logo
Treat dad to food and music festival in Poole

Treat dad to food and music festival in Poole

Yahoo23-05-2025
Dad's the way we like it! Why not treat the old man to a late treat for Father's Day – a big weekend out at Upton House Food & Music Festival? He'll love the laid-back mix of tasty treats and classic beats.
For three days from Friday 20 to Sunday 22 June, the beautiful surroundings of Upton Country Park are home to a premium programme of top UK tribute acts and the very best local bands and artists, as well as a smorgasbord of amazing food and drink, much of it from local producers.
It's the top-notch festival on your doorstep where the eats are as big as the beats!
'Taking the family to festivals like Glastonbury or even the Isle of Wight costs more than a lot of holidays, but Upton House Food & Music Festival has all the flavour of bigger events with none of the stress – it's all the fun of the fare – both gastronomic and musical!' says festival organiser Serena Wren.
There can't be many food and music loving dads who wouldn't find the good stuff in Friday's line-up with tributes to Arctic Monkeys and Kasabian following local rocker Chris Payn and his new band. On Saturday, there are rockin' tributes to Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Kings of Leon and U2, with top local act Saints Of Sin, ballsy singer Jordan Watts, cover masters Wonky Donkey and the red hot All Funked Up. Sunday's lineup is topped by Police Academy's acclaimed tribute to The Police supported by banjo-wielding good time merchants Sixteen String Jack, Chris Payn and the Mother Ukers earlier in the day.
'Upton House Food & Music Festival is like having a party in your back garden,' adds Serena. 'People love the easy vibe, the chance to check out some amazing food and have a bit of drink with family and friends!'
On the menu are big flavours from around the world including street food superstars Two Lads Kitchen with their famous Afghan street food, the super fresh flavoured chicken wings of Bournemouth-based Wings & Tings, and, for a sweeter tooth, check out Chock Shop's amazing artisan brownies.
To drink there's a variety of local craft beers and ciders as well as the distinctive flavours of Shanty, Poole's very own seaside vodka distilled using five types of hand-foraged organic seaweed. And for a non-alcoholic refresh, how about the authentic Taiwanese tastes of Bubble World's bubble tea?
First Release tickets start from just £18 for families, £7 for adults and only £3.50 for kids; with full three-day weekend tickets from £50 for families, £20 adults and £9 children.
The site opens from 5pm on Friday and 11am on Saturday and Sunday with pre-paid on-site parking available and well-behaved dogs on leads welcome.
Full details and ticket booking at www.uptonhousefoodandmusicfestival.com.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Over 160 Blizzard workers in Irvine join union as gaming-industry labor movement expands
Over 160 Blizzard workers in Irvine join union as gaming-industry labor movement expands

Los Angeles Times

time2 hours ago

  • Los Angeles Times

Over 160 Blizzard workers in Irvine join union as gaming-industry labor movement expands

More than 160 workers at video game company Blizzard Entertainment have voted to unionize. The workers, who produce in-house cinematics, animation, trailers, promotional videos and other narrative content, are just the latest batch in the video game industry to unionize, with more than 6,000 having organized across the U.S. and Canada. A wave of organizing in the industry has been driven in recent years by such issues as crunch-time hours before a product releases, job insecurity and workplace harassment. The newly unionized workers are largely based in Irvine, where Blizzard Entertainment's campus is located. They will join Communications Workers of America Local 9510 in Orange County. John Gearratana, a cinematic producer who works out of the Irvine campus, said he and other workers had become frustrated with frequent layoffs and with lack of remote work options. Activision Blizzard laid off about 400 workers last year. 'People who work in games, a lot of the reason is they love [games], they want to make them and share them with people,' Gearratana said. 'But these waves of layoffs are really hard. It makes it hard to make games, it makes it hard to be creative, and it makes it hard to want to do this work.' Microsoft Corp.-owned Blizzard Entertainment has recognized the union. The company is a subsidiary of Santa Monica-based Activision Blizzard, the largest game company in the Americas. Activision Blizzard was created in 2008 when Santa Monica-based Activision merged with the parent company of Blizzard Entertainment. It's known for successful titles such as 'Call of Duty,' 'Warcraft,' 'Overwatch,' 'Hearthstone' and 'Candy Crush.' It was acquired in 2023 by tech giant Microsoft. The worker vote did not have to go through a typical election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board because Microsoft pledged to take a neutral stance toward workers who sought to form a union. Microsoft's pledge, unusual among largely nonunionized tech giants, has paved the way for thousands of additional workers to more easily unionize. 'We continue to support our employees' right to choose how they are represented in the workplace,' a Microsoft spokesperson said in a statement last year. Blizzard did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Nearly 3,000 workers at Microsoft-owned studios have unionized with CWA thus far, according to union spokesperson Sean Nesmith. CWA is the largest media and telecommunications labor union in the U.S. North America saw its first video game union form at the end of 2021 at Vodeo Games, an indie studio with about a dozen employees. In 2022, a small group of quality assurance workers at Raven Software, an Activision Blizzard-owned game studio in Wisconsin, unionized — marking the arrival of the first labor union at a major U.S. gaming company. And last year, more than 500 game developers at Blizzard Entertainment who work on the blockbuster video game 'World of Warcraft' elected to form a union.

