We’ve had to wait for two years but Blue­dot is back and their team has just announced its line­up – with sev­er­al more names to come near­er the time. Blue­dot fes­ti­val is set in the grounds of Jodrell Bank Obser­va­to­ry in Cheshire, with the Lovell tele­scope at its cen­tre. The fes­ti­val is known for its bal­anced blend of music plus day­time talks, work­shops and demon­stra­tions on any­thing to do with space and science.

As pre­vi­ous­ly announced, Bjork takes the Sun­day head­lin­er spot for a spe­cial con­cert with Man­ches­ter’s Hal­lé Orchestra. 

Mog­wai will head­line Sat­ur­day night, also appear­ing are indie-elec­tro artists Metron­o­my. Whilst dance vet­er­ans Groove Arma­da are set to close Fri­day night for a set which is part of their final tour. 

The stel­lar line-up also sees Spir­i­tu­al­ized, Yard Act, Work­ing Mens Club, A Cer­tain Ratio, Tim Burgess, Square­push­er and Anna Mered­ith and HENGE make a return after the band’s pop­u­lar appear­ances at Blue­dot in 2019. 

Gourmet Gigs rec­om­mend­ed must-see artists are: W. H Lung, Lanterns on the Lake, Lonela­dy, Kel­ly Lee Owens and Steal­ing Sheep and The Radio­phon­ic Workshop.

The open­ing night on Thurs­day is always the scene for a unique con­cert and this year sees Han­nah Peel with a col­lab­o­ra­tion with the Para­orches­tra, the world’s only large-scale vir­tu­oso ensem­ble of pro­fes­sion­al dis­abled and non-dis­abled musi­cians. It will be a spe­cial per­for­mance of a new project The Unfold­ing – for a taste of her music, check out Sun­rise Through the Dusty Neb­u­la. Han­nah appeared in 2017 with the Tubu­lar Brass ensem­ble and was a per­fect fit for Blue­dot, so this is a per­for­mance to real­ly get excit­ed about.

Science

Blue­dot has also announced the first head­line names from its sci­ence pro­gramme for 2022. Key speak­ers include host of Radio 4’s The Life Sci­en­tif­ic Pro­fes­sor Jim Al-Khalili, British his­to­ri­an and film­mak­er David Olu­so­ga, lead­ing space sci­en­tist Mon­i­ca Grady, and astro­physi­cist and host of The Sky at Night Chris Lin­tott. Physi­cist Jess Wade will also be at Jodrell Bank with geo­sci­en­tist Chris Jack­son, Met Office’s Richard Betts, direc­tor of Tyn­dall Cen­tre Car­ly McLach­lan, ecotric­i­ty founder Dale Vince, immu­nol­o­gist Sheena Cruick­shank, evo­lu­tion­ary psy­chol­o­gist Gilly For­rester, plan­e­tary sci­en­tist Sarah Crowther and the icon­ic cul­tur­al broad­cast­er and writer Jon Sav­age.

Also revealed is a first taste of Bluedot’s cul­ture line-up. Come­di­an, writer and direc­tor Stew­art Lee brings music doc­u­men­tary ‘King Rock­er’ to the fes­ti­val while pod­cast­er and writer Adam Bux­ton brings a live ver­sion of his hit com­e­dy series BUG.  There will also be stand-up per­for­mances from Desiree Burch, Olga Koch, star of This Time with Alan Par­tridge and Shrill Lol­ly Ade­fope, Cos­mic Sham­bles cre­ator Robin Ince, Rob Rouse and Ahir Shah, plus live pod­casts includ­ing new Sci­en­tist and the blue­dot pod­cast with Chris Hawkins.

Children

I don’t think there’s a fes­ti­val that caters for chil­dren bet­ter than Blue­dot. Tak­ing place in a seri­ous sci­ence envi­ron­ment, their work­shops and chil­drens’ areas are thought­ful and edu­ca­tion­al but with a huge fun ele­ment includ­ed. There will be cura­tions from Wal­lace & Gromit cre­ators Aard­man Ani­ma­tions and  Clangers, plus the usu­al enor­mous range of sci­ence-focused activ­i­ties, work­shops and live exper­i­ments across the Star Fields.

Blue­dot fes­ti­val 21 – 24 July 2022