Sunrise Celebration is an ethical living, organic arts and

music festival A music festival is a festival, community event with music, performances of singing and instrument playing that is often presented with a theme such as musical genre (e.g., rock music, rock, blues, folk music, folk, jazz, classical music), nation ...

that used to take place in

Bruton Bruton ( ) is a small market town, and civil parish in Somerset, England, on the River Brue and the A359 between Frome and Yeovil. It is south-east of Shepton Mallet, just south of Snakelake Hill and Coombe Hill, north-west of Gillingham ...

, Somerset, England on an organic farm, and has now moved to

Pontrilas Pontrilas (') is a village in south Herefordshire, England, half a mile from the border with Wales. It is in the parish of Kentchurch and lies midway between Hereford and Abergavenny. In 2011 the main village contained 66 residential dwellings ...

, Herefordshire.

History

The even began in 2006 over the

summer solstice The summer solstice or estival solstice occurs when one of Earth's poles has its maximum tilt toward the Sun. It happens twice yearly, once in each hemisphere ( Northern and Southern). The summer solstice is the day with the longest peri ...

as an alternative celebration to the

Glastonbury Festival The Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts (commonly referred to as simply Glastonbury Festival, known colloquially as Glasto) is a five-day festival of contemporary performing arts held near Pilton, Somerset, England, in most su ...

. It was originally called the Sunrise Summer Solstice Celebration, but dropped 'summer solstice' from the title in 2007 as the event's date moved to late May to avoid cross-scheduling with Glastonbury. The site in 2006-2008 was Bearley Farm in

Bearley Bearley is a village and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon (district), Stratford-on-Avon district of Warwickshire, England. The village is about five miles (8 km) north of Stratford-upon-Avon, bounded on the north by Wootton Wawen, on ...

, approx. north of

Yeovil Yeovil () is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Somerset, England. It is close to Somerset's southern border with Dorset, west of London, south of Bristol, west of Sherborne and east of Taunton. The population of the bui ...

. Despite two events in 2006 and 2007, and 6,000-8,000 attendees each year, the company lost £250,000 in this period, and closed as a result. In 2008 the festival was cancelled due to flash-flooding after a localised storm, although the organisers ran a smaller version of the festival later in the year as part of The Big Chill.Mixmag article http://www.mixmag.net/content/sunrise-celebration-festival-joins-big-chill As a result of the flooding and financial losses, Sunrise was moved in 2009 to a site near Bruton, on organic farmland, considerably higher above sea level than the previous site. The event shrunk from 12,000 attendees in 2008 to 5,000 in 2009. Sunrise saw its first financially stable year in 2009 under the management of Natural Communities Community Interest Company. The event grew to 7500 in 2010, and 9000 in 2011. In 2011, the Natural Communities Foundation was set up as the official beneficiary of the festival, in order to achieve more of its charitable aims. That year Sunrise won The Guardian and Observer Newspapers' 'Ethical Travel Award' and The Green Parents 'Best Green Festival Award', and an 'Outstanding' mark with the organisation 'A Greener Festival'. The 2012 Sunrise Celebration festival returned to its original Summer Solstice dates for the first time since 2006. In 2013, Sunrise Celebration renamed itself 'Sunrise Festivals Another World' and moved sites, this time over the border and into Wiltshire to Thoulstone Park, Chapmanslade. 2014 saw the festival return to its 'family gathering' roots, with the name Sunrise Celebration and much of the original content returning. The new site was a country park at Chepstow, just over the Welsh border, adjoining

Chepstow Racecourse Chepstow Racecourse is a thoroughbred horse racing course located just north of the town of Chepstow in Monmouthshire, Wales, near the southern end of the Wye Valley and close to the border with England. It is one of 16 racecourses operated by t ...

. Since 2019, Sunrise Celebration has not posted any information on their Facebook page, implying they've not hosted a festival gathering since.

Activities

The festival includes five stages and acoustic and performance venues, including a large indoor stage, Chai Wallahs, three dance stages in the Sundance Arena and the Spit and Sawdust stage, hosting a mixture of folk, bluegrass and local up-and-coming bands. Over the years it has hosted stage productions from many of the best outfits in the alternative and underground festival scene. The event includes a mix of alternative culture, with an eclectic musical blend of dub,

world music "World music" is an English phrase for styles of music from non-English speaking countries, including quasi-traditional, Cross-cultural communication, intercultural, and traditional music. World music's broad nature and elasticity as a musical ...

ska Ska (; , ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. It combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues. Ska is characterized by a w ...

electronica Electronica is both a broad group of electronic-based music styles intended for listening rather than strictly for dancing and a music scene that came to prominence in the early 1990s in the United Kingdom. In the United States, the term is mos ...

dubstep Dubstep is a genre of electronic dance music that originated in South London in the early 2000s. The style emerged as a UK garage offshoot that blended 2-step rhythms and sparse dub production, as well as incorporating elements of broken ...

psytrance Psychedelic trance, psytrance, or psy is a subgenre of trance music characterized by arrangements of rhythms and layered melodies created by high tempo riffs. The genre offers variety in terms of mood, tempo, and style. Some examples include full ...

, breaks,

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

folk music Folk music is a music genre that includes #Traditional folk music, traditional folk music and the Contemporary folk music, contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be ca ...

and

Balkan The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...

beats; educational opportunities with

Ecobuild Ecobuild is a construction exhibition in the United Kingdom for the construction and energy market. It was first launched in 2005 as an event to appeal to those interested in sustainable design. According to their website, Ecobuild's primary tenet ...

Transition Towns The terms transition town, transition initiative and transition model refer to grassroot community projects that aim to increase self-sufficiency to reduce the potential effects of peak oil, climate destruction, and economic instability through ...

and craft and technology areas.

References

External links

{{Official website, http://sunrisecelebration.com/ Music festivals in Wales Recurring events established in 2006 2006 establishments in England