April 5, 2010
We were so impressed with WordPress that we have rebuilt our new website using it. This means that now we can use the rich content management system and take advantage of many of the plugins if offers. A great step forward for managing our site.
From now on check the blog out on www.OverTheMoonTents.com for all our latest news. We will leave this site up for seach engines or others who may have linked to it.
February 6, 2010
Over The Moon attended this years Event Show at Olympia in London. We’ve been to the Showman’s Show for a number of years but this was our first visit to the Event Show. For tent related suppliers it was disspointing and there was not as many trade stands as at The Showmans. Where the Event Show scored was on its speakers and this year (as they did last year) Michael Eavis, promoter of the Glastonbury Festival, was speaking for an hour and a half on the history of the festival, plans for this years 40th year anniversary and answering questions.
During the course of the session Eavis revelaed that 2009’s Glastonbury Festival donated £2million to charity. A big increase from first year Eavis donated his profits away that was in 1981 and he gave £20K away to CND. His genorisity was costly as he then faced a £7K tax on the gift. He revelaed that security costs £3.2 million of which £1.2million is for the Police. There will be no Glastonbury in 2012 as the Police are busy with the Olympics and cannot cover it. This is a shame as 2012 has a lot of resonance with the end of the Mayan calendar.
Eavis also revealed the event cost £25m to put on each year, with most of the money going to securing the perimeter.
Each year seven local farms are taken over to produce the festival, which is again expanding in size this year to accommodate people’s appetite for larger tents. There are also discussions to ban large flags at the event in an area in front of the stage. Eavis said he was keen to clear a line of sight for the sound desk but his daughter, Emily, who also runs the event, wanted the flags to stay. Eavis thought they did add to the spectacle of the event especially for TV. For my pennie’s worth I thought they were great for a sense of pageantry and atmosphere when Springsteen played on the Saturday night.
Eavis has a jovial, stuttering delivery and couple with his ancedotes and self deprecating humour makes him very endearing. I liked his description of the security fence having a ‘rat catcher’ overhang like on hayricks to prevent people/rats getting access. Eavis claims Glastonbury’s appeal is in its long history which has run concurrent to lots of social change and the Festival reflects that history.
There were quite a few prospective festival organisers in attendance and they did not miss an opportunity during the Q&A session to mention this and to ask for advice. Eavis claimed that the small scale of the event and it not having a lot of H&S issues to deal with helped a lot to get it off the ground. It took 11 years to make a profit. He believes a festival needs integrity and a hook to attract performers and punters. One organiser was exasperated at trying to get Travis to play at his Scottish community festival so Eavis offered to call the band on his behalf!
Michael Eavis
Eavis’s revealed his personal touch extends to always having the farm’s phone answered 24 hours a day all year round. Though he says he wonders why when he gets people ‘off their heads calling at 2am’! When asked what were the best three things they have found on the site over the years he stated that
He said that it was probable that Stevie Wonder will headline the Sunday (27) night.
Over The Moon will be attending Glastonbury Festival again this year providing stretch tents to the Glade area.
February 1, 2010
Environmental sustainability is still high on the agenda for festival organisers despite the recession forcing some events to tighten belts. According to research from ‘A Greener Festival’ which analysed the environmental assessments made at 37 festivals in 2009 and 32 in 2008. The results showed that despite a difficult economic time, organisers are still focused on making their events as green as possible.
Yurt promoting Green issues in Norwich
The research showed that 97 percent of festivals implemented green good practice and 94 percent and 97 percent respectively promote lift sharing and the use of public transport.
But there was mixed news when it came to recycling – as though 94 percent of festivals have prioritised recycling plans, there was a 24 percent reduction in recyling plastics and glass.
There was also a big jump in the number of festivals who now promote environmental issues on-site or on their websites, jumping 17 percent to 94 percent in total.
Several of the the ‘Greener Festival Award 2009’ winners collected their awards at the UK Festival Awards 2009 on Thursday 19th November.
Winners included Bestival, Camp Bestival, The Cambridge Folk Festival, Croissant Neuf Summer Party, Download, Hard Rock Calling, Standon Calling and Wireless .
