The Vale Festival, Birmingham University's annual Summer festival, will take place this year on June 10th, 2008! We're all working hard behind the scenes to make sure that 2008 is a year to remember, watch this space...
Vale Festival 2007 saw record attendance at the event. 4,500 people turned up to kick back and relax to the sounds of reggae, soul and blues, go crazy to hip hop, ska and D'n'B, and to marvel at the sights and sounds of the greatest event in the student calendar. The event raised £30,000 for the charities: ActionAid and Kids for Kids.
ABOUT THE FESTIVAL
The Vale Festival, sometimes also known as Festivale (see what we did there?), is unique. As far as we know, there is no student-run event in the country on anything like a comparable scale. The primary purpose of the event is to raise money and awareness for charitable causes, but also to offer students an event like no other. We aim for something alternative, something unlike any club-night, ball or bar-crawl, something with a bit of soul, where people are not there to get drunk, but to come together as a community and enjoy good music and arts, with an opportunity to expand their horizons. This is an event which is free from corporate influence, where local and student acts and groups are given a stage to demonstrate what they can do.
The festival is, above all, about embracing the things that make us all the same, whilst still celebrating all our unique differences. It is about accepting each other, regardless of where we live or what we believe or how much money we have, as fellow human beings.
We hope you enjoy it.
HISTORY
The Vale Festival is not old. It’s still a little toddler really. The 2007 event was only the third after all. On the other hand, it found its feet pretty fast.
In 2005, two friends watched ‘Hotel Rwanda’, a harrowing film about the genocide of 1994. They both felt that one of the greatest tragedies of everything that happened is that, somehow, we still didn’t learn the lesson, and so another African genocide was occurring (and still is today) in Darfur, Sudan. So (and I still don’t quite know how this bit happened) they decided to try to hire an outdoor cinema screen and show ‘Hotel Rwanda’ to as many people as possible, to raise awareness of the whole, horrible issue of genocide. They then got talking to some guys who were thinking of doing a music event on the Vale – a beautiful area, surrounded by first-year students’ accommodation – and the idea of the festival, incorporating the film and the music and much more, was born.
The first one was organised in about a month. Over 1,500 students attended, and approximately £10,000 was made for charity, the money split between Medicins Sans Frontieres’ work in Sudan, and the Rwanda Genocide Appeal, which now works with any genocide in Africa. The event was widely hailed as a massive success, and expectations grew for a second, bigger, better festival for 2006.
By January of ’06, a committee was forming – some old, some new – all ever so keen. Six months of planning, under the watchful gaze of all in authority, led to an event bigger I think than any of us had ever really imagined. Simple figures are that just under 4,000 students came, making it almost certainly the biggest entirely student run event in the country, and over £25,000 was raised for charity. The theme was ‘Unite Against AIDS’, and the money was split between two wonderful projects, an S.P.W. one in Zimbabwe, and a Unicef one in Kenya, both working to reduce the impact of HIV/AIDS on young people, through community care projects, home care, and innovative education methods using drama, music, art and sport.
The event itself was also incredibly special – one massive main stage, two big marquees, and too many magical little extras to mention here.
Hopefully, Vale Festival will continue for many years to come, and it can only get better.
The event has always been, and will always remain student run. A non-hierarchical committee dedicate huge amounts of time and energy to this event, for the simple reason that they all believe in its capacity to do so much good, on so many levels.
We put great pressure on ourselves to run the event as ethically as possible. We recognise that any big event has an environmental impact, and we do our best to minimise this, by being as sustainable as possible. We use bio-fuel or renewable energy sources instead of diesel; we recycle as much as we can; we check carefully where everything we are getting is sourced from. We also refuse to be associated with any companies or groups that we feel are unethical. We very much believe that we have no basis upon which to try to persuade students to lead more ethical lives if we do not practise what we preach.
We hope the event makes students think about their own lifestyle choices, so that the positive benefits of it can last in the future, long after the festival itself.
This year The Vale Festival will once again play host to the ever popular Jungle Jam Stage. If you want to play the festival this is your chance, whether performing a killer Sax solo or coming down with your death metal band to play a 20 minute set, all you need to do is sign up for a slot at the Jungle Jam on the day. All instruments are available at the stage so if you fancy just coming along for a jam, it is all ready for you! After it's success at Vale festival 2007, the DJ Jam Stage will be returning this year. Same format, if you want to come and do a dj/mc set, just go to the DJ Jam Stage on the day and sign up for a slot.
Charities Supported 2007
This year the money raised is going to be donated to Action Aid, working on climate change projects, and Kids for Kids, who work in rural regions of Sudan. The theme for Vale Fest this year is the humanitarian effects of climate change - that is the negative effects that climate change has on people around the world, particularly in developing countries, and what we, as students, in our day to day lives, can do to combat this. Also this years Vale Festival is supporting Friends of the Earth's 'The Big Ask' campaign, calling on the British government to take a lead in combating climate chaos.
