[image by Joe Singh]
Thank you to everyone who has been patiently waiting to hear from us about our plans for Supersonic Festival 2021. Many of you have been getting in touch to find out about the next festival and when it will take place.
We have made the decision not to go ahead with Supersonic Festival in 2021. The festival will return in 2022.
Since the COVID-19 pandemic arrived and reshaped our lives, the Capsule team have been working closely with our board to think through possible approaches and different scenarios. During lockdown last year, our digital edition Sofasonic was a big success, and we have discovered a lot about producing digital events. We didn’t want to repeat Sofasonic this year, especially as we are not in a full national lockdown. Sofasonic (an online only edition of the festival) felt like an idea that was of the moment, and whilst digital broadcast will remain part of our future, we also want to return to producing in-person events.
Equality and accessibility for a wide range of audiences is a core part of our ethos as an organisation and it doesn’t feel right to produce an in-person festival when a lot of people are still unable to attend safely. We understand this personally – some of our team have been shielding throughout lockdown. The safety of our team, artists and audience is so important to us. We want people to feel comfortable and confident, and to be able to engage with the festival safely. This is especially important for Supersonic as we are a city-based festival working mostly in indoor venues.
It’s also risky for independent festivals and event organisers to plan events when there is still no insurance available to cover cancellations connected to COVID-19. We hope this issue can be addressed soon as it’s affecting many independent festivals in the UK. We hope that the government might work with the insurance sector to develop or underwrite such a scheme. This would enable the independent sector to plan more confidently.
Supersonic is an international festival and currently international touring is on hold. It’s important to us (especially within the context of Brexit) that we remain outward facing and can host artists from all corners of the world. We’re exploring new collaborations that can help international touring, and we are also looking into greener ‘slow touring’ models which could support our goal to reduce carbon emissions and reduce our climate impact.
We miss seeing our audience, team and amazing artists face to face. Thank you for the support thus far – attending our online events, buying our merch, and for all your generous donations – which have enabled us to raise money not only for Capsule but also for the Trussell Trust and RSVP. Your loyalty and generosity means the world to the team and keeps us going – making us more determined to make 2022 our come back year. We’re planning to come back with a bang in 2022 – and are already working on exciting plans.
For those with tickets for Supersonic 2020 please hold onto them and they’ll be valid for 2022. If you need to request a refund for your ticket at this stage, please contact the Capsule team on info[at]capsule.org.uk. We can refund the full cost of your ticket but sadly cannot refund booking fees.
We know you are a knowledgeable and opinionated bunch and so we wanted to take this opportunity to ask you the fans what you’d like to see at Supersonic 2022. What artists do you dream of seeing live? What ideas for new forms of events and festival strands could make Supersonic 2022 extraordinary? What could make the festival more inclusive? Let us know in the comments on our social media here.
In the meantime, you can relive the some of the highlights of past Supersonic festivals on our Youtube channel. We’ve also been dusting off vintage footage from the archive and getting ready to share with you publicly. As a very special treat, today we are publishing the live set Fugazi played in 2002 – see below.
We miss you!
With love,
The Capsule / Supersonic family and team
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To soften the blow, we share with you now some rare footage from our archives – Fugazi (Dischord) live at one of our earliest Capsule shows in 2002 at the then Institute in Birmingham, UK.
A massive thanks to Fugazi for the permission to share this footage, and to Tom Wagstaff for editing it.
Filmed by Lisa Meyer & Jenny Moore
Would love to see:
Lost Girls
Pan Daijing
Tirzah (esp. if her new material is anything like that astonishing last single)/CURL/anything and everything Mica Levi tbqfh
Bendik Giske
Eartheater
Gabber Modus Operandi
Fly Pan Am
NYX & Gazelle Twin
Guttersnipe again please!