Design brief

Chapter 1: The Gathering

Boomtown at its heart is a living theatre with a long history and an ongoing narrative, but we
are starting with a clean slate by creating a world of new wonders to discover in Chapter
One: The Gathering.

The premise is simple, we are a Gathering… Gatherings are a deep part of human
connection and celebration and have been so for millennia, but in these current real-world
times, they were also one of the first things to be outlawed. When we come together this will
be The Gathering we’ve all been needing for so long…

Actors and characters will flood the streets more than ever before, huge parades will weave
their way through the districts with buskers and pop up sound systems on every street
corner, a mass of colourful creative energy that vibrates through every strand of the city.

The depths of our story in this reset year are as yet unknown, but we are deep in the
development process for the storyline at the moment and will get back to you with this
exciting aspect in due course.

We want our values to sing through every strand of what we do, and we want the audience
to leave Boomtown feeling inspired, so we need to think about how our messages can
effectively and positively come across within the set design and artwork.

Boomtown has grown at such an incredible speed, driven by the sheer love and passion of
thousands, it has become many wonderful things to many different people. However,
because of this rapid growth and immense scale we have not always been able to truly
embed our ethos into the culture of the event.

Resetting from the foundations allows us the chance to really get things right; to be the
forward-thinking, progressive, and inspirational festival community we know we can be. By
starting a brand new story with Chapter One: The Gathering, this allows us even more scope
to start afresh, with our ethos, creativity and ambition all aligning into one combined vision.

VISION:

A living theatre that ignites imagination and inspires the emergence of a better world through
respect, connection, creativity and celebration.

ETHOS:

1) Yourself: In a world that can make us doubt our own worth, we want to provide a
space for self-empowerment and freedom of expression.
2) Respect Each Other: In a world that is deeply scarred by the open wounds of
racism and prejudice, we want people of all backgrounds, beliefs, ages, gender
identities, sexual orientations, abilities and races to know that you belong and are
safe in our city.
3) Respect the Planet: In a world that is burning, we call on our collective humanity to
come together to find solutions and care for nature, as she cares for us.

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 4) Creativity: In a world where conformity is valued over creativity, we want to provide a
platform that nurtures artistic freedom and pushes the boundaries of creative
expression.
5) Connection: In a world where digital connection so often replaces physical
connection, we cherish the depth of togetherness that comes from the gatherings of
humans.
6) Celebration: In a world that can so often feel overloaded with negativity, we want to
celebrate the very best this beautiful planet and all humanity can achieve, in one
almighty party where everyone’s welcome!

If you haven’t already then re-read these 6 statements above whilst thinking about how you
could creatively embed some/all of them into your set design. The site-wide ‘Creative Design
Manager’ (Dan) will be in touch to arrange a meeting with you to discuss and help develop
your ideas on how you can deliver these important messages clearly and effectively.

Narrative Overview

NOTE: This is a work in progress, when we arrive at a finalised

overview and brief we will update you.

As a festival we aim for a level of immersion that can hold 48,000 people. The
narrative of our world should be seen in every design feature and experienced in
every detail across the site.
We have always prided ourselves in holding up a mirror to the world through our themes and
theatrics, dealing with real world issues and reflecting upon their impacts as well as how we
can change or confront them. In over a decade we have covered a lot of bases, political,
climate, revolution, media manipulation, corporate greed and most recently artificial
intelligence and data control.

Our idea was to transition from this era into more philosophical and solution based narrative
territories, in the lost chapter, after we declared a state of emergency (who knew!?) the idea
was that AI would confront its human self and the outcome would aid this narrative move. It
felt and feels very current, in many ways the lost chapter is the perfect bridge, as who knows
where we go from here, it is a mystery, as now is our past storylines conclusion.

One thing is for sure, now more than ever before the world needs solutions, people need
to take action and communities need to come together to face the challenges ahead, now
more so than ever before in our history. Dystopia is easy and fun to play with and explore,
we can all imagine it as its been fed to us by media and movies for many years now,
everyone can imagine the end of the world, but we need to collectively start to
imagine a new beginning, realise the Utopia the world is, outside of human greed and
the neglect of nature in favour of profit.

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So something cataclysmic occured in the Lost Chapter, a pan dimensional shift as AI flipped
and freaked out encountering its human self. The world is changed forever, the city has
returned to its origins in the Bowl, smaller and more concentrated, areas have vanished - D5
the dystopian future, Paradise heights the corrupted and corporate present and a new world
has appeared, a new Utopia being born from the ashes of the old, as the phoenix rises
from the flames!

Inspired by the idea of moving away from dystopia and transitioning to a philosophical and
solution-based narrative with ideas of Utopia. We are interested in the concept of
‘throughtopia’ - What stories were told in 2021 to get us to e.g. carbon neutral 2035.

In the essence of this we want to let stories evolve this year and treat Boomtown as a
site-wide exploration, similar to the sprawling, decision based narrative offered in sandbox
computer games. We are interested in new ways of gathering stories from our audience and
reflecting their voices back to them.

