Summer has arrived and we are festival mad here in Marconi House. All Together Now is the newest kid on the block, taking place this August Bank Holiday in Curraghmore Estate Waterford. I for one CANNOT WAIT!
The Paul McLoone Show will be giving away tickets and making announcements over the next couple of months.
🔥🔥🔥 Arcadia Announcement 🔥🔥🔥 We are delighted to announce the return of @A_rcadia to the Irish Countryside for @ATNfestival to coincide with their 10th anniversary. Only 9 weeks to go! https://t.co/mfDrv8AfLx #ATN18 pic.twitter.com/0oR9iMNo7M
— All Together Now (@ATNfestival) May 31, 2018
If you have never seen Arcadia before have a look below and read how it all got started 10 years ago.
Arcadia is the fantastic brainchild of scrap metal sculptor Pip Rush Jansen and engineer Bert Cole. Pip and Bert met in Ireland 10 years ago and, whilst here, hatched a plan to create a bespoke installation to challenge festival convention. Thus, award winning art collective Arcadia was born.
Since its inception, hundreds of thousands of people have danced around, under and over Arcadia’s incredible, eye-popping installations across four continents.
It’s fitting that Arcadia return to Ireland to celebrate their tenth anniversary, but the setting had to be right. To that end, Pip flew to Ireland to explore the grounds of Curraghmore House, Ireland’s largest private estate - and the setting for the inaugural All Together Now Festival.
‘I was totally blown away. I’ve seen extreme festival sites from the Black Rock Desert to glamorous harbour-sides in Miami to skyscraper strewn city centres around the world and this may just top the lot!
The scale is unreal, from the campsite at the top of the hill, you can see lush woodland and rolling hills for miles around, all leading to the mountains with no neighbours anywhere in sight. We even found an ancient Celtic stone circle where people had clearly been drawn by the magical landscape to celebrate the rhythms of life there since time immemorial. And the building itself has such a mystical beauty - what an incredible place for a festival.’
The setting was right. Curraghmore is the perfect spot for The Arcadia Afterburner, an immersive 360 degree installation that has rocked crowds from Burning Man to the Dalmatian coast and from New Zealand to Glastonbury.
At its heart is a flaming spire that houses the DJ booth and shoots fireballs above the crowd as light radiates outwards to a ring of flaming trees. Raised platforms spiral into the crowd creating multi level dynamics and allowing the crowd to dance on the structure itself, balancing intense intimacy with a powerful sense of monumentality.
