Helen Bradburn is coordinating the latest iteration of ‘Hillusphere’, a special project aiming to provide more decoration across Calton Hill for our thirtierth Beltane Festival. Through it, we will be adding a bit more magic to the whole event by providing illumination and points of interest in the darker areas of the Hill. This is designed for the benefit of the public rather than performers, so they might have things to wander about to and look at during the moments when they can’t see a performance.

Hillusphere isn’t a festival ‘group’ in the usual sense – so as a BFS member if you want to get involved with Hillusphere, you aren’t commiting to focusing on this on the night of Beltane itself – meaning that when the open meeting comes around you can still join other groups. It’s just a project that you can get involved in or share ideas through as and when suits you, and when you have time. Hillusphere (via Helen) will be working along-side/closely with Tech when we have a Tech group in place, to make sure everything works smoothly.

Much as Tech is not a cloakroom, Hillusphere is not a props building department for groups. But like Tech they are here as and where they can to help groups achieve that special something they feel is essential to this year 30th celebration. Potential GOs and performers can contact Hillusphere to find out where decoration and installation might cross over with ideas they are starting to cook up.

Hillusphere need to do some investigation and brainstorming in order to get a manageable plan in place, despite the fact that groups aren’t yet up and running. So, there will be a meeting therefore on Sunday 29th January with the sole aim of looking at the Hill – and specifically places where traditionally performances don’t take place – to have a quick, on-the-spot, brain dump of ‘stuff’ that could be in the space… ideas/notes/quick sketches… we will use them all!

So, join Helen at 1pm by the Acropolis on Sunday 29th January if you think this might be of interest to you or you have things you want to contribute. Also please register your Hillusphere interest by emailing: Hillusphere [at] Beltane [dot] org.

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Please note: if you aren’t yet a BFS member but want to get involved in this festival for the first time – this isn’t the event for that. But we’ll soon be sharing details of our Beltane 2017 open meeting, which is the perfect way to find out what’s going on and how you can join, so check here and our Facebook page for details across the next few weeks!

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Photo by Neil Barton for Beltane Fire Society.