Why a streamer beloved by fans of British TV is turning to big U.S. stars
Why a streamer beloved by fans of British TV is turning to big U.S. stars

Los Angeles Times

time2 hours ago

  • Los Angeles Times

Why a streamer beloved by fans of British TV is turning to big U.S. stars

Thirty years ago, the coming-of-age romantic comedy 'Clueless' opened in movie theaters and went on to become an enduring American pop culture touchstone. 'I'm thrilled that people love it and continue to love it,' the movie's star, Alicia Silverstone, said in a recent conversation in New York. 'Young people. Old people. It's really gone on and on, and obviously that's lovely.' AMC Networks is counting on Silverstone's multigenerational appeal to help boost the New York-based media company's streaming service Acorn TV, which specializes in British dramas and other programs from overseas. Silverstone is the lead in the new Acorn original series 'Irish Blood,' which premiered Monday. She plays hard-bitten Los Angeles divorce lawyer Fiona Sharpe, who heads to Ireland to resolve a mystery involving the father who abandoned her as a child. AMC has also signed the imperishable Brooke Shields to star in another Acorn project titled 'You're Killing Me.' She portrays a mystery novelist who teams with a young wannabe writer and influencer to investigate murders in a small New England town. The series starts shooting this summer and is set to premiere in 2026. Why put two iconic American actresses on a streaming platform with a well-defined niche of providing viewers with international locations and accents that at times require closed-captioning even when the language is English? Even the small players in streaming have to get bigger. AMC does not have the deep pockets to compete with the likes of Netflix, Prime Video and Disney+. The company has blazed its own digital path by serving dedicated audiences who will pay for an additional streaming service that caters to their passions, such as Shudder for horror fans and HIDIVE for anime lovers. The company's suite of streaming services has around 10.4 million customers. Even with that modest figure, AMC Networks' streaming revenue has steadily grown to the point where it will soon surpass what the company earns from its traditional TV channels such as AMC, BBC America, Sundance TV and WE, which continue to see subscriber declines because of cord-cutting. AMC has found that the strong fan bases for its niche services are willing to absorb price increases and are less likely to cancel. The company has managed to keep its streaming platforms priced at less than $10 a month. Now AMC Networks is looking to accelerate its subscriber growth and Acorn — the most popular and profitable of its standalone offerings — is seen as the platform best suited to the task. 'It's a service we really believe in,' Courtney Thomasma, executive vice president for streaming and content strategy at AMC Networks, told The Times in a recent interview. 'Over the last year, we've been really focused on looking for ways to continue to raise awareness of the brand and invite new viewers in who we know would also love it. We're doing that with a focus on investing in the brand and inviting bigger talent that's more familiar to North American audiences.' Many fans of Acorn — which started out as a direct marketer of British TV series on home video and was acquired by AMC in 2018 — are what Thomasma calls 'armchair travelers' who want to take in a French vineyard or the cobblestone streets of Chelsea. But AMC believes aligning Acorn more closely to the mystery genre will widen its appeal. A monthlong promotional campaign under the banner of Murder Mystery May — which featured a number of season premieres — drove Acorn TV subscription sign-ups to a four-year high. The 20 million hours watched during the month was the best ever for the service, according to AMC. The emphasis on mystery provides Acorn the latitude to cast Silverstone and Shields. One way AMC attracts star talent is the opportunity to put their own creative stamp on their programs. 'They become as invested in the success of the projects as we are,' Thomasma said. Silverstone came on to 'Irish Blood' as executive producer and became involved in the development of the series. She was involved in the hiring of key positions in the production and worked with the writers. She's happy with the result. 'I thought it was quirky and also an emotionally deep drama,' Silverstone said. 'There's a lot for me to do.' Shields and writer Robin Bernheim pitched the generation gap tandem at the center of 'You're Killing Me' to AMC, and the actor remains deeply involved in the process as shooting begins. 'This is the first time I've ever had this much creative control as an executive producer,' Shields said in an interview. 'I feel lucky that they entrusted me to do what we're doing.' Acorn teams with production partners around the world and generates revenue from selling some of its series for second runs on international broadcasters and PBS. AMC spends in the range of $1 million per episode for its cost-efficient series, which are heavy on dialogue and largely car-chase free. The audience is older — they are avid readers who are likely to subscribe to newspapers, watch cable news and PBS, and enjoy solving puzzles. And though Acorn is hoping to attract more younger subscribers, the service won't be losing its British accent. Acorn recently launched 'Art Detectives' with Stephen Moyer, who also is an executive producer. The series, about a Heritage Crime Unit that solves murders connected to art and antiques, had the strongest premiere in the streamer's history. Later this year, it will offer a new six-episode series starring Matthew Lewis, known for his Neville Longbottom role in the Harry Potter films. Based on the series of Canon Clements mystery novels by the Rev. Richard Coles, 'Murder Before Evensong' is a co-production with British broadcaster Channel 5. 'We pride ourselves on being a boutique neighborhood store, the kind that you walk in, you know the owner [and] the owner knows you,' Thomasma said. 'We have deep connection to our audience.'

