The Quietus - A new rock music and pop culture website

News

Supersonic To Take 2016 Break
Christian Eede , March 17th, 2016 16:14

Festival to come back in 2017 with batteries recharged, say organisers

Supersonic Festival has been bringing together forward-thinking line-ups in Birmingham for some years now and has always been a firm favourite on tQ's festival calendar, so regular attendees may be wondering what plans lie ahead for this year.

2016 will see the organisers take a break from putting on Supersonic with alternative plans to come back bigger and bolder in 2017. Below you can read a full statement from Capsule’s Lisa Meyer; Capsule are responsible for putting on the Supersonic Festival every year. For more information on Capsule, click here.

"Dear All,
Capsule has been creating work for you, our loyal and curious audiences, since 1999.

We have made the decision to take this year off from delivering Supersonic festival and are setting ourselves a challenge: in a UK with 1,000 festivals how can we keep producing adventurous work that is distinct and groundbreaking? We want to show you something new, offer challenging and memorable experiences, and support artists to achieve their most ambitious work.

We need your help. In addition to learning and collaborating with other art organisations, businesses and artists, we want to hear from you.

What do you love about Supersonic / Capsule’s work?
Can we make improvements?
What new collaborations do you think we could make happen?
How could the festival grow and change?

Supersonic operates on mixed sources of income, a combination of ticket sales from our loyal audiences, grant funding from the Arts Council and trusts/foundations, and some support from donors. Fundraising can be time-consuming, highly competitive and bit unpredictable, however it would be very difficult (if impossible) to produce work with the Supersonic level of ambition on ticket sales alone, so grant funding will remain an important part of our income. Capsule is a not-for-profit enterprise, which relies on your support, so we are extremely grateful to our audiences, artists and funders.

To ensure that the next Supersonic is the most adventurous and exciting yet, we will use 2016 to recharge the batteries and do things differently. Capsule’s Artistic Director Lisa Meyer is already laying the groundwork for Supersonic Festival 2017, and there’ll be other Capsule activity in 2016, so keep your eyes peeled.

Thank you so much, and we look forward to more exciting music, art, performance (and cake) very soon.

Lisa Meyer, Creative Director"