Source
The Main Event
A GreenerFestival
January 11, 2010
Over the past few years we have helped numerous clients put on their own festival style events. Often over a weekend these weddings and parties, used flags, musicians, outdoor lighting, performers and the tents familiar to UK festival goers. Indeed many of these clients were festival goers wanting to put their own version of a festival on using their own or hired land.
As part of our new package of websites due in 2010, we decided to launch a site that specifically tailors pictures of these festival events for people interested in doing “My Very Own Festival”. Over The Moon Tents have worked at all the premier UK music festivals and have lots of experiences , as well as the tents seen at these festivals, to offer clients. My Very Own Festival’s service is provided by a group of artists, companies and festival folk to provide a range of services and not just tents.
December 15, 2009
Over The Moon Tents in collaboration with Classic Canvas have launched a website that showcases the tents we have provided to the film and television industry. www.TentsForFilms.com has a gallery of photos showing a variety of our tents out on film location and in studios. In future as more projects are undertaken we will be using this site to exclusively provide information relating to tents being used as props.
Tents For Films website screen shot
December 8, 2009
Over The Moon Tent’s were braving the rush hour hordes and crawling our way into the centre of our capital city this morning. We were putting up a Yurt for the forthcoming Winter Wonderland feature which runs from the 18-24th at London Zoo, Regent Park.
After the horrible wet weather of late we were blessed with a mild sunny day.
Yurt at London Zoo
November 13, 2009
The night time is ascendant at the moment and the days are short. We have still been out and about. We did a lovely party down in Somerset for a 40th Birthday / Halloween celebration. The band ‘The Mad Cows’, a Glastonbury Festival favourite, wowed the crowd with their great feel good music. The interaction with the crowd , which included an improvised start to the set with a song using a throwaway comment from one of the audience, was a joy to hear. Well worth seeing or booking for a gig.
Bonfire night saw us in the Cotswolds in the scenic environs of Stow On The Wold. We provided a yurt , a disco, laser lighting and glamping for a group of 12-13 year olds celebrating a birthday.
October 9, 2009
Over The Moon have been out in the Sahara doing an Overland trip in our Land Rover 130 work vehicle. We took the opportunity to take along a 6x8m Intent and look at developing it for the Overland vehicle market. We got some very positive feedback from vehicle owners and will be suggesting some feature enhancements to Intent manufacturing back home in South Africa to cater for this growing market.
Weight has to be kept to a minimum for Overlanding in dunes so we took no ground stakes and utilised the roof racks and jerry cans we already had with us. We also experimented with light weight poles.
August 21, 2009
Drove by the site of the Shambala festival today while out and about with a tipi. Got a touch of butterflies as I looked forward to next week’s festival. Over The Moon Tents will be providing our vintage military green tent for the reggae area. While looking at the festivals’s website I got to wondering what exactly Shambala means. Not surprised to find its a meaningful word. The crew will be onsite to check the festival lives up to its name.
http://www.shambalafestival.org
Externally, Shambhala was a geographic location, a seat of inspiration where the Buddha taught the Kalachakra Tantra, the Tantra of the Wheel of Time. In the mythology of Bon, the native religion of Tibet, Shambhala was a Central Asian kingdom, the origin and center of the world whence issued all spiritual energies.
Internally, Shambhala is the dharma chakra, located in the heart of all beings. It is the symbol for mind, completing the trinity of body, speech, and mind.
The esoteric meaning of Shambhala is tathagatagarbha, buddha-nature, the essence of all things. It transcends existence and non-existence and is the ground of both samsara and nirvana. According to the Kalachakra Tantra, the Emperor of Shambhala, Rigden, waged war against and subdued the Three Lords of Materialism: the Lord of Form, the Lord of Speech, and the Lord of Mind. In the Dark Age these Three Lords extend their power and seduction, enslaving the human mind with psychological and spiritual materialism. When Shambhala is acknowledged—when buddha-nature shines through—the strategies of the Three Lords become irrelevant and the teachings of the Kalachakra Tantra are realized.
