Sietske Hoekstra
Following the great success of Upfest'08, the partners got together www. to decide on, if and how the festival waswww.facebook.com to become an annual event, there really was only one answer.... Make it BIGwww.twitter.com and make it even better.... So the first crucial decision was made to make one of the partners full time, secondly the festival was moved to June for a longer day of painting and possibly even some sunshine, lastly we decided to see just how many artists would want to make the trip. Well the answer to that last part was 150! So the paint jam had grown up and become a mini festival, it was definitely going to be big all that remained was to make it great. This seems the perfect opportunity to bring in the music, the partners were adamant that the festival was all about the art, but quickly we realised that what's a festival without wicked tunes. Bring on the music guys, a mix of 16 DJ's and bands were put together including Dave Cridge, Chris Read, Habana Flex, Funk from the Trunk and Woodnote (sorry, if I named everyone the list would have gone on a bit) add to this Addy P and group of Beatboxers and the tunes were sorted. So the festival took place, seven venues, 150 artists and 12 hrs of 'Live' uninterrupted art! Well we say uninterrupted, you know the saying every cloud has a silver lining, well it rained, okay only for the first couple of hours, however without that rain we would never have got inside North Street Garage and with agreement from the owner we blasted those walls, it was bloody brilliant! The festival was a massive success and above all we met so many sound people, vibe was ace painting awesome, bring on Upfest'10!
Upfest 11 . 4th & 5th June . Bristol, UK . www.upfest.co.uk