Sittingbourne’s LUCID creates dystopian city at Parklife Festival

LUCID returned for a second year to design and build the newly iconic The Valley at Parklife Festival 2019.

Four times the size of the previous year, the forward-thinking fabrication company used innovative engineering and design techniques to build the dystopian cityscape structure by building in a modular way so that the stages could be built quickly on site and can be reused year after year. This year’s line up on The Valley, hosted by Disclosure, included the likes of Nas, Mark Ronson, Kaytranada, Annie Mac, Denis Sulta, DJ Koze, Honey Dijon and Sally C.

Helen Swan and Chris Carr, co-directors of LUCID, and their team are a design and fabrication studio with a large fully equipped workshop on a leafy farm in Kent. They create and build structures and spaces that generate audience interaction and immersion by pushing the boundaries of set construction and its integrated tech.

The Valley

The organisers of Parklife Festival asked LUCID to design and build them an iconic new stage with integrated lighting and video. The result being The Valley: a life-size tower block complex influenced by brutalist architecture and dystopian fiction, consisting of the 100m wide by 22m high stage, a 50m brutalist bar and a two-storey Pepsi factory doubling as a viewing platform.

Every window in the eight life-size tower blocks that make up the cityscape of the stage is an LED screen featuring moving silhouettes of the people living in the towers whilst the billboard screens continuously show futuristic public service announcements and adverts.

LUCID designed and created every inch of the set, from developing an eight-layer process to turn ply flats into hyper-realistic aged concrete, to making and programming the on-screen content and LED lighting.

Helen explains that the inspiration for the stage derived from: “a desire to create an immersive experience at Parklife. To bring more than the music to audiences.

LUCID designed and created every inch of the set, from developing an eight-layer process to turn ply flats into hyper-realistic aged concrete, to making and programming the on-screen content and LED lighting.

Helen explains that the inspiration for the stage derived from: “a desire to create an immersive experience at Parklife. To bring more than the music to audiences.

LUCID designed and created every inch of the set, from developing an eight-layer process to turn ply flats into hyper-realistic aged concrete, to making and programming the on-screen content and LED lighting.

Helen explains that the inspiration for the stage derived from: “a desire to create an immersive experience at Parklife. To bring more than the music to audiences.

“By developing The Valley into an arena made of three large structures, we are on our way to creating an area that people can lose themselves in and feel part of a fictional, escapist landscape. It allows audiences to play and have creativity with their dress and behaviour, to become one of the characters in the cast of The Valley.

“The feedback has been pretty overwhelming. Major Lazer and Disclosure’s headline shows at The Valley were the stuff of dreams, the way the visuals and sfx complimented the music was truly spectacular. Keep an eye out for videos of those sets! We are obviously hoping to build even more structures in The Valley, to create a truly 360, immersive space” says Helen.

Glastonbury & Boomtown

Lucid team has also spent several months designing and building stages for the world-renowned Glastonbury Festival and the immersive Boomtown Festival.

In less than two weeks SAMULA: The Portal, designed and built by LUCID, will open at Glastonbury 2019. Commissioned by Glastonbury’s owner, Emily Eavis, SAMULA is a brand new venue, a hyper-real Mayan Cenote: a cave formed by a sinkhole in the surface of the land. The venue is entered through a crack in a towering rock wall, under a thundering waterfall.

Image by @Lucid_creates (Instagram)

LUCID has also been commissioned by Boomtown to design and build, new for 2019, The Lighthouse: an ancient building representing the old ways of the festival, echoing its mission of respect and sustainability. “A seat of learning, a place of both respite and release and a beacon of hope,” explains Helen.

Instagram: @lucid_creates