Once In A Blue Moon made its first club appearance on 22nd March at the long running Bristol underground music venue Timbuk2. The night was none other than the official Gearfest 2014 warm-up party, a fundraiser for the festival at which we’ll be making our full UK debut! We will be curating the site’s only cafe and chill-out tent for the entirety of the weekend, creating a cosy, atmospheric 24/7 place to chill out all day and boogie all night in, along with (of course) a selection of tasty and thirst quenching food and drinks for everyone. The festival is looking to be an absolute smasher and runs from 28th May to the 2nd June – we’re excited about it and a lot of thoughtful preparation work is going on right now.
The Timbuk2 takeover saw Gearfest’s Bristol alter-ego Lower The Tone join forces with trippy indoor festival vibes crew TechYes. Once In A Blue Moon Cafe was allocated a corner of the main passageway between rooms, which we set about decorating in time for the doors opening and the first ravers to arrive: our new moon sign (see picture above), fairy lights, lanterns, candles and throws galore! We helped transform the corridor and it was great to see the looks on people’s faces as they checked out our stall and products. The club geared mini set-up served Brazilian Cheeseballs (which filled the place with some tasty smells that raised a few eyebrows!), mixed sweet bags and handmade artwork designed by the one of our team. Also, in what we thought was a nice touch for those ravers who, for one reason or another, didn’t have a huge appetite, we provided fresh watermelon and oldskool icepops. The response was enthusiastic and we sold out of everything!
The night itself was an awesome mix of crazy, colourful decor and live band/DJ musical madness of all styles across three rooms. We felt the stalls really helped to give that feel of an indoor festival, and the place was packed out. Our final unique addition to the night was the ongoing ‘Bristol Collage’, a scroll of paper that’s been around since day one of the Once In A Blue Moon journey, decorated at every stage by those we’ve met along the way. It’s shaping up to be an interesting and hilarious mishmash of artwork and phrases, and at Timbuk2 people were enthusiastically contributing their own personal touches to it. Between 5 and 6am people packed out onto the streets as the club shut its doors and the sun rose – it was a great atmosphere. We’re in good spirits to be approaching the lovely summer months again – bring on the festivals 2014 🙂
