Jodrell Bank is the third largest steerable radio telescope in the world and has a long and celebrated history in the study and exploration of space - from watching Sputnik orbit the earth to seeing black holes in distant galaxies spewing forth radiation as they devour countless stellar masses of material it's a real wonder of British engineering and something we here can all feel very proud about.
They've done some music events before and they have a fantastic science centre there with various kid-related bits but this year they put on a full-blown science/music festival and it was just magnificent - and by all accounts and appearances simply spectacular for those with kids into this stuff.
I think it's fair to say there are fans of space here, I know there are a lot of fans of electronica here and people with kids - I couldn't think of a better group to recommend it to. I've held chondrites from all over the solar system and peered at material from mars under microscopes, I've discussed how differently crystals form in zero G and how it gives away where meteorites formed - hefted slices of solid iorn lumps that came down meters across.... watched tours through the galaxy, talks about where our sun came from and seen so many happy kids running around clinging onto spaceships and taking part in all the accessible stuff for them - which is all being done with the real scientists and experts there on hand for the really interesting questions.
Musically it was cracking with Underworld, Jean-Michel Jarre and Caribou headlining with much more good stuff lower down the bill too - good food, a large chilled out outer space area with art installations and constellation gardens.... even dance tents playing into the night yet it was also very calm and friendly and safe, the whole atmosphere was amazing no doubt helped by the weather holding off any heavy rain but with a lot of covered venues it would still have been fine.
And all night long the telescope pointed skyward and the signals it received were used to generate artwork projected across it in a Brian Eno installation that constantly shifted and changed - about every two minutes my mate would stop and say wow and make me look again, quite a thing.
2017 early bird tickets in a few weeks time I think they said - couldn't give it a stronger recommendation.
