SUNRISE CELEBRATION 2009

Sunrise Celebration goes Off Grid from 20th-23rd August for a 4-day exploration of ecology, community and consciousness, in a field near Glastonbury, Somerset. Sunrise has always prioritised environmental awareness, and the team invites you to join them in making a deeper investigation in to the issues of sustainability and human potential at the Off Grid event.

Sunrise festival itself is powered entirely on renewable energy, with a site wide organic, local food policy. Off Grid plans to take the Sunrise ethos to a more radical level and will be introducing new initiatives such as its own currency, highlighting the issues created by a central economic and monetary system and to raise awareness of the Transition Towns movement and the potential of local currencies to increase local stability and resilience.

“We decided we wanted something that went a little deeper than Sunrise, which is essentially a celebration, we wanted to create a more focused camp to look at these issues and help us prepare for changes that we may be presented with in the near future on both a personal and planetary level, as well as discussing solutions such as local food and energy supply and re-skilling and tapping into our creativity.” Says Off Grid spokes person Sophie Docker

“The endless growth and consumption model that our culture has been working from for the last period of history is not possible to sustain, if everyone in the world consumed like the South West we would need three planets to service our needs (i). The way we live has become out of sync with the natural environment, and rather than try to dominate nature we can learn from it and follow the example our eco system gives us on how to be sustainable. The pertinent question is how we get there from where we are now. We believe being bold enough to make change now is essential and that we can do so both in our personal lives and in the communities we live in.”

There will be representatives from a range of eco projects and communities giving presentations, talks and workshops along with essential info on community skills and building. How to live Off Grid will be one of the core topics, with workshops on power, water, food, health care and making compost toilets.

The programme includes personal and creative exploration with voice and song writing workshops, dance and movement, creative expression and a re examining societal and personal attitudes towards sexuality, life, death and ceremony.

Off Grid is family friendly and there will be Green Parenting workshops and the festival is introducing a daily Adventure School for kids where children will learn a variety of skills from cooking on fires to collecting bugs, wild food and creative writing, partake in poetry slams or play.

The emphasis will be on people engaging with the festival through the workshops, forums and talks on offer, skill and idea sharing, expressing themselves and making things from recycled materials, and there will of course be music in the form of drum and song sharing circles, jamming a solar cinema showing some of the most relevant cutting edge material around and 2 solar powered stages hosting the likes of Los Albertos, Seize The Day, Melo Park and many more fantastic acts.

Tickets for Off Grid cost £75, or £55 concessions/low waged and kids aged 5-15 are £20. There also a limited offer on Sunrise 2010 tickets: buy Off Grid and Sunrise 2010 together for £130. It find out more about Off Grid and how to get tickets visit: www.sunrise-offgrid.com, Info 0845 0096347, Ticket line 0845 1080259.