BUILDING EXTRAORDINARY WORLDS INSIDE THE FESTIVAL’S MOST IMMERSIVE LATE-NIGHT PLAYGROUND
There are few places at major world festivals quite like Shangri-La at Glastonbury.
Hidden away in the south-east corner of the festival site, it has earned a deserved international reputation as one of the most imaginative late-night hang-outs in the world: a continuously evolving landscape of immersive art, electronic music, alternative culture and extraordinary visual experiences.
For Area 51, it has also been the home of some of the company’s most ambitious festival creations.
CREATING WORLDS WITHIN WORLDS…
Rather than simply supplying performers, Area 51 became an integral part of the creative fabric of Shangri-La, designing and building venues that housed complete immersive environments where audiences could lose themselves until the sun re-appeared over the eastern horizon.
Large production teams worked for months designing scintillating scenery, constructing bespoke installations and creating atmospheric spaces while transforming empty festival plots into unforgettable destinations.
Every venue they came up with developed its own unique personality, inviting revellers to step into an entirely different reality.
FISH & TITS: DIVING BENEATH THE SURFACE
One of the most memorable environments launched there by Area 51 was Fish & Tits, a wonderfully surreal underwater-themed venue where nothing was quite as it seemed.
Beautifully body-painted mermaids mingled amongst guests while immersive décor transformed the venue into an aquatic fantasy world filled with colour, movement and imagination: the kind of hang-out where you’d expect to bump into Poseidon street-dancing with Neptune while hippocamps watched on and seductive sirens and selkies would prop up the bar with Tangaroa and Ryūjin!
The result was a playful, visually spectacular late-night experience that perfectly captured Shangri-La’s love of the unexpected.
66Sick – welcome to the future
If Fish & Tits explored fantasy then 66Sick embraced a darker vision.
Inspired by dystopian science fiction, the venue immersed audiences inside a futuristic space reminiscent of Blade Runner, complete with towering banks of video screens, computer-controlled visuals and dramatic scenic installations.
The atmosphere blurred the boundaries between nightclub, theatre set and immersive art installation, creating a uniquely cinematic environment that became a natural home for pulsing electronica, experimental performance and late-night discovery.
SHANGRILATI – TALES OF THE UNEXEPCTED CABARET
Area 51 also created Shangrilati, a venue where eye-popping and jaw-dropping alternative cabaret blended with live music, DJ action and immersive performance to produce an unforgettable programme of all-night entertainment insanity.
Revellers attending encountered performers from all around the world alongside dancers, musicians, visual artists and extraordinary variety acts, each contributing to the constantly changing celebration of creativity.
Nothing about the experience felt predictable or prudent.
Every evening evolved organically as artists from different disciplines came together to create spontaneous moments of surprise, humour and theatrical chaos.
It was left-field cabaret at its very finest!
MUSIC, MAYHEM & UNFORGETTABLE NIGHTS
Across its Shangri-La venues, Area 51 have managed to programme an eclectic mix of live music, DJs and cabaret working alongside creative collaborators including the Secret Garden Project to keep the energy flowing long into the dark night.
Bands such as Brighton’s electronica and breakbeat dub-punk outfit Tubba 3 Ply helped provide a soundtrack as audiences moved between immersive environments that constantly rewarded curiosity.
Every corner offered something different.
Every visit revealed another surprise.
MORE THAN ENTERTAINMENT
Creating experiences on this scale demands far more than just vivid and imaginative ideas.
Behind every venue stood large teams of designers, scenic artists, prop makers, technicians, decorators and production specialists, all working together to deliver spectacles capable of withstanding the unique demands of one of the world’s largest and best-known festivals.
From extensive scenic construction and immersive gardens to tailor-made props, atmospheric lighting and interactive spaces, Area 51 combined technical expertise with artistic vision and performance virtuosity to create festival destinations that became attractions in their own right.
A PARTNERSHIP BUILT ON IMAGINATION
Shangri-La has reinvented itself time after time while remaining true to its spirit of wild creativity, experimentation and fearless originality.
That philosophy matches Area 51’s own approach.
Through immersive scenic design, world-class entertainment, innovative production values and explosive late-night experiences, Area 51 has helped to shape some of Shangri-La’s most distinctive spaces to prove that great festivals are founded not only upon music, but on the extraordinary worlds that audiences discover between the stages.