L.A.'s rebel architects, now elders, revisit norm-busting Venice Beach art scene
L.A.'s rebel architects, now elders, revisit norm-busting Venice Beach art scene

Los Angeles Times

time2 hours ago

  • Los Angeles Times

L.A.'s rebel architects, now elders, revisit norm-busting Venice Beach art scene

On a wide, empty stretch of Venice Beach in 1980, seven Los Angeles architects — Frank Gehry, Thom Mayne, Eric Owen Moss, Coy Howard, Craig Hodgetts, Robert Mangurian and Frederick Fisher — gathered for a group portrait by photographer Ave Pildas. Clad in mismatched outfits and standing casually in the sand, they looked more like a rumpled rock band than the future of American architecture. The resulting image, published in Interiors magazine, distilled a seismic moment in L.A.'s creative history. Those seven, gazing in their own directions yet joined in a sense of mischievous rebellion and cocky exuberance, represented a new generation that was bringing a brash, loose creativity to their work and starting to distance itself from the buttoned-up codes and expectations of the architecture establishment. Each would go on to have a successful career, from Pritzker Architecture Prize winners to directors of architecture schools. And they and their compatriots would, for a while at least, help put a rapidly changing L.A. at the center of the built culture. 'That one photograph contains a whole world,' notes filmmaker Russell Brown, who recently directed a 12-part documentary series about that Venice architecture scene. 'There was risk going on, and freedom; it was all about ideas.' 'It's become a kind of reference point,' adds architectural journalist Frances Anderton, host of the series. 'It just keeps reappearing whenever there's a conversation about that period.' The 1980 image is the jumping-off point for 'Rebel Architects: From Venice to the World Stage,' produced by Brown's nonprofit, Friends of Residential Treasures: Los Angeles. Four of the architects — now in their 70s and 80s — gathered for a (far less brash) new photo and an honest conversation about their early careers in L.A., and what's transpired since for the series, which began streaming monthly on FORT: LA's website July 1. A native Angeleno with a background in feature and documentary filmmaking, Brown conceived of the concept after a chat with architect Robert Thibodeau, co-founder of Venice-based DU Architects. After a deeper dive into the image with Anderton, the idea for a reunion was born. 'We thought, why don't we restage the photo and then use that as an excuse to get the guys together?' Brown explains. He preferred a spontaneous, lighthearted group discussion to the typical documentary, with its one-on-one interviews and heavy production. 'It's about the chemistry between creative peers,' says Brown. 'The real legacy of these architects isn't just in the buildings. It's in the conversations they started — and are still having.' He added: 'There's a spark that happens when they're together ... They talk about failure, competition, teaching, aging. It's a very human exchange.' Episode 1, titled 'Capturing a Moment in L.A. Architecture,' opens with four of the surviving architects — Fisher, Mayne, Moss and Hodgetts — recreating that seminal photograph for Pildas and sitting down for an interview. (Howard was interviewed separately, Gehry declined and Mangurian died in 2023.) The group dissects the photo's cinematic, informal composition, in which Pildas aims down from a berm, the neglected buildings behind the eclectic crew shrinking into the horizon, merging with the sand. And they remember a time in which the city's messy urban forms and perceived cultural inferiority provided endless creative fuel, and liberation. Pildas recalls how the original shoot came together at the request of British design editor Beverly Russell, who was looking to capture 'Frank Gehry and some of his Turks.' (The international design press was gaga for L.A. at the time. Anderton notes that her move from the U.K. resulted from a similar assignment, on the 'subversive architects of the West Coast,' for the publication Architectural Review in 1987.) At the time, most of the architects were working in garages and warehouses, forming their studios and collaborating with equally norm-busting and (relatively) unheralded artists in the scrappy, dangerous, forgotten, yet exploding Venice scene. In a later episode, the architects start listing the art talents they would run into, or befriend, including Larry Bell, James Turrell, Ed Ruscha, Fred Eversley, Robert Irwin, Robert Rauschenberg and Jean-Michel Basquiat, to name a few. Basquiat was then living and working in Hodgetts' building. 'It was a spectacular fusion of all this creative energy,' Hodgetts remembers. 'There was no audience, there were no guardrails, and one did not feel constrained.' He adds, later: 'We all felt like we were marooned on a desert island.' Pildas, who had studied architecture before switching to design and, eventually, photography, was uniquely suited to capture the group. He had shot some of the small, quirky experiments of Mangurian and Mayne, and knew most of the others through social and professional circles. (He even knew Hodgetts from high school back in Cincinnati.) The first attempt at the photo seemed stiff, says Pildas, so he took out a joint, which all except Hodgetts accepted, he says. The icebreaker worked. In a later image, says Pildas, Fisher is hugging Gehry's leg, the others huddled around. 