Behold! The weirdly wonderful world of the wickerman festival workers. Where I work for limited play and limited pay! But it’s never enough to cover the amount of supplies, the long dedicated hours we put in and the quality and amount of work that we do. But lucky for them, so many of us do it for love, fun (hopefully in the sun) and to be involved with the super charged power that is the Bluetopia Creative Crew.

Bluetopia have been working from the Wickerman Festival for six years now. But this year the plans were bigger and better than ever before. We had an entirely new crew. We had a whole new additional programme of installations, decorations and interactive projects to run on top of our usual more integrated decorative elements.

In full:

2 public archways – one ‘touch me for luck’ to represent the festivals 13th year of business. And one covered in tartan to match in with the kilted wickerman.

3 square podium style boxes for the kid’s area, painted in black board paint for the kids to chalk graffiti all over.

5 individually designed and revamped W’s which each hold 5 trough planters full of blooming summer field flowers, one of which was especially special, adorned with the faces of Mr & Mrs Gilroy, along with their daughter Jenny (owners of the Wickerman site).

4 large rectangular boxes which were painted in multi-coloured zebra print, and when placed together made a huge W seating area

Upcycle the Star Wood bar’s current design, add more flourishes, a handmade individual letter ‘star wood bar’ wooden name plaques, wrap the trees in green ribbon and solar powered fairy lights, cover the place in floral bunting and iridescent stars hung in the trees.

We designed the whole VIP area in a traditional Scottish theme. The inside was to have a fireplace with a traditional stags head hung above it, tartan wall paper, fake bookshelves, kitsch Scottish pictures, Wickerhall wood burnt sign (pyrography but no one knows what it means), banquet flags and a wood panelled bar. Outside was to run the same theme; banquet tables, throne chairs etc. No mean feat was the VIP treat. Oh and there was a wedding décor situation thrown in for good measure…more on that later.

We painted over 130 square meters of boards to create a stunning full colour bold mural that wrapped down to and around the left hand side of the main stage right across and through and down the right hand side of the stage.

An additional interactive wall section was to have a completely different design, based loosely on the layout of the festival, so that the public could interact with it and add to it themselves or other prepared stencil characters.

We also created 40 individually designed and hand painted positive affirmation signs that we then decorated around the whole site.

So the task was epic.

We had three teams:

1 – Core crew, creative masterminds and cook

2 – Construction and muscle

3 – Interactive wall monitors

What festival goers and at times festival organisers do not realise is how much preparatory work goes into all of this. My wonderful team, had been working off site, on the signs and designs, the mood boards, sourcing second hand wares and fares, locating random objects, specific tools, skilled individuals for engineering advice, cutting, sawing, thinking, painting, checking everything twice…for months in advance. So much activity going on in the Hub that is my business lock up, I had to get extra keys cut for crew to be able to work around shift patterns, child care situations, full time jobs and part time hobbies, just so they could fit in around me. Their commitment faultless. Their output, faultless. Their tribal sense of creativity and identity, faultless.

The sense of achievement and wonder we all feel, the hyperactivity as we spin ideas back and forth, the energy lifting, swirling, burling round the room, finally settling on a solution and working us hard like happy little beavers until all hours, often the early hours of the morning, until the job is done.

Our bonuses at this point? The fact that My Business Hub is close (dangerously temptingly close) to a pub. So therefore we all have plenty of beer and cheer to keep us motivated. Which on long projects equalling long great nights have evolved into jugs of mojitos and painting our noses. The new team have a good creative aura about them and I show them lots of love – Bonus. But most of all, we look forward to the festival down time. The crew, having fun, in the sun? maybe, but happy? Always. Sometimes it’s the line up. Sometimes it’s the crew. But we all look forward to the fun that we are due.

All this work, time, power and effort. And we still haven’t gone on site yet.

Article: Lou Hyland