August 6, 2009
Over The Moon tents has been delighted to get involved with the Blank Canvas project at this years Big Chill Festival. Inspired by seeing the spectacle of dozens of tents given to the homeless and placed along the Canal Saint Martin in Paris, artist Cedric Christie decided to create a charity project that would echo this gesture.
Over The Moon provided an eight section vintage army marquee and two three section ones as the shelter and backdrop inside which the artist’s pup tents are displayed.
Looking into the marquee at one of the artist decorated tents
The boards are assembled inside the marquee
More Info on the Big chill site
http://www.bigchill.net/news/2009/06/the-blank-canvas-project/
and here
http://www.blankcanvasproject.org/index.html
July 28, 2009
Glade Festival
Intent 2x 15x13m Joined together and decorated by Liquid Fairy, Glade Festival 2009
Secret Garden Party, Huntingdon
Intents at the Secret Garden Party, 2009
Americana Show, Newark 2009
Painted Tipi at the Americana Show, July 2009
July 15, 2009
Liquid Faeries And GV at Glade 2009
The interior gets the nylon treatment
We are down in windy Winchester today at Matterley Bowl, a natural amphitheatre sculpted out of the chalk downlands. We are here for the Glade festival. On all sides the site is bounded by 50m high downlnd banks. I’m looking down from the crew camping area on the circus big tops, giant tulips by Jigantics.com , festival flags and two chino intents Over The Moon has provided. They look great and have been decorated in fine style by the Liquid Faeries crew. See the link above to their Myspace site and a video of the festival set up.
Tent behind InSpiral
July 9, 2009
Over The Moon Tents had an action packed 12 days away in Sunny Somerset to help put up tents for the Glastonbury Festival 2009. We provided an Intent for the Rabbit Hole area in the Park Zone, a 25x14m Intent for the Glade area’s juice bar and a Yurt for the VIP camping at Windinglake Farm.
It was a lot of fun seeing the site come together and enjoy the buildup, the festival and the aftermath. The scale of production and work that goes into the festival was staggering, and was matched by a creative flare that made us proud to be a part of.
The decor that Fluffy Mafias’s crew put up in the Intent was a revelation and we made some good contacts and hope to work with them in the future. Contact them for more info.
http://www.fluffymafia.com
http://www.myspace.com/fluffymafia
June 23, 2009
We have been Over The Moon these past few days after installing two Intents at the Glastonbury Festival. It has been a wonderful experience to be involved with the creation of the festival and see the HUGE site being transformed. The site has grown massively since we last visited as eager ticket holders in 1997. The Tipi village along the line of the hill above the site is very impressive, as is the sheer size of the site. It takes over an hour to walk around the site now and that’s without the masses being here.
Looking across at the observation tower in the Park Zone
There are 40,000! people involved in making the festival happen and the atmosphere is a delicious anticipationand easy going meetings and free flowing conversations with strangers bonded in the act of creating the event. It is strange to be at the festival and see the familiar places but without that zing and white knuckle ride of the event when its underway.
Backstage at the Pyramid Stage. No sign of Bruce Sringsteen
Intent take shape behind the Giant Kata Tipis
We have erected a 15x13m Orange Intent behind 3 Giant Kata Tipis. They will form the outer part of the Rabbit Hole area, with access to the Intent through a burrow/tunnel which must be navigated after answering a riddle. All the crew are dressed as characters from the Alice in Wonderland story. Over The Moon DJ’s will be playing inside the Intent which will be completed with a lit up dancefloor, a la “Saturday Night Fever”.
25x14m Intent for the Glade Area at Glastonbury
June 12, 2009
We had a nice sunny day yesterday putting up an Intent for a music performance at Bradford’s renowned Mela festival. Preparations were well underway and it looks to be a very colourful event. The production team were a lovely friendly bunch and nice to work with.
Melas originate from the Indian sub-continent (the word ‘Mela’ means ‘to meet’ in Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language), where they are traditionally a gathering of people celebrating their community, much like village fairs in Britain.
