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Today is Friday 20th July, it is World Space Exploration Day and 49 years since man walked on the moon, so it is quite fitting we are at Bluedot Festival next to the worlds third-largest radio telescope here at the Jodrell Bank Observatory. The Lovell Telescope is used for tracking anything in space – planets, probes and spacecraft. It is said it is so sensitive it can even pick up a mobile phone signal in a close proximity. It will be picking up a lot more than usual this weekend as some 15,000 people descend on the area.
Welcome to Bluedot Festival. It’s a festival of science as well as music, talks, workshops and interactive stalls. Here, wormholes, aliens and quantum physics are discussed as much as the electronic & space rock bands on the main stages.
The challenge for the FGH team was to keep these visitors safe and the surrounding area secure. Bluedot is a favourite for families with an exciting range of activities, science shows and interactive workshops, including an astrology tent, an inflatable alien landscape of tunnels, a giant suspended Planet Earth and a field full of fire contraptions straight of a Mad Max set. Some 15,000 people attended the event to see this and acts including The Flaming Lips & The Chemical Brothers.
We deployed a team of over 200 SIA licensed security staff and stewards to the event and worked in close partnership with the Bluedot Festival organisers to ensure that we made a real difference to the event whilst delivering our trademark friendly and professional service.
This festival was not an alien environment to our team. This is the third year in succession FGH Security have patrolled the event. The experienced team quickly succeeded in controlling the flow and movement patterns of the crowd in and out of the main arena. The team had a unique chemistry with the visitors and have become so much a part of the festival as the telescope the festival is built around.
Bluedot will return next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first Moon Landing with a special weekend of music, science and arts.
