Latest news with #JamzSupernova
Daily Record
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Record
Ayrshire garden party kicks off after successful funding award
The Kelburn Garden Party begins today, Thursday, July 3, with a creative and diverse range of music and arts events on the bill Festival goers will descend on an Ayrshire castle this weekend as an annual music and arts festival gets underway today, Thursday, July 3. The Kelburn Garden Party kicks off at Kelburn Castle and Estate with activities and events to suit all ages. Supported by VisitScotland, the festival received a funding grant of £18,500 to help expand the camping infrastructure as well as enhancing sustainability and accessibility on-site with the addition of a recycling hub in the camping area and a Changing Places washroom. Taking place from July 3 to 7, Kelburn Garden Party is an explosively creative and diverse music and arts festival held in the grounds, glen and moors of the Kelburn Estate - known for its 13th century Graffiti Castle, ancient trees and views of Scotland's western coastline. The festival is renowned for a high quality and diverse music programming presented alongside a smorgasbord of creativity, commissioned sculpture trails, stunning decor and fun animated attractions hidden throughout the site. Artists performing over the course of the festival include Jamz Supernova, Osunlade, Sofia Kourtesis, The Allergies, She Drew The Gun and Shooglenifty. It is more than just a music festival with family-friendly and arts events taking place throughout the weekend. The Neverending Glen returns for 2025 - a "ground-breaking" immersive multi-arts trail set in the ancient wooded glen that rises above Kelburn's main festival site. Specifically for children, a programme of events includes The Secret Forest Project, The Lullabies Collective and Kidding Around. David Boyle, festival director, Kelburn Garden Party, said: "We are very grateful to receive the grant from EventScotland, through their strategic funding they are helping us to meet our growing demand and popularity, as well as strengthening the facilities that we can offer to help meet the changing accessibility needs of the festival's artists, crew and attendees. Without the valuable support from EventScotland, these measures would not be possible." Rob Dickson, director of industry and events at VisitScotland, said: 'Events play an important role in growing the value of Scotland's visitor economy. As a year-round destination, having a diverse and vibrant portfolio of events taking place across the country ensures there is something for everyone to enjoy when visiting, whether it's from the UK or overseas. 'We are pleased to be supporting Kelburn Garden Party through our National Events Programme to help ensure that the benefits of tourism and events are felt locally, helping foster economic growth and reinforcing Scotland's reputation as a leading tourism and events destination."
The Guardian
26-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Curate your own Glastonbury': the BBC team bringing festival into millions of homes
'What makes me so proud to be part of the coverage is a very, very small minority of people actually get to go to Glastonbury,' says the BBC presenter Jamz Supernova. 'It brings it into your homes, whether you have a desire to go one day or you never want to.' The 6 Music DJ, also known as Jamilla Walters, is part of a small team of broadcasters bringing this year's Glastonbury festival into the homes of people across the UK on television, radio and online. She will be presenting on radio, iPlayer and TV channels with other big broadcasting names including Dermot O'Leary, Greg James, Jo Whiley, Lauren Laverne, Nick Grimshaw and Zoe Ball. BBC iPlayer will offer more than 90 hours of performances with live streams of the five main stages: Pyramid, Other, West Holts, Woodsies and the Park. The Pyramid stage sets will be available to stream live in ultra-high definition and in British Sign Language. 'I used to watch Glastonbury on the TV,' says Jamz. 'I remember being like 19 and watching artists like Janelle Monáe performing, but it wasn't as interactive. With the iPlayer it's all happening live and you're able to almost build your own festival from the performances. There is something for everyone.' The dizzying scale of the task of broadcasting the festival falls to a team at BBC Studios, the broadcaster's commercial subsidiary, lead by the executive producer Alison Howe. The operation will feature more than 90 artists across more than 90 hours of coverage, using 58 cameras and 50km of fibre cable, and is months in the making. 'The performances alone, that's a bit of a task – a brilliant and beautiful task, I may add,' says Howe. 'Some artists want to work quite intimately with their performance and how we capture it. Others are very happy to just let us get on with it, because we have a good rep there for making all artists look and sound good on the BBC. 'Then there's the amount of hours across all the TV, curated and presented coverage, and then all the live streams. So when I sit and think about that, I feel sick.' Jonathan Rothery, the BBC's head of pop music TV, works with Howe in effect as commissioning editor for Glastonbury festival to shape the offering. He is still in awe at the scale of the challenge. 'I remember having a moment there a couple of years ago,' he says, 'after a very busy day … just looking at all of the cablework running across the site – I'm not a technical person so it blew my mind.' This year the producers face a headache over the inclusion on the lineup of Kneecap, a trio of Irish republicans who have been accused of making statements on stage in support of Hamas and Hezbollah, an allegation they have strongly denied. One of the group, Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh, has been charged under terrorism laws and is currently on bail. There has been political pressure – including from the prime minister – on festival organisers to drop the band and on the BBC not to broadcast their performance. Asked about the issue, Rothery says: 'Our plan is to bring as many of the sets to our audience as we possibly can but obviously we have editorial guidelines, and we need to make sure that any artist on the stage, regardless of who they are, fits within our guidelines and is appropriate for the audience. We have those conversations and make those decisions all the way up to the festival and over the weekend.' Howe and Rothery work closely with festival organisers, including Emily Eavis, months in advance and are privy to the lineup before its general release. With the overwhelming choice on offer, Rothery says, the television and radio package manages to navigate any clashes. 'That's why the live stage streams are super useful. So if you want to curate your own Glastonbury, you can fill your boots.' Howe and her team work closely with the artists to make sure the live performances are represented well on television. 'We offer to talk through meetings on – site. At festivals, no one gets a sound check, so a lot is at stake,' she says, en route to a run-through with the Friday night Pyramid stage headliners, the 1975. Jamz Supernova's hot tips for the weekend include Alanis Morissette on the Pyramid stage, Ezra Collective on the Other stage, Yussef Dayes and Doechii on the West Holts stage and Anohni and the Johnsons on the Park stage. She holds great respect for the scale of the undertaking, having experienced Glastonbury as a performing DJ and as a reveller and now seeing it from the other side: 'All these people, all these nuts and bolts, come together to make it happen. I was so amazed at seeing it through sober eyes. Now I feel like I'm part of the army bringing it, it's like my mission.' The BBC will cover this year's Glastonbury festival across TV, BBC iPlayer, radio and BBC Sounds
