from the main company working on the Downtown stages. He had so many cool stories, and was travelling the world seeing the most incredible stages, performances and experiencing views some could only dream of. In the few short hours we chatted, I feel like I gained a new found respect for the riggers and pyros. For the rest of the weekend I saw all the stage sets, lasers, projections and lights from a whole new perspective.

3. Cypress Hill at Lions Den. They put on such an interactive show, and the atmosphere was so vibrant and chilled out. There was also a rogue punter that managed to scale a light tower during ‘Insane in the Brain’. I’m sure he’ll never forget that view, even if the only explanation for him feeling like he was able to get up the tower in the first place was probably down to the copious amounts of drugs he must have taken.

Lions Den, Boomtown 2017

4. Getting in with the security team. Punters forget that the staff at festivals are humans too. Humans that like to get off shift and have a good time, and humans that like to be friendly, laugh and joke around. Despite assumptions that I’m sure the majority of people have about security at festivals (or anybody wearing any form of high-vis for that matter) they were some of the most lovely, down to earth people I met whilst at Boomtown. I could not have made it through that Friday overnight shift were it not for that golden circle of security guards we made friends with. It’s the simple things.

5. “Do I Know You Friend?”. If you said this phrase to any actors in the Old Town part of Uptown, you were led along a series of trials to obtain clues that would supposedly induct you in to part of the resistance against Bang Hai Industries*. We went on the goose chase for approximately 2 hours, but nothing came of it (apart from some hilarious stories). We were given an old 80’s cassette tape by a Librarian and told to hand it in to the prison, except every time we went it was closed. So we spoke to some pirates by the port instead who made us kick our legs in the air, backs on the ground, before telling us to head to a bar. I ended up with a fake singing 50+ year old boyfriend given to me by an 11 year old before earning the next clue, and then we ended up in Grandma’s living room (literally an old woman’s front room). Finally we found ourselves crawling through a secret tunnel in the Gabba themed post office. At the entrance to the tunnel an actor slapper a sticker on our arses, and once through to the other side, we were in conversation with Boomtown’s answer to Captain Jack Sparrow in the postal room who pointed us towards ‘the gaps in the wall’… needless to say we were never actually inducted in to any formal resistance, but it was fun to play along with the fantasy.

Old Town, Boomtown 2017

6. Skindred at the Town Centre stage. They were different to so much of the music at BT, so it created a very welcome break from the 150bpm bass heavy wave that ruled across the festival. Plus at the end, Benji came on to play ‘Warning’ for the encore wearing a head to toe giant sequin coat, top hat and matching steam punk crystal goggles.

7. Going through the foresty venues. From the neon fluorescence of Tribe of Frogs, to the atmospheric and aztec inspired light pyramids in the psychedelic forest, every concealed corner brought a whole new patch to the Boomtown quilt. Hidden woods was more chilled, with the majority of the time Reggae blaring from amidst the trees, and the hammock forest next to the Old Mine created the perfect place to just relax and people watch. Not to mention the huge speaker rigged acorn you could sit in at psy forest, that hung over a small pond looking out to the lights and smoke.

Left: Psychedelic Forest by day, Right: Hammock Forest — Boomtown 2017

8. Exploring Downtown on Saturday night. Gabba raves at Scrap Yard, fast-paced Electronic and Dance at Robotika, feeling bass through the mud as you moved between venues, and wafts of smoke breaking up multi-coloured flashes of lights from every corner, all contributed to the brilliant mess that was Downtown. By day there was strange oddities, like the Bang Hai tech shop, where I was encouraged to “maim my childhood toys” (like Sid in Toy Story) and also had a free phone upgrade (a woman pained in blue stuck 9 googley eyes on to the back of my phone and told me I had a better camera as a result of it). There was also a complaints office that we had fun pissing the actors off in, and winding them up no end. But by night, the place transformed in to a wash of neon against smokey backdrops, with the sound of thudding music clashing at different tempos and drops at every corner you turned. We went to ‘The Red Rash Inn’ to dance to some cheesy 90’s pop, before the Burlesque incident, and then continued in to a place called Micro-rave (a rave in a giant microwave), and finally in to Happy Slaps disco. Everything was UV and various acts came on the stage to the sound of popular Dance and Drum and Bass tracks, some of which included sawing metal plates attached to the dancers’ crotches to create sparks, fire-eaters, a hula hooping pro, and a UV covered, hairdryer looking figure splashing neon paint all over the crowd. It was utterly insane.

9. Stewarding in the Hidden Woods. The shift started at 7.45am Thursday and finished at 4pm…1 hour before the muddy wood even opened! It was a very relaxed shift in the sunshine, that went by in a flash and led to lots of games and socialising with the other stewards.

10. The first time you get to the top of that massive fuck off hill by Mayfair at night, turn around and then see the whole of Downtown and Chinatown camping lit up in all it’s splendour. It’s pure magic.

An image that does not do the statement justice: Downtown at night, Boomtown 2017

I should also shout out to ‘Sweaty Ketty Betty’, whose story of trench foot and having to be cut out of Doc Martens after 5 days of solid wear made me care about my feet more than I ever have done at a festival before.

As we left the festival, tired and aching on the Monday morning, there was one last loot of abandoned campsites in Chinatown which managed to give us breakfast, some new toys, a new picnic blanket and even a jar of questionable peanut butter.

All in all, Boomtown is incredible. It’s a seemingly untouched pocket of creative fantasy, fuelled by the politest 60,000 people I’ve ever had the pleasure of sharing a field with. It isn’t squeaky clean from drugs or questionable behaviour, and it isn’t a paradise of luxury either, but if that is what you are looking for then I suggest starting somewhere else other than the British Festival scene.

Whistlers Green, Boomtown 2017

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*The full Boomtown story line can be found on their website, but in short a masked revolutionary had freed the people of Boomtown from any type of governmental control, but that resulted in lack of direction and so Bang Hai Ind. stepped in to bring structure back to society. The twist is that Bang Hai is corrupt af according to many of the citizens, and a resistance was growing against them all the way through this years festival. It reached it’s conclusive climax on the Sunday night at Bang Hai Towers, where hackers took over the system, and took over control from the soul eating Bang Hai Ind.


(All images used were personal, and no offence was intended by any of them. Should you wish any of the images to be removed, please ask)

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