The Marriage of Sport and Art…

…a great Olympic phrase which you may have heard before. If not, then Saturday was a terrific example on the big screens at Glastonbury!

Part of the South West's Culture programme - supported by all the other Nations and Regions across the UK plus the BBC's Screens team and London 2012 Live Sites staff - the 'Village Screen' has been a huge success at the heart of the Glastonbury Festival site. Its inaugural year has seen thousands of people engaging in the screen through interactive art and games, film-making and music performance from the highly-professional festival bands playing sets through to open-mic sessions – the screens became a great talent showcase for the festival goers as so many took the chance to entertain the crowds. Definitely one session to develop for the future!

But the moment sport truly met art was at 2pm on Saturday, when the Meeting Point space in which the screens were sitting became a rather special sports stadium. All day, festival goers kept sidling up to the screen team asking if they really could see the Lions v South Africa live that afternoon and by 12 noon there were several hundred with seats and bedrolls taking up position in front of the screen, many dressed in the Lions red and a few resplendent in green South African kit.

The sun shone, the crowds rolled in, the refreshment tents did great business and by 2pm there were thousands stretching up the hill and across the Glastonbury site. The stewards moved the endless cleansing lorries and toilet tankers out the way as the referee blew the whistle. Game on!

And for 75 minutes it looked like we were going to have a famous victory with a crowd now 10,000 strong having a wonderful happy afternoon. Sadly, though the last few minutes we hung on in the hope of a famous win, the final kick put paid to hopes of victory and South Africa won, the crowds went in search of Dizzee Rascal at the Pyramid Stage and the screen reverted to the main programme.

But what a week – a terrific programme of film material and games from the cutting edge of web developers mixed with live music, sad tributes on-screen to Michael Jackson, happy fun participation from the audience and a great knowledgeable crowd of rugby fans – perhaps the best & most enjoyable sports screening I’ve ever seen.

It did rain occasionally during the festival but the sun shone for most of the time and the Village Screen was a triumph for Richard Crowe, South West Creative Programmer and his team. We all hope we’ll back again next year!