The first Bradford Mela is where it all began in the UK, way back in September 1988. It was a small scale event by today’s standards, held on playing fields above the University, but proved a resounding success, attracting over 10,000 visitors.
In the following years the Mela moved to a bigger venues to accommodate audience numbers which have grown to over 100,000 people, moving firstly to Lister Park and then to Peel Park, which is its current home.”
More info on here.
http://www.bradfordmela.org.uk/
The Intent awaits the musicians and crowd at Bradford's 2009 Mela Festival
June 8, 2009
Over The Moon Tents, and many of our clients, love the smell and feel of traditional canvas. Now you can combine that love of canvas with fashion and recycling and grab yourself a pair of trousers made of army tent canvas. Genius.
Canvas Army Tent Trousers
http://www.stabo.co.uk/Shop/mens/trouser.htm
June 2, 2009
I spent most of yesterday painting a 5.5m Tipi. It was a lof of fun and the weather was just right. The Swallows in the barn roof seemed to take an interest in between nest building. To get Kokopelli’s design on the tipi I erected a scaffold tower and used it to hang the canvas.
Tipi canvas hanging from Scaffold Tower
I awaited dusk to use a projector to place the image on the canvas and trace round. The canvas was then laid out on the barn floor and painting began at 4pm and finished at 11.30. I painted nearly non-stop and was entertained by www.littlestevensundergroundgarage.com playing some great music. You can see the progress below. I added a red to the top of the canvas but it was too dark to take a pic. The Tipi will be out this weekend and I will add more pics then.
Kokopelli is joined by our little promo tipi getting a lick of extra paint.
Painted Tipi with crop circle design door flap
So who is Kokopelli?
I first met Kokopelli on a t-shirt dancing in front of a full moon. He is a common site in the south western United States. I liked the little figure and enjoyed reading his legend.
Kokopelli is a fertility deity, usually depicted as a humpbacked flute player , who has been venerated by some Native American cultures in the Southwestern United States. Like most fertility deities, Kokopelli presides over both childbirth and agriculture. He is also a trickster god and represents the spirit of music.
More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokopelli
http://www.drlamay.com/kokopelli.htm
Kokopelli has been a totem for friends and I for many years and has proved a lucky mascot.
May 30, 2009
The Big Green Gathering is a 5 day camping event which is currently located in the Mendip Hills in Somerset. It has grown out of the original Green Gatherings of the 1980’s and the Green Fields of Glastonbury Music Festival. It has developed organically in response to a desire from people within the green movement for a festival that was focused on Green issues. Somewhere between 15,000 and 20,000 people are expected this year.
The Festival is innovating a greener approach to powering a modern day festival. Festival Director, Peter Kemp said
“The equipment needed to harness natural energy comes in all shapes and sizes and many useful items are available at the festival, including solar powered torches, and radios or small solar and wind systems providing lighting for tents and stalls”
http://www.big-green-gathering.com/index.php?pageid=6
May 25, 2009
Over The Moon Events provided tents, lighting, decor, DJ’s and sound systems for the Summer Ball at the Oxford Union. It was a prestigious event to be involved in as the Union has been the place where weekly debates are held and many famous UK and foreign politicians have learnt the art of debate. More info on the Oxford Union at Wikipedia
The black Intent's peeps out from the Oxford Union's courtyard
The events theme was the Garden of Eden and there was a choice of modern and old, black and white, tribal and urban tents with the courtyard filled with tipi’s, a yurt and a lovely black Intent.
The Yurt and Tipi's made a nice chill out space overlooked by the Oxford Union building.
It was the first booking we had for the black Intent and wasn’t she a beauty. This is a tent that cries out for a dancefloor, club type event inside.
The Black Intent makes her presence felt
May 24, 2009
We took advantage of the sunny dry day on Monday to add some fresh Nikwax proofing to our Orange Intent. The Intent will be forming part of the Rabbit Hole tents at this year’s Glastonbury and Glade festivals.
Spray The Day Away, Reproofing in Rodmell, Sussex, May 2009
Over The Moon Tents & Events 