Polygon Live is set to launch a new three-day festival in London, touted as the “world’s most immersive 360° live music experience”.

Following editions at Thailand’s Wonderfruit Festival and stints in Singapore and Saudi Arabia, immersive live event production firm Polygon Live is set to deliver a three-day festival in London’s Crystal Palace Park from 2-4 May.

“The event in London will be the biggest outdoor spatial audio event the UK has ever seen, and that applies all over the world. As far as we’re aware, no one’s really doing this in outdoor environments because it’s such a difficult-to-control space,” says Cassidy Parker, Polygon communications lead.

The new venture aims to deliver a fully immersive experience for attendees, with speakers positioned overhead and around the corresponding hemispherical stages. For a market as big as London, the team aspired to scale up their offerings with a bespoke event.

“We’re limited to a certain size because of the physics of sound delay, and therefore the only way for us to scale this is by doing multiple circles,” explains CEO Nico Elliott.

“London is a market where we need to have more capacity, and that’s kind of the reason why we’re doing two domes in London. We’ll be doing some really interesting synchronized lighting, so we’re hoping to have an exciting light show to go with the performances, with the light show being an art piece itself.”

“There’s no doubt that spatial audio is gaining momentum”

Between the two stages, roughly 100 speakers will immerse audiences in waves of live music, with each stage boasting “five times the speakers a stage of similar size would use,” the firm reported in its December announcement.

Performers for the inaugural London festival will include Arooj Aftab, Gold Panda, Halina Rice, Jon Hopkins, Nitin Sawhney, Photay and Tinariwen, along with a raft of names to be announced.

Despite historically centring on electronic music, the team says they want to open up to new genres and live instrumentation.

“We started programming a variety of different genres, and it’s a really interesting and different way to appreciate what you’ve historically always listened to in this area, format, with vocals and musical instruments coming from all around you,” Elliott says.

Though sound and sight are the two primary innovations of the domed stage design, the firm is also developing haptic and scent experiences to correspond with the music.

“When people are craving immersive events in different ways, they’re looking for the emotional response that an immersive event often offers. It’s not just about something cool to see or experience, it’s how it makes you feel and how it makes you feel connected to people around you, which is why we’re so excited about taking spatial audio away from headphones and making it something that you can connect with as part of a community of people around you,” she says.

“We’re very keen to take that further and take it to bigger audiences and more people in the years to come”

“There’s no doubt that spatial audio is gaining momentum. Stereo has had an almost 100-year history, and it’s kind of an unquestioning acceptance that this is how we listen to music.

“To be able to say there is an entirely different way of experiencing music and it does immerse your body and makes you part of the people around you, and you can feel it is a very rich and rewarding experience. So we’re very keen to take that further and take it to bigger audiences and more people in the years to come,” explains Parker.

Though the founders — Elliott, Adam Nicholas and Archie Keswick — were initially based in Hong Kong and Myanmar, the company’s recent relocation to London has opened up new markets of opportunities, both inside the UK and beyond.

Directly following the London festival, Polygon will deliver a three-dome iteration to Tennessee’s Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival in its largest version yet: “The dual-dome design is only being launched in May, and a month later, we’re pushing on a little bit further,” Parker says.

The Infinity Stage will reside in the main festival area, known as Centeroo, alongside five pre-existing stages and will boast its own programming. Bonnaroo’s 2025 edition will be headlined by Luke Combs; Dom Dolla; Tyler, The Creator, John Summit; Glass Animals; Olivia Rodrigo; Avril Lavigne; Justice; Hozier; Vampire Weekend; and Queens of the Stone Age.

With international momentum, Elliott says the team is looking to bring the experiences to new markets, potentially in a more permanent format.

“One thing that we are exploring and hoping to bring is some kind of a more permanent immersive installation. It’s a growing area, and we hope to bring our own version of an immersive installation focused around the audio, but with some of our other kind of immersive technologies also in there,” he says.

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British grime star Skepta is curating a one-day festival in south London, promoted by Festival Republic.

The inaugural Big Smoke Festival will take place on 6 June at Crystal Palace Park and will be the only opportunity to see the Mercury Prize-winner perform in the UK in 2024.

One of the two stages at the festival will be hosted by Más Tiempo – the house music label from Skepta and acclaimed British rapper Jammer – showcasing the best live acts in dance.

Skepta and Más Tiempo recently became the first act to sell out Drumsheds – Broadwick’s new 15,000-capacity warehouse venue in north London – in advance of the show.

Discussing the new Big Smoke Festival, Skepta said: “I’m gassed to finally announce that Big Smoke Festival is official…I’m so excited, it’s been a wild one to do this. I just want to say thank you to all the supporters, it’s been a couple of years that you didn’t see me on a stage…

“I know a lot of people have been wondering when they’ll see Skepta at a festival and I really wanted to save all that energy and put it into something that was for us, by us. There’s going to be a live stage for all your favourite acts – anyone you know that’s affiliated with Skepta. There’ll be a live stage on one side and the Más Tiempo stage which will also be a full lineup. I might bust up one stage, fly over to the other one and link with Jammer. It’s gonna be crazy.”

“There’s going to be a live stage for all your favourite acts – anyone you know that’s affiliated with Skepta”

In recent years, Festival Republic has hosted a number of concerts and festivals in Crystal Palace Park, which is renowned for hosting concerts from the likes of The Rolling Stones, Bob Marley and Pink Floyd.

Last year, the Live Nation-backed promoter organised Dog Day Afternoon with Iggy Pop, Blondie and Generation Sex, Community Festival with Two Door Cinema Club, The Wombats and The Vaccines, and a concert with The Lumineers.

In 2021, the promoter took Wireless, its flagship festival for rap and hip-hop, to the south London park for one year only.

That year, Festival Republic MD Melvin Benn told IQ that he had entered a “long-term arrangement with the park and the trust and I’m committed to Crystal Palace now”.

In other news, Live Nation last month signed a legally binding agreement with the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to improve accessibility at Festival Republic’s events.

Under the Equality Act 2010 in the UK, Live Nation is legally required to make reasonable adjustments for disabled attendees across its festival portfolio, which includes Wireless, Download, Latitude, Wilderness, and Reading and Leeds Festival.

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