Hampshire’s Matterley Estate once again played host to the fully immersive BoomTown Fair from August 11 – 14, which this year welcomed an increased capacity of 60,000 music lovers and saw the addition of over 80 street venues. Mojo Barriers expanded on its presence at the festival by supplying 600m of kit, which was installed across the entire festival site. Mojo’s barriers were installed at all festival stages, including The Lion’s Den, The Jolly Dodger, and Sector 6 – a new district introduced to the 2016 event.
Founded in 2009, BoomTown Fair is an expansive metropolis split into nine different districts, each of which has a different theme. As well as its impressive main stages, BoomTown Fair is famed for its bespoke entertainment and its creatively themed venues, which this year witnessed performances from Madness, Damian ‘Jr Gong’ Marley and Fat Freddy’s Drop.
Kevin Thorborn, Mojo Barriers’ UK manager, commented: “The individual and quirky nature of BoomTown makes it such a special event and it’s great to see organisers pushing boundaries when it comes to creativity and imagination. BoomTown Fair is famed for its impressive stages and immersive set design and this year saw the introduction of the new district, Sector 6.
“As well as supplying new areas, we also installed our barriers at BoomTown’s infamous stages, including The Town Centre and The Lion’s Den stage, which is situated within a natural bowl, meaning we had to design an effective layout which matched the contour of the land. It’s great to be involved with such a progressive event, which keeps growing year on year, and we look forward to expanding our work with BoomTown Fair in the future.”
The idiosyncratic and production heavy nature of the site provided some minor challenges, but as Thorborn told Insights these were overcome with relative ease: “As we were supplying new areas of the festival site this year, it was a matter of visiting, checking the ground and the contours and designing a barrier layout to offer maximum crowd safety. As well as supplying new areas, we also installed our barriers at BoomTown’s infamous stages, including the Lion’s Den stage, which is situated within a natural bowl.
“This did pose some challenges when it came to a designing a barrier layout to fit safely within the bowl, however drawing on our experience from last year’s event we once again worked closely with the organisers to advise on a barrier configuration which offers maximum safety.”
Aside from BoomTown, Mojo is also continuing to supply some of its longstanding clients such as Rochester Castle Concerts, as well as working on a number of new events such as Sziget Festival. This year has also seen Mojo Barriers tour with AC/DC’s 2016 Rock Or Bust European Tour, Rihanna’s Anti tour, Bruce Springsteen’s The River tour and Muse’s Drones world tour.
