Reborn for Glastonbury 2023, Silver Hayes unveils its next evolution.
Marking its 10th anniversary, the original home of electronic music at Glastonbury has transformed for the 2023 festival with the debut of a new artistic pavilion grown from mushrooms, a stage for urgent debate on music culture and beyond titled THE INFORMATION, and the creative re-imagining of three iconic Silver Hayes stages – culminating with the reveal of THE LEVELS, Glastonbury’s newest open air nightclub offering.
Driven by cutting edge ideas and future technologies, this new iteration of Silver Hayes will now fuse together electronic music with debate, spatial design and club culture – inviting you to discover the future of tomorrow.
THE LEVELS AND ICONIC SILVER HAYES STAGES
Silver Hayes’ next evolution begins with the unveiling of ‘THE LEVELS’ stage. Brand new for 2023, The Levels is a new open air nightclub inspired by the crossover of architecture, lighting and experimental musical art-forms. Bringing club culture into new dimensions, the new stage features state-of-the-art sound and lighting production with the stage designed by Bristol based studio Hidden Corners – delivering a future-facing creation for the most groundbreaking electronic artists of today.
Rebecca Fitzgerald from Hidden Corners stated that:
“Our first concepts for The Levels was driven by ideas of how dance music could be represented artistically and physically in the Silver Hayes field. Our vision was to create a space and visual experience to go hand in hand with the musical programme – an open air nightclub – with every architectural detail designed specifically for an integrated lighting system. Layering this with additional lighting content in collaboration with an incredible lighting team, the venue is all encompassing by nightfall.”
Audiences will also discover the creative reimagining of ‘THE LONELY HEARTS CLUB’ by international visual artist Mr Jago and Bristol-based artist Melissa Wickham. Alongside this, a new design for ‘THE FIRMLY ROOTED SOUND SYSTEM’ stage has today been revealed which takes inspiration from the heritage of sound system culture, plus the cult favourite platform for the underground, ‘THE WOW’ stage returns – a sanctuary for quality house, techno and electronic music, with a dedicated outdoor dance floor each day.
After dark, light installations transform the area around the new Hayes Pavilion (detailed below) into a late night arena for discovery, with light installations from Four Tet collaborators Squid Soup, Bristol-based visual studio Limbic Cinema, and London-based collective Immerse.me
HAYES ART PAVILION 2023: ‘6°’
Silver Hayes has introduced a new artistic Pavilion for Glastonbury 2023 with its inaugural project, entitled ‘6°’.
The first ever Hayes Pavilion project harnesses the interconnected power of mushroom roots – the extraordinary underground network known as mycelium – and investigates the potential adoption of this biomaterial in the creative industries.
Inspired by its potential as a new industrial material, a selection of multi-disciplinary practitioners, from film, TV, set design and educational institutes such as Central St Martins, the Royal College of Art and Bath Spa University, have explored artistic expression, creative possibilities and investigated the potential of mycelium.
The project aims to demonstrate the opportunity to move away from environmentally impacting materials to a more sustainable fungi future. When mycelium is fed with agricultural waste, it forms a construction material, like those you can buy such as polystyrene, foam and plastics, but made entirely organic and compostable. Over a 6 week period in the lead up to the installation at Glastonbury, the creative collective tested, manipulated and challenged what is possible with mycelium as a practical material.
On site at Glastonbury the pavilion showcases the findings in an exhibition format that journey’s through simple 2-dimensional forms into more innovative approaches, that have pushed the creative limits of the mycelium material.
The magical mycelium Hayes Pavilion also plays host to specially commissioned immersive sound art compositions by academic and musician Brian d’Souza (Auntie Flo) and rising star Or:La, in collaboration with harpist Roísín Berkeley. The music will highlight the ties between people and places that emulate the connectivity of mushrooms.
The creative learnings from the mycelium project, as well as carbon data collection, will be published in a report after Glastonbury, the aim is to give the wider industry the findings and recommendations on best practice for future creatives wanting to interact with the biomaterial.
Alongside the report a short film will be published documenting the journey. This video team will include training placements through Big Team CIC. Big Team is Team Love’s inner city youth outreach and engagement CIC, that creates both opportunity within their business and the festival industry.
The Hayes Pavilion will be a returning platform for artistic research and development at Glastonbury each year, looking at how festivals can be at the forefront of new ideas, materials and products which will potentially help society move towards a more sustainable future.
The project is led by Silver Hayes’ Team Love and designed by Simon Carroll from Temple Design Studio in association with Big Team CIC, Glastonbury Festival and manufacturer, Biohm & Grown Bio. It is also supported using public funding by the National Lottery through Arts Council England.
THE INFORMATION STAGE AT GLASTONBURY
Silver Hayes has this year also introduced ‘THE INFORMATION’ stage. This powerful platform puts urgent conversations side-by-side with Silver Hayes’ contemporary music programming. The full programme for THE INFORMATION at Glastonbury includes talks tackling climate action, building a regenerative planet, the power of publicity and free press, food vulnerability, inclusion and diversity in the music industry and more.
Major names speaking at THE INFORMATION from across the cultural landscape will include: New York Times bestselling author Deepak Chopra, British artist Jeremy Deller, George The Poet, producer and DJ Jayda G, authors Jyoti Patel and Moses Mckenzie, writer and Great British Bake Off contestant Ruby Tandoh, Groove Armada and Wildfarmed’s Andy Cato, SHERELLE, Arsenal FC footballer Jen Beattie MBE and Led by Donkeys, amongst numerous others.
This next Silver Hayes evolution hopes to complement Glastonbury’s existing creative programme with a new space for experimentation and discovery.
Tom Paine, Area Coordinator of Silver Hayes at Glastonbury stated that:
“The next decade of Silver Hayes will push boundaries, look to face global challenges head on with discussion, discovery and experimentation. Silver Hayes has always been at the forefront of new and contemporary electronic music but now we’re really excited to reveal a new iteration that will expand to cover club culture as a whole.”
