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Some of the team behind Boomtown talk about why we book who we book... insterspersed with some musical highlights from Chapter 10! 
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🎥 Alex Allen
🎶 Marcus Gad - Soul Talk
Connecting the music [transcript]
Kaptin: Boomtown is a feast for the senses so it’s our job to make that feast as nourishing as possible.
Lak: Festivals have been going on for thousands of years, the coming together of cultures to exchange ideas, teach, learn, form relationships all with this common goal… basically to celebrate life.
Kaptin: That’s what first pulled me into the festivals, just feeling that kind of magic when people unite.
Anna: You can’t put Boomtown in a box, we cover so many things, represent so many different subcultures, music genres that it’s just impossible!
Kaptin: You’ve got each of the districts and each of the districts has its own identity.
But we’re habitual rule breakers, so you’re always gonna get a curveball, you’re always gonna get something different. That’s where the magic is, introducing people to something they’ve never seen before.
James: I came in myself with certain styles of music that I knew and over the years I’ve had to adapt that to learning about world music, learning about folk music, learning about techno, learning about new drum and bass, learning about old drum and bass… and that’s what really encapsulates Boomtown that we celebrate the old music, the heritage, with the new music that’s coming through.
Lak: The passion, the magic, the energy that the artists receive from a Boomtown audience is just… it’s off the chain. It absolutely is incredible.
Kaptin: Someone said on twitter… “That is so unlike a Boomtown line-up, it makes it a Boomtown line-up!”
Grace: We get excited by the idea of seeing two completely different acts next to each other on a big poster.
Anna: Nobody feels like they’re left behind, it’s just this big encompassing music programming where the only real thing is, does it fit in terms of a Boomtown thing….
Dulcie: It would be boring if it didn’t have people from different scenes….
Ryan: The origins of the modern festival are born out of and influenced by multiple styles.
Dulcie: My parents came this year and they loved it all - my dad doesn’t look like he would be standing in front of the mosh pit in Diss-order Alley… but he was! You can’t help but get stuck in… especially when there’s immersive actors, pulling you in to places.
Robin: I remember going into the psy forest and just experiencing sone, you know, full on trance DJ… I don’t see that as part of my identity but actually it was electric when I got in there… the sound system was just pounding and just vibrating my entire body.
Dan: Its not just about the types of music that are coming in. It’s also the way they are given out to the crowd… it’s a multi sensory experience.
Lak: We had some huge acts last year that came and they actually approached us, which was just mental to kind of get this call…
Grace: That is just a really incredible feeling because it makes us realise that the message that we are trying to get out there is actually getting out there.
Anna: The music programming is all because that’s what we want and that’s what we’re passionate about… the set design, the production, the respect, the ethos, everything it all comes from this foundation of us being independent and that is something that we will strive to keep.
Doug: We’re all the same people that have been doing it most of our lives, one way or another and we come from a time when it was different… but we still create one of the most unique and beautiful pockets of freedom and acceptance in the world.
Anna: Every year, we bring in a new stage, a new music genre, something changes, we evolve and we just pull in so much more.
Lak: Change is absolutely crucial for the development and excitement to continue with something like Boomtown.
Robin: Loads of people are invested in it because they just love the vibe and the complexity of the story… I think it allows the programme at Boomtown to be loads more risky and loads more diverse and encompass everything from mad healing types up in one corner to full on gabber purists down in the other end. You know, and the junglists are always happy cause it’s everywhere and every strain of DnB and jungle…
Lak: We are working towards growing our community and inviting more and more people into the ever evolving Boomtown family.
Ryan: A coming together of tribes and communities, sharing of ideas and then dispersion again to take those ideas into the wider community is such a valuable process… it’s been happening organically for thousands of years anyway.