As a starting point we are exploring using a pillar for each district and applying it as the core
underpinnings of that district. The fundamental message it's communicating. Each district
would naturally have its own stories inspired by a simple pillar. Of course, they will all
embody different elements of all of the pillars but having a core theme could help with
differentiation and our direction.

In this sense LET’S BE AVENUE is currently unwritten, but it could be rooted in celebration.
Grand re-openings, constant prize-winning, always your birthday feel good times. Potential
stories/happenings - Spectacles, award ceremonies, grand re-openings, launches, rites of
passages, marriages/engagements…

LET’S BE AVENUE (formally known as The Main

Drag)
● Let’s be Avenue is the first area that you come to when you come into the city from
⅔’s of the festival.
● It needs to feel part of the main branding of the festival. It signifies what Boomtown is
outside of it’s district’s.
● Let’s be Avenue needs to be within Boomtown’s site wide theme which is fun,
colourful, circus inspired, nodding towards fantasy, but with traditional English
architecture.
● It needs to feel alive and bustling as you wander through it.
● As you walk through Let’s be Avenue, ‘Copper County’ will begin to appear on the
horizon, so there will need to be a clear definition to mark the end and start of the two
themes.
● Think colourful, carnivalesque, clever bunting angles and coloured festoon
connecting each side of the street together to give off a warm inviting feel.

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 ● The street venues within are loosely based on ships/venues you would find and any
town e.g. postal posse
● The venues which have been moved from Town Centre and Paradise Heights will
have frontages from those districts that can be incorporated.

Layout
We have outlined a footprint, which takes into account backstages, contours, sound
allocations, stage clashing, and sight lines but this is not set in stone and is up for discussion
to make it the best it can be.

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Street Venues
NOTE: These are still to be confirmed

- Postal Posse hatch - 3m x 3m

- Daily Rag hatch - 3m x 3m

- Dank Parish - 10m x 10m (Previously in Paradise Heights)

- Job Centre - 9m x 9m (Previously in Town Centre)
- Park Hotel - 10m x 15m (Previously in Paradise Heights)
- Inconvenience Store 6m x 6m (Previously in Town Centre)
- Boomtown Bobbies 6m x 9m (Previously in Town Centre)

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- Bar - 9m x 15m
There is a bar at the beginning of Main Drag which has a small section set and scaffolding at
one end, and then is serving out of both sides into the street and covered with a set attached
by kader clamps.

- The Loop - 12m x 18m TBC

This is our front of house drug testing venue.

This is the largest tent and frontage on Main Drag. There is a possibility The Loop venue
may not return, so it may need to be rebranded.

Sideshows:
● There is 1 x side show locations on the map where there will be performers or sound
systems throughout the show.
● No additional set required for this, but to be aware of as they are visual locations that
will be photographed.
● More details to be provided by the theatrical team when sideshows are
booked/confirmed.

Window installs and hatches:

This detail is super important to give that extra layer of creativity, as well as providing key
spaces/opportunities for new, up and coming crews, who are keen to be involved in
Boomtown.

Windows x 2: You will need to build a box that is sufficient for an artist to come and install
their work into. We are happy to discuss suitable sizes & locations with you.

Hatches x 2: Daily Rag & Postal Posse.

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Set & Decor
● All of the set for Main Drag is available to reuse.
● Some of the venues that are now on Main Drag have been moved from Town Centre
(Mentioned above), so the frontages can be reused and upgraded.
● In your Google Folder is the Town Centre and Paradise Heights SKPs of the
buildings on your street.
● There will be lots of spare set available on site as we have cut a lot of districts this
year. We will allocate a time for all SDMs to come and take a look at the set that is
available.
● All Boomtown logos are to be removed - This is one of the steps we are taking to
bring the festival back to its roots and so as to not be pushing our brand on the
visitors during the show we will be de-branding all of our districts and stages. So any
‘Boomtown’ logos that are currently built into your set will need replacing with a logo
that is specific to the building it is attached to for example, or it will need changing or
painting over in some way.

LX/AV/SFX
● Set lighting needs to be incorporated into the design, and disguised where possible.
● SDM to work closely with Set Lighting Designer to ensure efficiency of budget and
that everything is lit up properly.
● No other SFX

Scaffolding
● Scaffolding to be designed using Layher.
● To be kept to simple bays where possible.
● The scaffolding contractor will be SRG and we will arrange a meeting with their build
manager once the drawings have been created.
● If you have any questions on this, please let us know.

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Tickets & Meals
Ticket and meal numbers to be discussed and agreed at a later date.

Infrastructure
You will have the opportunity to order the infrastructure and plant that you need to complete
the build.
This will be reviewed and will need to work with site budgets in order to be approved.
This can be discussed at a later date in more detail.

Timeline

We’re all super excited for this year, we can't wait to get the ball rolling in creating our
magical world with you!! Let’s set strong foundations to build off of over the next three years.
Please feel free to contact us should you need anything.

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Points of Contact

Nicki: Budget, scaff and logistics queries

Dan: District set creative direction
Mair: Creative overview, narrative, district spectacles
Street Venues Production Coordinator: Venues, window installs & sideshows
Theatre Production Manager: Street and Balcony Performance

BIG LOVE!
Lak, Mair, Nicki + Dan

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