We hope you all know what this might stand for. Having been in touch with the press office at the aforementioned B.M. offices to enquire about using the name or logo of their arts and music festival in the Nevada desert about this time every year, I was swiftly turned down. So, people of the world, you’ll have to just guess now as to what those initials stand for. One clue – the last word is “BLOG”. The other two rhyme with “Turning Flan”.
So the journey begins…probably the closest equivalent to Glastonbury here in the UK, but in the desert, B.M. is festival going for hard-core art lovers, dance music lovers, and probably lovers. Taking place in the midst of the Nevada desert, the entire site is built from the ground up each year, to a city grid plan layout all encircling the “Man” – a giant sculpture that ceremoniously gets burned at the end of the event, along with a significant number of the art exhibits that have been designed and built especially for the festival.
Whilst taking part is seen as fundamental to the entire experience, self-sufficiency during attendance is also high on the agenda. A philosophy of no commercial influence or commodification, leading to all who attend being responsible for bringing their own supplies (down to drinking water), also means that there is an element of endurance that is not present in other festivals. That said, anyone who has been to Glastonbury on a wet year would probably say they had endured plenty!
Individuals and groups visit from all over the world, setting up camps and enclaves within the temporary “metropolis”, some with a purpose of friends coming together to appreciate art and music and dance, others with performance and participation in mind. From the UK, AudioFeed, a Bournemouth based Audio and Lighting Hire company, have been attending B.M. for several years now, supplying (at their own expense – all events and performers only pay for their entry ticket like everyone else) a significant dance music system for the “Ooligan Alley” Theme Camp.
We’ll explore more of this when we have more photos of what is involved in the camp this year, but for now, let’s finish with the introduction and focus on what’s going on with XTA, APA and the intrepid Richard Fleming, as he crosses the planet to report back from B.M. for us.
AudioFeed are flying a huge amount of equipment out to the festival this year including six of the ten APA amplifiers that will form the heart of their mammoth dance system. The other four amps are being flown across the US from our distributor in New York, Group One.
The amps from the UK left at the start of the week and made it to AudioFeed on Tuesday.
Half a dozen APA fresh from XTA…
They were then racked and packed with the Funktion One Evo System and subs, other audio gear and made ready for transport to London where they were prepared for their long haul flight to the Nevada desert.
Racked and ready to roll. Rack and roll, then.
Now you see them…
…now you don’t. Strapped and ready to fly.
Meanwhile, back in Stourport, Richard has packed some sandwiches and a juice box, and is ready to leave the UK on the first leg of his journey. He’s made it to London and is now at the airport waiting to board a flight to Frankfurt where he’ll change to the long haul flight which will take him the lion’s share of the way there.
Will he still be smiling when he realises he forgot to pack the factor 50?
As for the other four APA amps – well they’re already on their way across America to meet up in Reno, so tomorrow we’ll find out what’s arrived and what the plans are for this mammoth system, in surely one of the most inhospitable locations for a festival in the world….stay tuned for more!
