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Shangri-La is a radical area of Glastonbury with a deep history in outsider art and underground culture. It is an incredible creative playground, with new collaborators contributing to its evolving narrative each year.
Following a three-year, Covid-enforced break, the most-anticipated Glastonbury Festival of all time was the perfect opportunity for Shangri-La to come full circle, take it back to where it all began, reconnect and celebrate the power of community in the field, which this year was curated around the theme ‘We the People’.
Our role was to deliver a campaign complementing the work of the brilliant Glastonbury Festival publicity team, pitching in-depth and meaningful interviews and features to raise the profile of the full Shangri-La team, led by directors Kaye Dunnings, Chris ‘Tofu’ MacMeikan MBE and Robin Collings, as well as the musicians, artists and overall theme.
For its eleventh incarnation, and post-pandemic return, Shangri-La’s theme, ‘We the People’ was an adventure into possibility, exploring human connection in all its unique forms – past, present and future. From sitting around a fire-pit sharing past experiences to delving into emerging new technologies to connect globally, celebrating humanity – what makes us human, and how we can collectively make change.
Sundae delivered advance publicity through bespoke pitches into key media sectors, including tech, art, music, culture, tastemaker and creative industries with relevant highlights and interview opportunities.
We were on site for ten day in total, providing an on site press office, with a strong focus on digital and broadcast news content, and managing the picture, video publicity and social media output for Shangri-La.
We delivered a strong music strategy, targeted at different sectors, working with eclectic acts spanning from Fatboy Slim, to Goldie, to Kae Tempest, to DRS, to Grove, to Fumez the Engineer, to Mandidextrous, to Craig Charles, to Warmduscher, to K.O.G, to Los Dedos, to Bob Vylan, to Nova Twins and Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.
In addition, a surprise show from Ukrainian Eurovision Song contest winners Kalush Orchestra saw them take to the Truth Stage late on Friday night, attracting news crews from all over the world.
Yours Truthfully, the ground-breaking exhibition curated by our very own Design Manchester co-creative director Malcolm Garrett and Shangri-La creative director Kaye Dunnings for Lost Horizon Festival 2020 broke out from the multiverse and took over the Truth Stage’s IRL giant billboards’, piquing the interest of the likes of Design Week who ran a interview feature with Kaye.
There was also a massive emphasis on tech and VR due to the Shangri-La team seizing the opportunity presented by the pandemic to create VR lockdown festival Lost Horizon, which we’ve grown into a creative new business, then open a ground-breaking new venue in Bristol that blurs all kinds of lines between real life and virtual reality.
With advanced tech, VR crossover and even an AR robot artist populating the ‘Shangri-verse’, alongside the art, music and community Shangri-La is infamous for, cross sector media interest was off the scale.
Over the course of the Festival, we achieved 1,296 pieces of coverage across a range of key national, regional, trade and genre titles with features, interviews and reviews appearing in NME, DJ Mag, the Times, the Telegraph, the Guardian, METRO, iNews, Sky News, the Independent, Evening Standard, BBC News Online, ITV.com, Tech Register, BBC Radio 2, BBC 6 Music and Louder Sound amongst many others.
Photos by Jody Hartley, Nathan Roach, George Harrison
"Just months ago they were fighting on the front line, defending their home country of Ukraine against a Russian invasion. Then they won Eurovision, and now they're performing at Glastonbury."
"Our pick of the bunch was a late night showing on Shangri La's Truth Stage on Thursday, where the duo kicked off the weekend in style courtesy of a rollicking 45 minute set of futuristic electro-punk bangers."