'It got pretty friendly in the end,' he jokes. Pildas argues that the photo is much more layered with meaning (not to mention nostalgia) now than it was at the time. 'Back then, it was just another magazine shoot. Now, it's history,' he says. Adds Moss: 'Its relevancy, or not, is confirmed by the following years. Otherwise it's gone.' Each episode explores the image's layers, and the unfolding stories that followed — the challenges of maintaining originality; crucial role of journalists in promoting their work; maddening disconnect between L.A.'s talent and its clients, along with the mercurial, ever-evolving identity of Los Angeles. The tone, like the photo, is unpretentious and playful, heavy on character and story, not theory. This was not always an easy task with a group that can get esoteric quite quickly, adds Anderton. 'I was trying to keep it light,' she laughs. 'I don't think I even have the ability to talk in the language of the academy.' 'They're cracking jokes, interrupting each other, reminiscing about teaching gigs and design arguments,' says Brown. 'There's real affection, but also a sense of rivalry that never fully went away.' Hodgetts doesn't see it that way, however. 'It was really about the joy of creating things. We wanted to jam a bit, perform together; that's really life-affirming,' he says. There are some revealing moments. Mayne, whose firm Morphosis is known for bold, city-altering buildings such as Caltrans HQ in downtown L.A., reflects on teaching as a way of 'being the father I never had.' (His father left his family when he was a young boy.) He tenderly discusses the seminal role that his wife Blythe — a co-owner of Morphosis — has played in his career. Fisher reveals that Gehry was the chief reason he dropped everything to come out to L.A. (At the time, he was working as a display designer at a department store in Cincinnati.) 'I remember seeing this architect jumping up and down on cardboard furniture. I could see there was something going on here. Something percolating,' he says. Moss opens up about his struggles to negotiate the demands of the practical world, while Hodgetts performs brilliant critiques of the others' work, sometimes to broad smiles, others to cringes. Notably absent from the reunion is Gehry himself, who is now 96. 'He's at a point in his life where trudging through sand for a photo wasn't going to happen,' says Brown. 'But his presence is everywhere. He's still the elephant in the room.' One episode explores how Gehry, about a decade older than the others, both profoundly influenced and often overshadowed the group — a reality that was perhaps reinforced by his nonchalant dominance in the photo itself. 'Frank takes up a lot of oxygen,' Mayne quips. Still, all admire Gehry's unwillingness to compromise creatively, despite often heavy criticism. Another prevailing theme is the bittersweet loss of that early sense of freedom, and the Venice of the 1970s, with its breathtakingly low rents and abandoned charm. Today's architects — wherever they are — face higher stakes, infinitely higher costs and tighter regulations. 'The Venice we grew up with is completely gone,' says Fisher. 'But maybe it's just moved,' noted Moss. Distinguishing L.A. as a place whose energy and attention is constantly shifting, he wonders if creative ferment might now be happening in faraway places like Tehachapi — 'wherever land is cheap and ambition is high,' he says. While Pildas was capturing the seven architects 45 years ago, he was also busy chronicling the city's street culture — jazz clubs, boulevard eccentrics, decaying movie palaces and bohemian artists. All were featured in the 2023 documentary 'Ave's America' (streaming on Prime Video) directed by his former student, Patrick Taulère, exploring his six decades of humbly perceptive, deeply human work. After reviewing the recreation of the photo — the architects are still smiling this time, but their scrappy overconfidence feels eons away — Pildas wonders who the next generation will be, and how they will rise. 'Maybe it'll happen that they'll have another picture someday with a bunch of new architects, right?' he says. 'This is a fertile ground for architecture anyway, and always has been.' Exposing that 'fertile ground' to Angelenos of all kinds is FORT: LA's overarching goal. Founded in 2020, it offers architecture trails, fellowships and a surprising variety of programming, from design competitions to architecture-themed wine tastings. All, says Brown, is delivered, like 'Rebel Architects,' with a sense of accessible joy and exploration — an especially useful gift in a turbulent, insecure time for the city. 'Suddenly, you kind of think about the city in a different way and feel it in a different way,' says Brown. 'This is a place that allows this kind of vision to come to life.'

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store