Charities Supported 2006
In 2006 £25,000 was raised, and then divided between two HIV/AIDS projects in Sub-Saharan Africa – a UNICEF project in Kenya, and an SPW one in Zimbabwe.
The project in Zimbabwe for example, which we were able to provide about 30% of the start up fund reaches out to over 61,000 people, providing direct care for over 4,000 orphans and vulnerable children, and training and providing the facilities for hundreds of educators and advisors to help raise awareness of the disease and its prevention through innovative and participatory activities such as drama and sports. It also provides counselling and in house support for those living with HIV/AIDS.
Charities Supported 2005
In 2005 £12,000 was raised for International Fund for Rwanda (a partnership between the UNF, UNDP and the makers of the film Hotel Rwanda), and Medecins Sans Frontieres for their work in Sudan.
After great deliberation Vale Festival 2008 now has a cause: The provision of sustainable access to clean water in the developing world.
The issues arising from a lack of access to clean water are wide ranging. The most concerning of which are the health implications associated with dirty drinking water and poor sanitation. Unsafe water and lack of sanitation is now the single largest cause
of illness worldwide and half the people in developing countries are suffering from water-related diseases. According to PlayPumps International, one charity involved with the water issues in the developing world, a child dies of a water-related illness every 15
seconds.
But the social implications go further than that. The long and laborious task of fetching water often falls to women and girls, preventing the girls from being able to attend school and gain equal opportunities to their male counterparts. By providing sustainable access to clean water we can help people to be healthier, better educated and allow them to fulfil their potential.
Having made a considerable impression this year with a strong set of releases behind them, and a string of solid remixes including the hugely successful Rosie Romero & Beatmode 'Tungesti', DJ Meri pres Cylon 'Sekvoia' which resided for over a month in the DJ Mag and Beatport Charts, not to mention their remix of 'Chase The Sun' which has exploded across the globe gaining support from the underground and beyond! Curious George & The Agent have brought us the ‘Flying EP’
Four rock solid tracks in their unique style, tried and tested in their sets at clubs and festivals including Area 51 and Creamfields to huge reactions which has lead to compilation licensing requests ahead of release!
https://www.beatport.com/en-US/html/content/release/detail/193805/Flying%20EP Plus check out our latest mix – 1) Nima Gorji - Survivors 2) Coyu, Uner – Raw Sweat 3) Ante Perry, Olivier Gregoire – I Need 4) The Evil Amigo’s – The Guns (Leeks Remix) 5) Alex Celler, Anthea – The Playmaker (Dyed Soundorom Remix) 6) Curious George & The Agent – Look Back 7) Matt Tolfrey, Inxec – Jerk 8) Curious George & The Agent – Don’t You 9) Jon Gurd, Dave Robertson – Stolen 10) Sebo K, Metro – Saxtrack (Reboot Twisted Fist Remix) 11) Neuroyde, Doomwork – Jazzy Stuff 12) Curious George & The Agent – De Cuerda 13) Noidoi – Pasarica 14) Nik Feral – Two Lovers (Jus Phil Remix) 15) DJ Meri Pres Cylon – Sekvoia (Curious George & The Agent Remix) 16) UNKLE – Hold My Hand (Dubfire Remix) 17) Jay Lumen, Cosmophunk – Yes (Matteo DiMarr Remix) http://www.sendspace.com/file/u14amb
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Tampa Taiko is a professional drumming duo that has performed their unique style for a vast array of audiences, performing at festivals, concert halls, schools, workshops, summer camps, corporate and VIP events. Using a collection of taiko drums made by themselves from discarded wine barrels, Tampa Taiko has developed a dynamic fusion of old and new styles of drumming, bringing a contemporary vibrance to an ancient martial artform.
After the dutchman Darko Esser & the french stormer Electric Rescue, Signaletik Records signed another artist from the Netherlands : Warren Fellow, accompanied at the production by his partner Michel Steinbach. We all agreed to say that the dutch scene is in full boom and that Amsterdam is going to become the new electronic Eldorado after Berlin ... so just follow the Signaletik
Scala – 275 Pentonville Road – N1 9N -- Friday 27th March 2009 - 22:00 – 06:00
Tickets will be £20 On the door, or £15 (+bf) in advance. Click Here to buy tickets online from Ticketweb
Alternatively, email us to add your names to the Broken Robot guestlist for £15 entry on the night (subject to availability and strictly first come, first serve. Get there early!)
Hello! Our second single ‘Bill Hicks’ is now available for pre-order on download, 7" and CD, and it's currently #1 on the play. com download pre-order chart.
We are self-managed, self-published, and self-released on our own record label and our debut single "Trauma Town" entered at #9 in the Official UK Indie charts. We're hoping to make this one go even bigger -