Arcadia Spectacular, known colloquially as Arcadia, is a performance art collective that repurpose ex-military machinery, and other industrial components, into large scale high-capacity performance installations and dance music stages.
The group was founded by Pip Rush who previously worked alongside his brother, artist Joe Rush, at the Mutoid Waste Company and Bert Cole, formerly master of the world's largest tent, the Valhalla.[2][3]
Their first collaboration, the Afterburner, debuted at the Glastonbury Festival in 2007 after being built in a cowshed.[4] Subsequent years of the festival saw the Afterburner's refinement until 2010 when three HM Customs and Excise scanning units were attached as legs, becoming the Spider.[5] This first incarnation of the Spider stage led to two more years of adjustments until they became two separate installations.[6] In 2012, the Spider became a permanent main stage at Boomtown.[7]
In September 2015, the Spider performed to 24,000 people over two nights in Queen Square, Bristol, at a celebration of the city as European Green Capital that year,[11][12] where for the first time, the pyrotechnic flame system ran entirely on recycled biofuel.[13]
In 2019, Arcadia launched Pangea at the Glastonbury Festival,[14] a new stage centred around a re-purposed 140 ton dock crane, previously installed at Avonmouth Docks in Bristol, to 'take over the sky' above audiences.[15]
At the 2024 Glastonbury Festival, the mainstay Spider stage was replaced by a new Dragonfly stage, repurposed from a former Royal Navy helicopter that was previously deployed in the Falklands War.[16]
The Arcadia Spider is a 360 degree structure built from recycled materials. Its 'legs' are HM Customs and Excise scanning units, its 'eyes' are spy plane engines, its 'claws' are log grabbers, its 'body' is built from helicopter tails, and its DJ booth from jet engine blades.[17] The DJ booth is suspended above the dancefloor.[18] The Spider has several built in flame cannons able to shoot 50 foot flames,[19] and is rigged with lights and lasers across its 'body'. Its 'arms' fire jets of CO2, it is often given a 'skin' by video mapping and it is surrounded by a 360 degree sound field of PA speakers.[20]
The Afterburner is a 360 degree structure built from recycled materials. Its central focus is a flaming spire with multi level, radial platforms extending to a 360 degree inward facing sound system.
The Bug is a 6 wheeled, amphibious stage built from submarine moulds and an Alvis Stalwart. The stage appeared at the closing ceremony of the 2012 Paralympics.[22]
A collaboration with New Zealander Carlos van Camp, The Lords of Lightning features two performance artists atop podiums containing Tesla coils that generate 4 million volts of electricity.
A series of Victorian style lampposts entwined with recycled vehicle exhausts that give a treelike appearance. The lampposts are rigged with flame canons that emit jets of fire which are often synchronised with musical beats.
