Take 137,000 festival-goers, seven interactive web developers, the expertise of the London 2012 Live Sites programme and the BBC Big Screens team, add a large dollop of Cultural Olympiad video content from all over the UK and what have you got? 'Camp Pilton' – Glastonbury's latest invention delivered by the South West region, live from now till Monday 29 June for 18 hours a day and proud wearer of the London 2012 Inspire mark!
Based at the historic Glastonbury 'Meeting Point' in the heart of the festival site, Richard Crowe, the Creative Programmer for the South West has brought together video artists from across the UK through colleagues in all Nations & Regions. They're joined by teams of digital developers together with BBC Big Screen producers who are working with the crowds to build live interactive artwork.
The two big screens are showing live relays of performances on-site, highlights of BBC Glastonbury coverage, digital games sessions, VJs, short films totalling 85 hours of animations, documentaries, digital archives and even the Second Lions Test from South Africa on Saturday afternoon!
Wednesday dawned and hundreds of Glastonbury-goers joined the queue at Paddington station, then got into three-hour long bus queues to get from Castle Cary station to the festival site. The sun poured down on the technical team as they went through the set-up checks, made sure that all the systems worked and complied with the myriad of regulations including noise measurements, site set-up and day to day operation.
The roads were the busiest they've ever been on a Wednesday of festival week and I joined the long line of people walking the last mile to get to the site. Remembering the years of mud, I had on my sturdy work boots which was a great contrast to the happy hordes in their sandals and shorts.
Despite the queues, the local shops weren't overwhelmed so it was easy to stop for drinks along the way and the crowds were well-managed as they very quickly went through the site checks to enter then find a space somewhere amongst the vast numbers of tents to pitch their own space for the next few days, set up camp and break out some of the many cans of beer they all appear to have carted in at great effort!
It's a huge happy crowd and if they make their way to William's Green they'll find the Village Screen (actually two screens back-to-back). You can check out its progress online at www.camp-pilton.co.uk It's a 'summer camp' pilot scheme, we hope it's the first of many years at Glastonbury...Camp Pilton 2009 - Inspired by London 2012!
Here are some kids having a 'picnic' on the screen, through an interactive game:
